on Earth, we are weakening our planet’s ability to withstand disturbances and changes. This is especially worrisome, as human-accelerated climate change continues to upset the balance of our planet, and rainforests are our allies in adapting to these changes. Climate change refers to the recent rising levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere due to human activities like burning fossil fuels. Trees are natural buffers against the rapidly changing climate. By design, trees capture carbon dioxide and store it in their bodies. When trees are cut down, the carbon of which they are made is released either through burning or gradual decay. Deforestation in the Amazon today accounts for 20 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions. At the UN Climate Talks in Paris in 2015, nearly 200 nations gathered to address the serious effects of climate change. When they stand, trees help protect us from climate change. When we cut them down, they contribute to its impact. We need the Amazon rainforests alive.


Our Human Right to Healthy Planet As more people enter the Amazon, deforestation results. More humans are moving deeper into the forests, often looking for profits. The Amazon is now home to more than 30 million people – of which only 9 percent, or 2.7 million, are indigenous people from hundreds of different ethnic groups. Many are undocumented with no legal status or rights in their countries. When our team returned to the Amazon ten years ago, we witnessed major developments like the Balbina Dam near Manaus in Brazil and highway constructions taking shape across the Amazon, regardless of the interests of local people. Today, major dam constructions like the Belo Monte Dam and transportation infrastructures like the Trans-Amazonian highway are only growing. These projects bring more people to the Amazon, along with increased opportunities for illegal and unregulated exploitation of the region. Native people are losing their homes from a multitude of threats, many of which are illegal and occur due to the demands of the outside world. Up to 80 percent of all logging in the Brazilian rainforest is done illegally, and as much as 70 percent of what is cut is wasted at the mills. The United States is the largest importer of Brazilian timber. The answer to this massive problem begins with the countries that create the unsustainable demand. North American and European consumers must demand transparency from industries to ensure products do not come from illegal practices that threaten the existence of native people and


threaten the health of the planet. Today, Brazil is the most dangerous place in the world for environmental and land rights activists, followed by many other countries in South America and Latin America. Prior to our trip ten years ago, Sr. Dorothy Stang, an environmentalist working in the Para region, was murdered a year before our visit. During our expedition, we ran into many unsettling encounters with illegal loggers in the forests and gold miners in the rivers. With camera equipment in hand, we wondered how dangerous our situation truly was. Far too often, local communities trying to protect their homes, their land and their families are left to face enormous businesses and foreign interests without help from the government that should be protecting them. On average, two people are killed every day trying to protect their land, forests and rivers from large-scale interests in dams, agriculture, logging, mining and even illegal wildlife trafficking.


Hope for the Amazon


But we have hope. Our expedition ten years ago brought us to Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve, a protected area containing hundreds of native species and housing an eco- friendly lodge that invites guests to enjoy a sustainable Amazon adventure, all managed by eight local communities within the reserve. We see the future in businesses that value the people they serve, the environment around them and the culture of natives who live there. At Brazil’s largest natural reserve, travelers stay in floating lodges that rise and fall with the fluctuating water levels of the Amazon River across wet and dry seasons. We can enjoy and profit by protecting natural and pristine places without destroying its natural bounty and biodiversity. For places in the Amazon that are already cleared, scientist Dr. Regina Luizão told us, “Let’s use everything that has been deforested and leave what is standing as it is right now.” Throughout my lifetime traveling across the world, I have seen humans in their quest for development and ‘progress’ tear down and destroy the very environment we depend upon. The problem? The environment belongs to no one alone. It is our common, public good. As special interests groups around the world look to make quick profits from rapid and unsustainable development – the right to clean air, clean water, and clean food is taken away from the public interest. This must end, and it will only stop when we collectively take responsibility to protect the one thing we all have in common: our home, our oceans, and our one water planet.


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