THE CHANGING LAND

摘要

A NEW KIND OF CONSERVATION PARTNERSHIP IN VENEZUELA'S LLANOS GRASSLANDS PROTECTS THE COUNTRY'S TROPICAL PLAINS AND PRESERVES THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF ITS NATIVE PEOPLES. A small group of battered four-wheel-drive Toyota trucks advances across the relentlessly flat prairie in the Venezuelan district of Romulo Gallegos. Periodically, the vehicles slow to traverse deep ruts carved in the wide dirt road—the main transportation artery into this remote landscape. With the onset of the rainy season, swelling streams have begun to overtake some of the surrounding fields, and ibises wade in the flooded patches. In a few weeks, most of this vast expanse of grasslands, known as the Llanos, will be under 4 or 5 feet of water as the tropical rains fall faster than the waters of the massive Orinoco Basin can drain. The annual transition of the Llanos from prairie to giant lagoon turns this land upside down, allowing fish, crocodiles and river dolphins to flourish where deer, jaguar and giant anteaters roamed only a few weeks earlier.