The raft of the treetops

Thirty years of exploring equatorial forest canopies

Over the course of more than thirty years, the four authors of this book have lived out an extraordinary scientific, technical and human adventure. They have been exploring the canopies of primeval tropical forests – the tops of the trees where the greatest biodiversity on Earth is to be found – with the help not of cranes or of ropes to haul themselves up from the ground like their predecessors but with fly- ing machines lighter than the air designed specifically for this purpose.

Their explorations began with the Raft of the Treetops, a hexagonal platform of several hundred square metres in size that served both as a laboratory and as a base camp, installed on the canopy using an airship. And then to meet the needs of other sci- entific missions, new flying machines and inhabitable set-ups were designed, such as the Ikos, the Star of the Treetops, the Cin- ema Bubble, the Tree Slide, and the Bubble of the Treetops.

A dozen expeditions were organised between the late 1980s and the 2010s to study the forests of Guyana, Cameroon, Madagas- car, Panama and Laos. Over three hundred scientists from some twenty countries were involved, including botanists, entomolo- gists, climatologists, doctors and biochem- ists. From the numerous samples collected and the research conducted a wholly new picture emerged of the canopies of tropical forests and the functions they serve. Lavishly illustrated, this four-handed book retraces the invention of the remarkable fly- ing machines, reveals the daily realities of scientific expeditions, and describes the dis- coveries that resulted from these adventures. With the last remaining primary tropical forests under serious threat, the authors are eager to share the wonder inspired by these tropical treetop landscapes, where the great- est beauty of life on Earth is to be found.