To celebrate eight years of publishing Ernest, we ask contributors to share their memories of journeys undertaken for the journal, from breaking bread at a Greenlandic kaffemik to floating with jellyfish in the Salish Sea. Here, editor Jo Tinsley reflects on the vibrance, interconnectedness and fragility of an Ecuadorian rainforest she visited for issue six
Photos by Graeme Owsianski
I peer down from the open-air cable car and watch transfixed as an iridescent, cobalt blue butterfly the size of a dinner plate flies languidly below, its alternate blue upper wings and brown underside making it look as though it’s appearing and disappearing.
In the canopy below, clouds condense on humungous leaves and trickle down through the foliage to nourish a host of peculiar plants. There are ‘walking palms’ with stilt-like roots, which some say allow the plant to move in search of light, twisting lianas that form vine bridges for arboreal animals, and strangler figs that lower roots to the ground while surreptitiously smothering their host. Once on the forest floor, we turn leaves to discover translucent glass frogs. A tiny hummingbird flies up to my binoculars and pauses mid-air, blurry in the frame. I’ve never been somewhere so rich with life.
Travelling and writing for Ernest has allowed me to explore many remarkable landscapes, but one stays with me above all others. Mashpi Rainforest Biodiversity Reserve – a 1,300-hectare (3,200-acre) private reserve and conservation project, three hours northwest of Quito, Ecuador – brims with life. More than any other place I’ve visited, I was struck by the interconnectedness of it all.
How one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet results from the mingling of marine currents many miles away – the cold, nutrient-rich Humboldt sweeping northward along the Peruvian coast meeting the warm El Niño and causing moist air from the Pacific to become trapped on the steep slopes of the western Andes. How half of the world’s plant species coexist here, each species nourishing, supporting or spongeing off another. And, in turn, how unique – and fragile – places like the cloud forest are, and how important is it to share their stories.
