When we think about the loss of forests, we usually imagine clear-cut deforestation. But across Latin America, another kind of forest loss is also happening…

Dr. Cliffe’s research from 2018 determining the metabolic rate of three-fingered sloths was utilized by a team of researchers based in Brazil, working to conserve sloths in the Amazon and Atlantic Forests of Brazil. Dr. Cliffe’s data was modeled against climate change predictions, and data from different ecologists quantifying and predicting current and future land cover and land use in the Amazon and Atlantic Forests were also used.

I’m standing amongst the wreckage of felled trees and bulldozed undergrowth, my boots crunching on dead vegetation, but I’m not looking down.

Over the last few weekends of December 2021, we and our sloth guardians in Puerto Viejo witnessed deforestation occurring in the Maritime-Terrestrial Zone (MTZ) of the South Caribbean – specifically between Selina Hostel and the Cocles viewpoint.