The risky business of Amazonian tree climbers

BRASILIA, July 17 — A botanist looks up at a man dangling 20 meters above ground in a tree that belongs to an endangered species in Brazil’s Amazon.Brandishing telescopic pruning clippers, 42-year-old Jose Raimundo Ferreira, known as Zelao, expertly manipulates the tool and a branch of the itauba, whose wood is prized for use in making boats, falls at the scientist’s feet.

These tree climbers are even more important in an area where scientists believe they know only about 30 per cent of the biodiversity.

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