'Deforested Bones'

A skeletal bird made from wood represents deforestation's impacts.

Colombia's immense biodiversity is going fast, in great part because many creatures' forest habitats are disappearing.

A deforested danta.

And the National University's Natural History Museum's current exhibition dramatically exhibits that with sculptures of wild animals made from sticks, pieces of bark and charred wood gathered in deforested areas.

Peace with Colombia's various outlaw organizations was supposed to strengthen protection of the environment. Instead, deforestation has accelerated the last several years, to an incredible 20,000 hectares per hour, or 178,000 hectares per year - about double the entire land area of the Dutch Antilles. According to the museum, half of Colombia's high-altitude wetlands and its foothhill forests are gone, as are 90% of its tropical forests.

With the forests, go all the species living in them.

Deforestation is driven primarily by the expansion of agriculture, both legal and illegal, including cattle ranching. Every time a new road or pipeline is cut thru forest, observers watch the deforestation radiate out from the initial line.

A deforested jaguar.

The museum's exhibition, called Deforested Bones, includes messages warning against consumerism. However, our unbridled consumption of natural resources is only one cause of a complex phenomenon. Other parts are poverty that makes farmers desperate to feed their families, wealth which enables landowners to corrupt government officials, and twisted government policies which routinely give natural resource extraction priority over environmental conservation.

A deforested sloth.

A deforested spider monkey.

The natural history museum also has permanent exhibitions about anthropology, evolution, archaeology and Colombian wildlife.

A museum visitor sticks his hand into a crocodile's mouth.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Another Reason to be a Vegetarian; Saving the Wax Palm

Wax palms in Bogotá's Parque de la Independencia, where cattle do not roam, but lawnmowers do.

If better health and less strain on the planet aren't enough to convert you to vegetarianism, then perhaps saving Colombia's national tree.

Wax palms growing in the
Valle de Cocora,
where it is under threat.
(Photo: Wikipedia)

The palma de cera, or wax palm, forms elegant forests on the Andes' western slopes, at elevations between 2,500 and 2,800 meters. But the tree, which is the world's tallest palm, has long faced multiple human-created threats, including illegal logging, harvesting of its fronds for Christmas decorations and the use of the palm's fruits as cattle feed. According to Wikipedia, the tree's numbers have declined drastically.

Now, however, National University researchers have found an event more serious threat in many regions: Cattle, which eat the palms' sprouts, preventing the trees from replacing themselves. If the wax palms go, so will many other species, including parrots, which depend on them for food and shelter.

A hillside in the Valle de Cocora in 1988, with numerous wax palms. (Photo: Universidad Nacional)

The same hillside in 2012; few palms remain. (Photo: Universidad Nacional)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours