Parry Bruce - Amazon: An Extraordinary Journey Down the Greatest River on Earth

PENGUIN BOOKS

AMAZON

Bruce Parry began his working life as an officer and physical training instructor in the Royal Marines. He left to become an expedition leader, and then worked in the film industry. He now combines his love of exploration and filming in his award-winning documentaries. When he is not travelling the world, he spends his free time at his home in Ibiza.

Amazon

BRUCE PARRY
WITH JANE HOUSTON

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England

www.penguin.com

First published by Michael Joseph 2008

Published in Penguin Books 2009

Copyright Indus Endeavour Ltd, 2008

All rights reserved

Photography supplied by: Marina de Boto, Matt Brandon, Christina Daniels, Pete Eason, Almudena Garcia-Parrado Gomez-Lobo, Heron Alencar, Ollie Laker, Willow Murton, Laura Santana, Zubin Sarosh, James Smith, Rob Sullivan and Leticia Valverdes

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-190469-6

To all those who are trying to help save the Amazon

Contents

Source to Sea

The Amazon is the worlds biggest river system and its forest contains more species than found anywhere else on the entire planet. Its a vital part of the global ecosystem, but its also home to millions of people. Every politician and environmentalist has got an opinion on the Amazon but Bruce Parry and the team behind Tribe set out to hear the voices of the Amazon people themselves, from indigenous tribes deep in the rainforest to cattle ranchers at the ever-moving forest edge, and to show the Amazon as it is now, with all its conflicts and complications.

Bruce would travel from the source in the Andes to the Atlantic coast, using the river as a route through the forest. Along his way he would live with the different communities he encountered he would hunt caimans with riverside fishermen, collect coca leaf with impoverished farmers and pick up tools in illegal gold mines. By living and working alongside the people of the Amazon, Bruce would meet the families that depend upon the forest for survival and uncover the human stories from the environmental frontier.

The resulting television programme and this book arent an answer to the conflicts on the environmental front line. But they are an honest portrayal of the people of Bruce Parrys journey along the Amazon, from source to sea.

In October of 2007 adventurer Bruce Parry and a small film crew set off on a journey through the Amazon basin. Their route is to roughly follow the course of the Amazon, using the river as a guide through the continent and discovering the stories of people living on its banks and tributaries.

The journey begins at the source of the Amazon, some 6,800 kilometres from the Atlantic, an icy trickle that subsequently forms the worlds largest river. Bruce follows the river through Peru, along the tributaries of the upper reaches of the Amazon, travelling from the Andes Mountains into the Amazon rainforest.

In its entirety, this rainforest covers seven million square kilometres and is home to the planets greatest biodiversity: a square kilometre contains thousands of tonnes of living plants. The rainforest helps regulate the balance of atmospheric carbon dioxide and oxygen; but its under threat. At the current rates of deforestation, half of the Amazon forest could be lost by 2050.

In Peru, Bruce is to find that the stories of the people and their environment were affected by one plant in particular: the coca leaf. At the source, Quechua-speaking llama herders use coca leaf in rituals invoking Inca deities: a legal use of the leaf that links the people of South American highlands with a pre-Spanish past.

Downriver, the purposes of the leaf become more illicit. In Peru, growing and using unaltered coca leaf is permissible but any process that converts the leaf into the base substance for cocaine is illegal. In the notorious Red Zone around the last stretch of the Ro Apurmac and along the Ro Ene, some farmers cultivate coca. A portion of their harvest is sold legitimately and the rest is sold illegally, where it is then refined into cocaine destined for the international drug market. As a result, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the Peruvian Narcotics Police have a visible armed presence in the area.

Also along the Ro Ene live the Ashninka, the largest indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon. The total indigenous population of the Amazon basin is estimated to be around 700,000 people, in over 230 ethnic groups. In common with other tribes of the Amazon, the Ashninka are often witnessing the disappearance of the forest that is their home; 16 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has already gone for ever.

The Ashninka are also still suffering the effects of the bloody civil unrest between the Shining Path and the Peruvian army in the 1980s and 90s. The Shining Path is a radical Maoist militia, founded with an avowed aim to overthrow the existing order and create a perfect communist state in Peru. Around the Ro Ene, anti-Shining Path patrols formed in opposition and rebel brutality was met by state or state-sponsored repression. A commission by the government of Brazil found that around 70,000 people died in the insurgency between 1980 and 2000.

A few years ago, after the violence of the Shining Path, the Ashninka succeeded in getting a legal title to a portion of their land; but they have little control over the majority of their forest home, which is often under threat from encroaching coca farmers, loggers and oil companies. Theyre at the front line of an environmental conflict that is relevant to the entire globe.