Extreme botany: Paramotorists soar across remote Peru desert to collect threatened plants
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In an innovative paper published today in the journal Plants, People, Planet, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Huarango Nature and paramotorists from Forest Air, highlight the exciting potential of paramotoring as a means of aiding research and conservation efforts in some of the most fragile and challenging parts of the globe.
The study's authors demonstrate how paramotoring is a faster and more environmentally friendly alternative to 4x4 off-road vehicles (including motorbikes); able to reach outlying areas, reducing CO2 emissions of up two-thirds, and most importantly with negligible damage to the fragile desert fog habitats and unexplored biological crusts.
The paper outlines the results of a challenging expedition to the coastal fog deserts of Peru, where Kew scientists, with the support of a National Geographic explorers grant, teamed up with professional paramotorists to explore and collect plants in areas where humans have yet to collect and survey plants.
