the as-300 carrying a hexagonal canopy raft. it's the world's largest thermal airship.
approximately 37 million km² - or around ¼ of the world's land mass - is covered by natural forest, a habitat which is home to the majority of the planet's wildlife, so it's no surprise that scientists are eager to study as much of the planet's forest canopy as possible before the population does away with trees altogether. however the problem they face in their quest to sit at the top of these masses of greenery is that access to the uppermost layer isn't always easy to come by, whether it be due to safety concerns on the part of researchers, their inability to physically reach the heights necessary, or the dangers presented to the canopy itself when interrupted by humans.
below are some of the methods and structures used by those very humans in order to get to the top.
canopy rafts
the solvin bretzel in action .
as you can see from the photos, canopy rafts are extraordinary things. they're basically enormous nets attached to an inflatable frame and are dropped onto trees from airships, resulting in a viewing platform like no other which can also be used as a base from which to hang using climbing gear. the raft above is the solvin bretzel, a new design by gilles ebersolt which due to its pretzel-inspired shape is both safer to use and more effective than older versions. researchers can spend days at a time on the raft (hence the tent) and due to its extremely light weight the trees are left unharmed.
cranes
canopy cranes in washington and queensland.
dotted around the world's forests, peeking over the top of the treeline, are 14 enormous tower cranes similar to the ones seen every day on construction sites. they're called canopy cranes and although expensive to run offer scientists an extremely convenient way to study the canopy due the fact that the crane's gondola can be raised/lowered as well as extended out the length of the crane's jib. the world's largest canopy crane (250ft tall) is called the wind river canopy crane (see video), can be found in washington and due to its huge dimensions has 300 trees within its reach. the world's first, the panama canopy crane, was erected in 1990.
walkways
clockwise from top left: ecuador, malaysia and costa rica.
one of the first methods used to reach and study the canopy was the trusty walkway, basically a series of bridges between trees enabling access to higher parts of the forest for sustained periods. the downside is that walkways can only be installed so far up the tree and other methods have since negated the need for them. but there are plenty around and a great crowd-pleaser amongst tourists so i can't see them ever disappearing. as for the longest in the world: i've no idea. the amount of claims to that title is just too large to even begin attemtping to verify it.
dirigibles
top: the white diamond airship. bottom: cinebulle.
a popular way for researchers to examine and film the forest canopy is by using light aircraft - usually in the form of airships and balloons - and in recent years versions of each have been designed specifically with forests' exploration in mind (see graham dorrington's 'white diamond' airship, the subject of werner herzog's documentary of the same name. see also dany cleyet-marrel's 'cinebulle', an incredibly versatile seated air balloon with rear propeller which has been used by the bbc to film their fucking brilliant, groundbreaking nature documentaries). other canopy dirigibles exist, such as canopy gliders and canopy bubbles. google 'em.
footage of graham dorrington's 'white diamond' airship, taken from the herzog documentary...
aerial tram
left: aerial tram, costa rica. right: another tram in costa rica. bottom: the awce
forest-based aerial tram systems are a fairly new feature, but only in their current form. back in 1978 dr. donald perry decided to build a relatively basic system involving ropes, pulleys and a platform which would eventually evolve into the the award-winning awce (automated web for canopy exploration), an automated version which allowed 2 people to travel the canopy simultaneously without the physical hardship of having to pull your bodyweight around. then in 1992 he designed the first rain forest aerial tram in costa rica at a cost of $2m and the rest is history.
rope
various canopy scientists explore the forest using ropes and harnesses.
the most low-tech method used to get to the canopy would have to be old fashioned climbing. a number of companies now offer training specifically for canopy scientists, the most prominent being canopy access ltd who have also worked behind the scenes on many of the bbc's award-winning nature programmes. the downside is that the uppermost layer of the canopy is difficult to reach when using ropes due to the fact that there's very little which is sturdy enough to hang from.
and that's that. there are a couple of other methods (e.g. specialist tree houses and the baumvelo) but i'm too tired to type. goodnight.
