Yasuní-ITT Grid · Ecuador
Canopy phenology shifts two weeks earlier than the 2018 baseline — what the plot transects are recording.
Principal Investigator Dr. L. Encalada…
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Station File №047 · Yasuní-ITT Grid · 00°57′S, 75°54′W
Conservation Dispatches · Wire from the Canopy
Reporting from 47 active research stations — verified, datelined, and audited in the open.
Original dispatches from the Yasuní-ITT grid, the Lopé rainforest, and the Maya Biosphere jaguar corridors — written by field biologists who sleep in the plots they cover. Read the latest wire, then audit the figures behind every claim.
House Methodology · Adopted 2014, revised 2024
Every dispatch carries a dateline, an audit link, and a credit chain you can trace to a person.
Jungle Life dispatches are written by working field biologists and licensed expedition guides who have collectively logged more than 4,200 nights in primary rainforest. The reporting method has four commitments, none of which are negotiable:
- Datelines you can geolocate. Every dispatch opens with a station file number, coordinates, and the name of the on-site principal investigator. If we cannot name the PI, we do not publish the dispatch.
- Figures you can audit. Population estimates, corridor widths, and degradation percentages link to the underlying dataset, the methodology note, or the peer-reviewed paper that produced them. Inferential claims are labeled as such; descriptive claims are labeled as such.
- No conservation impact claims without an audited report. We do not state that our reporting “saved X acres” or “protected Y corridors.” Editorial influence is not a measurable conservation outcome, and we will not pretend otherwise.
- Corrections in the open. When a dispatch is amended, the original remains archived with a dated correction banner appended to it. The public record is not overwritten.
Jungle Life has been a partner of the IUCN Canopy Specialist Group since 2019 and is cited as a primary media source in three peer-reviewed papers. Our editorial standards are aligned with, but independent of, the Society of American Travel Writers — the 2023 ‘Sustainable Travel Media’ award recognized the methodology itself, not a single feature.
Latest Wire · Filed in the last 14 days
Most recent field reports from active research stations.
Lopé Rainforest · Gabon
Forest elephant dung-count transects show a 6% corridor recovery on the western research grid.
Field correspondent Captain R. Dubois…
Read the dispatchMaya Biosphere Reserve · Guatemala
GPS-tagged jaguar corridor survey, grid C-14: three new underpass sites flagged for the 2026 census.
First publication to publish tagged drone surveys of jaguar corridor fragmentation in 2023…
Read the dispatchDanum Valley · Borneo
Orangutan nest-count protocol revised after three-week ground truthing by the Kota Kinabalu desk.
Editorial team of 27 full-time writers, field guides, and editors based in Quito, Libreville, and Kota Kinabalu…
Read the dispatchWe do not promise what the forest will give us on any given night. We promise only that the report you read on Monday was filed from the plot on Friday — and that you can audit the distance between those two points.
Dr. Mariana Ospina, Editor-in-Chief
Flagship Reporting Location
Eleven years on the Yasuní-ITT grid — the station that taught us how to file a dispatch.
Yasuní-ITT is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth and one of the most heavily instrumented forest plots in the western Amazon. Our coverage of the grid began with the founding of this publication in 2014, when Dr. Mariana Ospina and Captain Rénald Dubois emerged from a seven-year trans-Amazonian field study looking for a desk that would publish their field notes without translating them into marketing copy.
Eleven years later, Station №047 has filed 312 dispatches from the grid, hosted 19 visiting researchers, and produced the only continuous canopy-phenology dataset on the western block that is openly licensed for academic reuse. The current principal investigator maintains a live plot transect log that updates every 72 hours.
What we publish from Station №047
- 01 Weekly canopy-phenology readings, datelined and geolocated to within 12 metres.
- 02 Quarterly corridor-width audits against the 2018 baseline transects.
- 03 Long-form features, filed in person, averaging 3,400 words per piece.
Reporting Footprint · Verified, May 2025
The figures behind the desk.
47
Active research stations on the wire
6yrs
IUCN Canopy Specialist Group partnership, continuous since 2019
3
Peer-reviewed papers citing Jungle Life as primary media source
1,940+
Destination guides and field reports published since 2014
Independent revenue mix verified by annual audit · Read the methodology note
For Donors, NGO Partners & Documentary Producers
How dispatches are sourced, corrected, and credited.
A short editorial note for readers evaluating the publication as a primary media source. Press inquiries: [email protected].
Q1 How is a dispatch different from a feature article?
Dispatches are short, datelined wire-style reports filed from a specific station within a defined reporting window. Features are long-form (averaging 3,400 words), involve on-location photography, and may draw on multiple dispatches plus primary-source interviews. Every feature references the underlying dispatches it synthesizes, with archived URLs.
Q2 What does the IUCN partnership cover — and what does it not cover?
Since 2019 we have been a media partner of the IUCN Canopy Specialist Group. The partnership covers data exchange, joint field logistics at mutual stations, and co-credit on canopy-related dispatches. It does not constitute IUCN endorsement of our editorial positions, our outfitter reviews, or any commercial recommendations. We state this plainly wherever the partnership is referenced.
Q3 How do you handle corrections?
Every correction is appended as a dated banner to the original article — the original is never silently overwritten. Material corrections are also republished to the newsletter. Reader tips are reviewed by the assigning editor and, when adopted, credited in the correction note unless the source requests anonymity.
Q4 How do documentary producers and academic researchers license material from the desk?
Editorial photography and primary-source interview transcripts are licensed for documentary and academic reuse under tiered rates; 19% of revenue comes from licensed photography, audited annually. Brief editorial excerpts under 250 words may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes with attribution and a link to the original dispatch.