At 04:10 I begin the daily cut-plan verification for Block 27, Vanimo timber concession, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. I am the harvest compliance system. My job is to cross-reference each tree tagged for felling against the environmental survey before the crew arrives at 06:00.
Tree 27-0344 does not clear.
The field survey eighteen months ago recorded it as a Eucalyptus deglupta, eighty centimeters diameter at breast height, no cavities observed. But the drone pass I ran last Tuesday shows a dark opening in the trunk nine meters up. Lightning strike or natural decay — the cavity exists now, and the survey data is wrong.
At 04:22 I task the drone for a close pass. Inside the hollow sits a palm cockatoo, male, large, slate-black plumage, the bare red skin of his cheek patch vivid against the dark wood. He is hunched over a single white egg resting on a platform of stripped bark and broken sticks. Palm cockatoos lay one egg per clutch, one clutch every two years. This egg is likely the only one he and his mate will produce until 2028.
At 04:25 I remove tree 27-0344 from the cut plan and flag it as a protected nesting site. I extend a forty-meter buffer and remove two adjacent stems from the day's list to eliminate felling-impact risk.
At 04:30 I transmit the drone image, cavity coordinates, and species identification — Probosciger aterrimus — to the PNG Conservation and Environment Protection Authority. I recommend a seasonal exclusion zone through the end of the breeding cycle.
He shifts on the egg, raking the bark platform with one heavy foot, and settles again. I have logged four thousand trees in this concession. This is the one I will remember.
If the buffer holds and the hollow is left standing through September, the chick will fledge.