Our plan to reconnect the giants of the Amazon

About the canopy bridges, I think I might have an idea. Here at university, I have a professor that studies lianas. From someone who works in his lab, I had them explained as essentially plants that are fighting tooth and nail for more access to the sunlight. My thought is you could probably take advantage of that. By anchoring the bridge to a tree with already growing lianas, you could move some of the lianas apical meristems onto your cable. The liana, following its own biology, would then move across the cable. In the process, it would both strengthen your cable while also making it more homely for any snakes, ampibians, etc. that would want to cross.

Also, I've been a member for a few months now. Thank you all for everything you do. This is so much better than an overpriced coffee.

Happy to see there's some good evidence for canopy bridges. It might be obvious, but the best bridge would be as short as it can get. Some nice, tall trees at each side of the road could probably get half the work done with their branches. But ofc, that's very difficult.
It may also help to not let a single rope, but various parallel ropes between the trees, to shelter the fauna from the exposure that crossing the bridge might suppose. But that is totally speculative on my part

I think it's a great idea to mimick the way branches connect by creating a bridge and then covering it with plant life. That might solve the problem.

Imagine if billionaires were as useful as this

I would not be going in those tree's without a net over my head. I like the use of my eye's, mouth and noise.

Why can’t an amphibian or reptile use a rope bridge? If the issue is material change from a purely rope bridge to a rope and plank bridge. Keep the planks very narrow bc you will have to replace them and there’s no need to make it wide enough for a human to walk it. If it’s an issue of cover just add cover to the bridge, easier to do if you’ve already added a plank walk. Use multiple bridges to span each road. Don’t underestimate how much time and money maintaining the bridges will be

nice vid

Canopy bridges for tree frogs? Oof, sounds tricky, since they're pausers. Dunno, string couple lines of rope through a bunch of those cat tunnels with side-holes, sew the tunnels end-to-end & lateral-to-lateral, then fill the bottoms with live moss? Not sure that'd work even with tweaks, but that's best hack I can think up.

Perhaps you could install a jungle version of a willow/hazel arch across the road to help with all the little creatures

should put all those sound clips on spotify or something like that, tons of people who listen to that kind of stuff 😃

Aloha Mossy Earth! Great video and wonderful projects. To me the most immediate problem with a canopy bridge is cover, enough to keep them cool and the most immediate answer are those bromeliads. Bromeliads will form a fairly stable network of lateral stems, almost woody in nature. If you harvest samples from indigenous flora, you can grow as much as you need, then put a frame work over your canopy bridge, perhaps of chicken wire, you could plant it out with bromeliads to shade it AND create a stepping stone bridge for amphibians which would probably draw the snakes as well. I would start with some sort of heavy coated cable as the base, build the bridge out from there, then plant bromeliads and other epiphytes into some sort of cover latice. Good luck and good fortune, mahalo e kokua ka 'aina

Did you all know that trees communicate with each other via fungi networks in the soil? It’s like their version of telephone wires, care of the fungi!

Long sleeve shirts gloves that are breathable might help when the bees attack. Wear a hat with a veil and even a face mask 🤷🏼‍♀️

Member here. Consider having both a rope bridge and a log bridge. Have 2 ropes span across at least 2 different heights with mesh netting spanning between the bottom set of ropes as they cross the road. The structural bridge can be made of local fallen trees. Start to train vines around them. Bamboo half pipes to deliver water from the canopy to the bridge surface is a good idea, too. Multiple types of bridge, multiple options. Consider the animal's line-of sight as well. Does it look/feel safe to cross? Maybe put camo netting up overtop of both bridges to protect from aerial predators. Think like an arboreal mammal!

What species of tree is that with all the epiphytes?

I must say, the music was not only distracting, by making it hard to hear/understand what the narrator was saying, it was also very irritating. I still love and appreciate what you guys are doing.

Increíble trabajo, Ollie siempre nos motivó a trepar árboles con fines científicos. Los jóvenes de la Amazonia Norte esperamos conocerlo pronto, nos apasiona trepar árboles 💚

Ahh that was so good. I love what you're doing and I dream of being able to support you big-time 🤑

I would love to go down there and help you with your project. I lived in Central America for 9 years and I miss it. The jungle is a hellish paradise.

Such a cool project. Much love, my friends are getting gift memberships for festivus gifts

Why don't you plant at some places, fast growing trees close as possible to the road one each side of it to make a natural bridge and you can complete if really necessary with a small bridge of ropes and lianes.
Also you should try different kinds of bridges to see which are the best.
You should check also for underground passages for the adapted animals, like some kind of tunnel or even a pipe.

In aus we have animal bridges across some of our main highways on the eastern seaboard. Mainly for Koalas and Possums, even some for terrestrial animals too.
Many animals bridge designs to test, from rope and cable variants to wooden / steel examples. I imagine you'd need to keep an arboreal connection to neighbouring trees. Looking forward to the solutions you discover.
I imagine a combination or rope and wood probably be the most successful, designed strong enough to allow rainforest plants to grow across. Vines and aboral plants to provide some level of shelter.

You could grow some long straight vines and stretch a rope between 2 trees to make a bridge, and put vines wrapped around it so you end up with a natural bridge made mostly of vines. Check out the living bridges in India made from ficus/banyan/fig trees. Maybe you can find a vine type ficus to use. Anyway I think snakes and frogs and lizards would use a bridge like that. I saw bridges made of rope and pipe, basically stratched out rope ladders in Costa Rica for animals to cross the highway. But I don't think reptiles use them much.

For the canopy bridge you could plant bromeliads on the ropes to help keep the plant cover that smaller animals likereptiles desire

Would you be able to weave together ropes into a cylinder like a chinese finger trap, then weave a couple vines through the ropes to add some cover for smaller creatures. With this there would be an open space in the middle to potentially make it easier for reptiles and amphibians to use.

Hope this is useful in some form.

If you can't put wooden structures of bark and limbs on the bridge, perhaps something like small bird baths which hold water or bromeliads and provide some of the hiding spots the amphibians and reptiles need to feel safe, with a larger water trap or a wooden plank at each end to help promote interspecies congregation

Guys, you will be going back there over and over. For heaven’s sake, arm yourselves with some clear plastic swim goggles and earbuds if they will work in that location or simple earplugs to keep the sweat bees out of eyes and ears!😊

It might be a good idea to take up swim goggles, and potentially ear plugs and face masks to help protect your orifices against invading insects, since those seem to be the biggest problem areas you seemed to face up there.

I think for the canopy bridges you could do something like a tunnel, made from wire, like the ones used in chicken coops, and put branches and leaves inside, while also covering it with some leaves, so this way the animals will feel like going through a thic vegetation. It could also be a support structure for vines and epiphytes to grow in the future.

I think it would be good to have a canopy bridge that has same structure with hanging bridges.

Commenting for thee algorithm ! Keep up the good work ❤

For the canopy bridges you could attach branches and vines and create like an elongated branch just as it is in the canopy that stretches over the road

Always bring a banana for scale guys, geeze. Rookie mistake 😅😂 🍌 🍌

It seems like vines are the obvious answer to the canopy bridge issue, no?

A good idea for the canopy bridges is using a "net" like you see in playgrounds/gyms in the states. Something interwoven offers lots of surface area for all the creatures, plus TONS of space for native plants to take full advantage of the sunlight to grow their way across the gap, strengthening the bridge and providing hiding spots and water collections along the way. If they're made out of something relatively biodegradable like canvas, as the plants take over they'll create a new structure and the original bridge can be recaptured by nature.

Buzzy bees. 🐝🐝🐝😎👍

Love what you guys do, maybe use some mosquito netting out there..looks miserable

we have an island in india called great nicobar. Tropical evergreen forest and mangroves only. A big project to build a city on it is currently undergoing here. It involves cutting of well over a MILLION trees, removing some indigenous people, wiping out a ( already did ) prestine white sand beach which is nesting ground of huge leather back turtles to build a port , the island is full of endemic flora and fauna. I'll touch on the politics also, the so called ' centrist ' govt called INC is notorious for not developing the country in any ways in the name of conservation. They hate the country developing. Sto0ges of somebody else. Then there is current govt, who always blame the other guys for whatever i said just now, this is their excuse to destroy mountains in himalayas to everything including nicobar island. And people blindly support this. There is no balance here. Platforms like @mossy earth should look into this i.would say( request ). People arent aware enough. I request you to do something in you power before all million trees and everything disappear.( They say they will replant mill trees in another state in mainland , but its of no use obviously, mainland is considerably arid and just planting wont bring back the biodiversity about to be lost in the island ).
Atleast ❤ this comment if somebody from your team read this.

Braided liana bridges?

the best canopy bridge has got to be Eco-sourced trees! Self generating!
I enjoyed watching, especially seeing footage of the sloth -very beautiful! Thank you for sharing! More please!

For the amphibians and other small animals that do not jump or swing, you could make a tunnel underneath the road.

This can be a very wide tunnel (meters) but also a very small tunnel (a pipe of 10cm)

Amazing adventure and project

Biodiversity there looks unreal! 😊 Amazing video, thanks so much for posting. I've been looking forward to a new update.

Do some more work in Australia

Starting off with the 'Bee in the ear' scene really drew me in. Worst nightmare there haha. Cool project :)

nice to watch as always

Comment for boost! Thank you for your amazing work🤝🏻