The Amazon Burning - Kids and Bugs to the Rescue!

Dear rainforest supporter,

We couldn’t have asked for a better way to close 2025. On the research front, our work with butterflies in our molecular lab continues to grow, producing new articles and valuable information for the scientific community. We are also thrilled to share that the Peruvian Forestry Department has officially approved our natural history collection of butterflies and moths as a national collection.

In April 2025, we began building a dedicated facility in Puerto Maldonado to permanently house this collection. Once completed in mid-2026, this new space will allow us to expand the collection and develop teaching collections that can be used by local students, professors, and researchers—creating an important new educational resource for the region.

On the education front, we received a small grant from the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) to carry out a series of educational field visits to our station during the second half of this year. These visits included more than 90 elementary school students from both rural and urban schools, as well as over 80 local undergraduate students and professors. The goal was to raise awareness about the work carried out at an active field station like ours and highlight its importance for the region’s development.

We want to thank you for your constant support and take this opportunity to wish you a very joyful holiday season.

Warm regards,
Geoff, Johana, and the entire ASA family

Dear Rainforest Champion,

As we enter the second half of the year, we're thrilled to share some exciting updates with you.

On the research front, our butterfly project has made significant progress, thanks to the molecular lab we established a few months ago at our field station in the heart of the Amazon. This fully operational lab has been conducting numerous DNA analyses on butterflies, helping us deepen our understanding of butterfly diversity in this unique region.

In terms of education, this marks the third year of our partnership with the Jungle Biomechanics Lab—an initiative led by the Bhamla Lab (Georgia Tech, USA) and funded by the National Science Foundation. Through this program, undergraduate and graduate students from the U.S. spend two immersive weeks in the rainforest, exploring questions related to physics, biology, robotics, and more. Local undergraduate students also joined the research, making it a truly collaborative and enriching professional development experience. We further amplified this initiative by organizing outreach events that connected these students with K–12 learners and members of the regional scientific community.

It’s been a wonderful few months, and we’re excited for what the rest of the year will bring. Thank you for your ongoing support—we couldn’t do any of this without you!

With gratitude,
Geoff, Johana, and the ASA Family