A glimpse, in words and pictures, of the places where Georges and his team shot the different episodes in the INSECTIA series and of some of the incidents that occurred. A chance to meet the people they met and to catch Georges live, in all his glory.

Ecuador - La Selva

On the Napo River, aboard La Selva Express		Of all the insects, butterflies are certainly the most difficult to photograph and even more so, to film. For this episode, the INSECTIA film crew had a great advantage -- we were only an hour away by boat from the famous La Selva Jungle Lodge, situated high on lake Garzacocha, deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon basin.

Winner of the 1992 Ecotourism Award from the World Congress on Tourism and the Environment, La Selva is a 250-acre rainforest paradise with beautiful lagoons, a field biology institute and . . . a butterfly farm!		La Selva -- The main building

A stairway to a heavenly view of the canopy!		One of the major attractions at La Selva is the Canopy Observation Tower which is over 135 feet high and built around the trunk of one the tallest trees at La Selva. From the tower, you can see every stratum of the rainforest vegetation. The highest platform offers a breathtaking view of the canopy and surrounding rainforest. The Observation Tower is a 30-minute walk from the main lodge. By the end of our stay, we'd made the trip so often, day and night, rain or shine, that we could have done it with our eyes closed.

In these regions, the annual rainfall is 30 to 60 cm (between 120 and 230 in.). One evening, when the film crew was at the top of the tower, a violent downpour suddenly struck. Although water and electronics don't usually mix, we couldn't resist the temptation to film the deluge. Only the camera came out of this adventure unscathed, the rest of us returned to the lodge soaked to the skin.		Filming under torrential rain

Mexico - the Monarchs

One hundred million monarchs		Every year, the monarch butterflies in Canada and the United States embark on an incredible journey -- they migrate to their wintering grounds in Mexico. It was a Canadian researcher, Dr. Urquhart, who pinpointed the exact location where, since the dawn of time, some 100 to 300 million of these great travellers congregate in winter. It is a forest in the Sierra Transvolcanica, in the State of Michoacan at the heart of Mexico. Although the site immediately became a major tourist attraction, the monarchs' sanctuary continues to be under threat from the forestry industry. We can only hope that more and more Mexicans will swap their chain saws for cameras.

Ecuador - Yasuni: Pump station

The government of Ecuador has authorized certain companies to drill oil within the boundaries of Yasuni National Park, which has been designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Naturally, the oil companies are attempting to garner the support of environmentalists. They have built research facilities and keep close tabs on all the people who spend any time in the 3,474 square mile park. For security reasons, the oil wells are brightly lit with mercury lamps. A distinctive feature of this type of light is that it attracts numerous insects.		Tivacuno pump station

It was a cold and stormy night ...		On arriving in Yasuni, Georges Brossard asked for and was granted permission to rake the periphery of these facilities at night with his people. The insect hunters took turns inspecting the bases of these luminaries -- one shift at midnight and another at 3 a.m. Spectacular insects were thus gathered and found their way before the cameras of INSECTIA.