This week's cover dispatch
Forty-one days of GPS-tagged drone work, six camera-trap stations, and one rarely traversed forest block between Calakmul and the Mirador basin. The first published corridor map from the 2023 survey, with the routing notes our guides kept.
Chapter one · Who actually writes this
Jungle Life was founded in 2014 by expedition biologist Dr. Mariana Ospina and Captain Rénald Dubois after a 7-year trans-Amazonian field study. Today our editorial board numbers 11 PhD rainforest ecologists and 9 certified wilderness guides, and every byline on this site belongs to a working member of one of those two rosters.
I.
In 2007, Mariana Ospina and Rénald Dubois launched a 7-year trans-Amazonian field study spanning 4,200+ canopy nights between Manaus and Iquitos. The study produced three IUCN-cited papers on jaguar corridor fragmentation and one of the first peer-reviewed surveys of understory primate density in the Yasuní-ITT grid. Jungle Life began as the internal newsletter their field teams were already circulating.
II.
Twenty names, six continents, one rule: every senior editor must have logged a minimum of 180 canopy nights before their first byline. Our masthead includes PhD holders from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Gabon National Park Service research desk at Lopé, and the Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah. Captain Dubois still files quarterly from the field.
III.
Since 2014 we have published 1,940+ destination guides and field reports, with an average article length of 3,400 words. Our long-form reporting now draws from 47 active research stations, and our 2023 GPS-tagged drone survey of jaguar corridor fragmentation in the Maya Biosphere Reserve was the first publication to make that dataset public. We were named Sustainable Travel Media of the Year by SATW in 2023.
This week · Six dispatches from active research stations
Amazon · Yasuní-ITT grid
Field log 03/14 — Ospina & team. Camera-trap stations 7 through 12 have come back online after the wet-season breach.
Read the dispatch
Congo · Lopé rainforest
Field log 03/15 — Dubois & ANPN rangers. A short note on what the transects are telling us, and why it matters for the November itineraries.
Read the dispatch
Borneo · Danum Valley, Sabah
Field log 03/16 — Tan & Sabah Parks team. The full nest-count table is now in the open archive.
Read the dispatch
Central America · Maya Biosphere Reserve
Field log 03/17 — the cover dispatch. Six camera-trap stations, 41 days of GPS-tagged drone work, one rarely traversed forest block.
Read the dispatch"A glossy travel blog will sell you a canopy. We'd rather hand you a route book, a vetted outfitter, and the wet-season notes from a guide who is still in the forest right now. That is the difference between a trip and a field-tested expedition — and it is the only difference that matters when you are forty kilometers past the last cell tower."
Outfitter vetting · 312 tested, 14% certified
Since 2016 our editorial board has run every candidate outfitter through a four-axis scorecard. The bar is high on purpose: only 14% clear it. Below is what we test, how the scorecard is scored, and what the badge actually means when you book.
01
We verify wilderness-guide certification, language coverage, CPR/wilderness-first-aid currency, and prior incident log. A guide without a current WFR cert does not pass, regardless of how good the lodge is.
02
Evac plans, satellite comms, and weather-cutoff protocols are reviewed against the terrain they actually operate in. A river-boat outfitter with no Plan-B for a flood event does not pass.
03
We require park-fee transparency, no-contact wildlife policy, and a verifiable community-payroll record. IUCN-aligned conduct is the floor, not the ceiling.
By the numbers · Audited, not anecdotal
Revenue mix audited annually · 41% affiliate, 33% membership, 19% licensed photography, 7% grants.
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