Expedition Amazon (2024) Movie Script
1
Deep in the Amazon,
there's a place where
dolphins fly through trees.
I'm amazed about how
it's possible these animals,
these incredible creatures
are here in the jungle.
A place where
bears live in the clouds.
The Andean bear is like the
engineer of the cloud forest.
A place where
turtles have guardian angels.
It is a place that
has caught me in such a way that
I can't imagine it
will let me go.
And the trees,
they soak up 20 billion
tons of water every day
to create rivers in the sky.
That water is what
connects it all.
We're talking about the
largest river of the world.
It's not just water in rivers.
It's water in the glaciers,
in the atmosphere,
in the clouds.
The Amazon is
changing in real-time,
and there's so
much we don't know.
There are a lot of threats
here in the Amazon, but still,
there are some people trying
to make the difference.
In an unprecedented
two-year expedition,
National Geographic is bringing
together a passionate
group of scientists to
follow the water,
as they explore the magnificent
ecosystems within.
From the tops of the Andes,
across 4,000 miles,
to the Atlantic Ocean,
and beyond.
Science enables us to
see into the future.
To ensure
that it's still standing
for the next generation.
It matters what we do.
When you think of the Amazon,
these 20,000-foot peaks
may not come to mind,
but this is where it all begins.
We actually are in
the Amazon Basin.
We're right on the edge,
right on the eastern
side of the Andes.
This is an important
water tower.
The snow and ice
that you see here
eventually is going to make
its way down into the Amazon.
But the glaciers
here are disappearing,
and we don't know how quickly.
That's what National Geographic
Explorer Baker Perry
is here to find out.
I'm leading this expedition
to install a weather station
near the summit of Ausangate.
Having lived in
the Andes when he was younger,
this is a sort of
homecoming for Baker.
Just in my lifetime,
I've seen tremendous
changes happening in the Amazon
with ongoing deforestation.
And what we're trying
to understand is
how glaciers are responding.
We have a very, very limited
understanding of the weather
or climate at the tops of
these Andean mountains.
So Baker, Tom,
and their team of local
guides and experts
set out to tackle one
of the highest peaks
in the Amazon Basin.
These enormous
glaciers store water
for communities downstream.
As the climate's warming,
that kind of reliable source
of fresh water is in danger.
That water is
intricately tied to the water
cycling through all of Amazonia.
The water
molecules that fall as snow
on the Andean peaks are coming
from evaporation from these
mighty trees in the Amazon.
Flowing up through the trees,
it releases into the atmosphere.
Then it's going
to condense out, form a cloud.
And that cloud is gonna
be moved by the winds
into the Andes,
where it's going to
eventually fall as snow.
When one part is altered,
the entire system reacts.
If you cut
down trees in the rainforest,
the amount of snowfall
that occurs here drops.
A weather station
will provide insight
into how much these
glaciers are shrinking.
But first, they
need to get there.
Ausangate is
not an easy mountain.
It's a huge effort to get
weather equipment up to these elevations.
That's why it hasn't
really been done before.
Good luck up there.
Thank you.
The physical challenges on
these expeditions are real.
The hardest part of climbing is
the lack of oxygen.
It's about half past
two in the morning,
looking forward to sunrise in
about three and a half hours.
We have one little
section to go up here.
And then another fixed
line going up there.
If they succeed,
the data from atop
Ausangate will be invaluable
to the millions of
people who depend on it.
In the last 10 years,
water is decreasing every year,
every year is less,
less, less water.
For Quechuan biologist
Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya,
this loss is personal.
She grew up in the high Andes,
where the glacier has
always protected the people.
The glacier is a key
part of our culture.
As a child,
her grandmother would
tell stories about
a mythical bear.
This character
called the Ukuku is the
semi-god between a
bear and a human.
They go to the Ausangate
to carry blocks of ice to the
communities as a sign they're
going to have more water.
The Ukuku story
has played out for centuries
in the Qoyllur Rit'l festival.
My grandmother
used to tell me that the ice
was very nearby.
But now, with climate change,
the snow is far away.
They are not able to bring
this ice cube anymore.
Ukukus are more than a myth.
Ukuku means the Andean
bear in Quechuan, yeah.
For Ruth, the real
thing is just as mysterious.
We are trying to
understand the secret life
of the Andean bear.
A creature we know little about,
except that it's vital for
forests in the clouds
that sit below Ausangate.
Glaciers may be the water
tower for the Amazon Basin,
but Andean cloud forests
are the rain machine.
They act like a sponge,
soaking up moisture and
releasing it downstream.
I always liked to climb trees.
It's a different perspective
being in the canopy.
It's a different world,
completely different world.
Both the forest
and bears are threatened,
and they need each
other to thrive.
As voracious plant eaters,
bears spread seeds
wherever they go.
They are very
good tree climbers.
They spend most of their
time actually in the trees.
Camera traps will
track their movements to help
Ruth understand their
effect on the forest.
All good.
Let's see what the
camera trap captures.
The Andean bears
is very hard to study,
especially in this
kind of terrain.
In order to get
this information,
we need to also hike a lot.
It's time to check the cameras,
all 75 of them.
We leave these
camera traps for the whole year,
but we are doing the
monitoring every two months.
Oh, no bears.
While the
bears avoid the spotlight,
others aren't so shy.
- Is it a lone little fox?
- Yes.
What do you see?
A puma.
Oh wow, a big one!
To follow their trail,
Ruth brings along
her top tracker.
Ukuku!
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
As the bears are moving,
they are helping to disperse
many of these tree species.
They eat the seed
and they, they poo...
So this poo
has the seeds and has
the nutrients to, to grow.
This is vaccinium.
It is a wild blueberry.
And this is one of the
bears' favorite fruits.
The feces we just found
contained fruits of this kind.
We have a camera trap
10 meters from here.
Let's just hope
the camera worked.
Bear!
Bear, bear!
A little one!
When we see a bear like this,
we all are happy, very happy.
While the
cameras reveal bear behavior,
to really understand
how they move,
they need to get closer.
The first time
we capture our first bear,
I couldn't describe
the feeling I, I have.
I don't know, like my brother,
like my elder brother.
I feel like part of my family.
It's just incredible creature.
GPS collars
track their every move.
And for the first time, a
National Geographic Critter-Cam
goes on walkabout with
a bear named Sunchu.
We can see from
the perspective of the bear
how it's moving around.
We are following the journey
and we're learning a lot.
It turns out Sunchu,
and the other 40-plus
bears she's identified so far,
are covering a larger and
higher range than expected.
You see some clusters.
This means they spend
quite a lot of time in
this part of the forest.
Her findings are extraordinary.
As the climate warms
and the bears move higher,
they'll bring seeds with them,
helping forests regrow
at cooler elevations.
Now we are thinking how
the bears are gonna help
many of these tree species
adapt to the new environment.
They just
may be the key to ensuring
the cloud forest survives.
So it can keep the water moving
down the Andes and
into the headwaters,
where it begins to transform
into something recognizable.
It's not just one river.
You have thousands of
small rivers just flowing
to the big Amazon.
Making up 20% of the freshwater
for the entire planet.
The Amazon is the
heart of the planet,
and all these rivers are
the veins of this heart.
One magical
creature considers the
whole river system home.
Dolphins don't
recognize borders.
They basically move
free on the rivers.
So does Fernando Trujillo,
who moved to the
Colombian Amazon
to dedicate his life to them.
When I just came here,
it was difficult to
find the dolphins because
I didn't have a trained eye.
And this was full of life,
but I couldn't see the life.
So it took time until
I start to understand
a little bit the river.
After 35 years,
Fernando's vision is clear,
protect the animal keeping
the equilibrium of this system.
Dolphins are
the jaguars in the water.
They are the top predators.
They are able to move in
the main rivers, lakes,
flooded forests, everywhere.
That equilibrium
is under constant assault
and pink dolphin populations
are decreasing in
record numbers.
The deforestation is there,
there are burnings,
there are pollution.
And there's drought.
More than 100 dolphins
were found dead in a lake
in the Amazon over seven days.
The main suspicion is that
the deaths are related to
drought and the
high water temperature.
The Amazon saw its
worst drought on record in 2023.
Low water levels trap
more heat from the sun,
spiking temperatures.
For the first time, we have a
kind of phenomenon
where a lot of dolphins
were dying very quickly.
We lost 70 dolphins
in just one day.
Millions of fish have died.
Fernando's
working with local teams
to conserve these dolphins
any way they can.
By tagging them,
they hope to identify
feeding and nursing areas
and expand protections.
And who better than
them to show us?
Go, go, go, go!
- Go, go! Left.
- Left.
In the capture of
dolphins you have to move
faster than in fishing.
Because when you spread the net,
fish fall in it by themselves.
On the other hand, the
dolphin must be encircled
in order to capture it.
Now we captured three dolphins,
they are inside the big net.
On three,
understand? One, two, three.
One, two, three, up!
When I am near a dolphin,
I feel that my heart
is totally filled.
Like I have a purpose in life.
During a capture,
veterinarian
Mara Jimena Valderrama
monitors the dolphin's health.
Let's keep quiet.
This is a pregnant female.
Quiet please, everybody.
It's in some way invasive.
We are taking out of the
water an aquatic animal.
There we are taking its
heart rate and respiratory rate.
Breathe!
If I see that
the animal is too stressed,
I think it's always best
to release the animal.
Because the main thing
for us is its well-being.
This is a female, a big one,
two meters, 20.
It's already pregnant.
A dolphin can have one calf
every four or five years and
their pregnancy is 13 months.
So in a lifetime they,
they can have like
four or five calves.
So it's very important for
this animal to try to conserve.
Any animal, they count.
I'm in charge of taking
both blood and tissue samples.
We tag it quickly.
With anesthesia, we make sure
that the animal doesn't feel
any pain during
installation of the
satellite transmitter.
You, go there.
The tagging became a very
powerful tool to understand
what areas are
really important for
the conservation
of the dolphins.
Fernando's
finding that males have
large home ranges.
The males move away looking for
other groups of females.
But females
stay in areas where they
always have access to food.
This puts them in direct
conflict with humans.
Sometimes, the fishermen say,
look the dolphins
are stealing our fish.
They go to our nets and
take the fish from our nets.
These dolphins have learned
to associate fishing activities
with a free meal.
Marine biologist
and photographer
Thomas Peschak joins the
expedition near the Negro River
to get a look at this behavior
from the dolphins' perspective.
The direct conflict can
end with a dolphin death,
or it can damage the
net from fishermen.
But there's a possible solution.
The pingers
are acoustic deflectors,
it's a way to put
noise on the nets
to avoid the dolphins
approach the net.
Pingers have
worked in the ocean,
but they've never been
tested in the Amazon.
So we are testing here for the
first time with Mariana.
We are working with the
community inside Acajatuba Lake,
and we have two
fishermen supporting us
doing the pilot tests.
These give us some learning
about how dolphins are
motivated to catch
the fish in the net.
They perceive the sound,
and back away.
Right after that,
they try again.
They persist and get the fish.
The pingers likely
didn't work because the
dolphins in this lake
are used to people.
So testing continues.
I am hopeful
because if it works,
it's mutual benefit for
conservation and people.
Knowing how they behave,
knowing how they steal a fish,
might actually help better
employ these pingers to
deter these dolphins
from stealing fish.
As a National
Geographic photographer,
Thomas's ultimate goal
is to help create the will
to protect the Amazon
and all its creatures.
We need
beautiful pictures underwater
to connect the people
with the dolphins.
Diving with
these dolphins is truly magical.
There are individuals
that are incredibly shy.
There are individuals
that are bold.
And there are curious ones.
Every year,
during the rainy season,
an incredible phenomenon
occurs throughout the Amazon.
The rivers flood into
the surrounding forests,
up to 12 miles past
the riverbanks and
nearly 50 feet deep.
Everything has evolved
to follow that pulse,
it's like a heartbeat.
The forest, the animals,
the people that live here,
they're all living to the
pulse of flood and dry.
Including the dolphins.
Flexible flippers and
unfused vertebrae give them
seemingly magical powers.
They can literally
fly between the trees.
That's amazing.
They rely on these trees to feed
their fishy prey.
When the forest floods,
fish can access fruits
and seeds on the branches.
There is always
this connection between systems
that is very important to
maintaining biodiversity,
and things working
as they should.
But for how much longer?
When threats like deforestation
and warming temperatures
disrupt the Amazon's ability
to create its own rainfall,
the entire system reacts,
including the flood pulse.
If you change the availability
of water, just a little bit,
the ecosystem is
not used to that.
And it's gonna start
behaving differently.
How the trees
will react is a mystery
Thiago Silva and his
team head to Brazil's
flooded forests to solve.
We're here to
understand how trees can cope
with months and
months of flooding
and how climate change
could affect the future
of these wetland forests.
We don't know about the
physiological properties
of these trees.
So we don't know exactly
how they will cope.
They work in the dead of night,
collecting samples while
the plants are resting.
The idea is to get the
fully exposed branches
so where the sun is
illuminating all of these
branches during the day,
and then he has to climb
very high and to get these
very big branches
for us to sample.
So it's quite an adventure.
Julia is investigating traits,
like vessel size,
telling her how each tree
will respond to wetter
or drier conditions.
Thiago is using
cutting-edge technology
to map the bigger picture.
What fascinates
me about plants is how they
run this whole
mechanism of maintaining
the environment ecosystem,
while the animals,
most of the time they're
just the, the actors, right?
But the plants, they
really set the scene.
Now, for the first time,
Thiago's bringing that scene
to the rest of the world.
He's using LIDAR
to create a 3-D,
360-degree snapshot.
I like plants equipped
with technology.
This is a terrestrial
laser scanner.
It will send a beam
of lasers in a cone
all around this rotating head.
The idea here is to
overfly with the drone and
get the 3D model from
the top of the canopy.
One thing that we
expect to be able to do
is to have a virtual environment
where anyone can go
inside the forest.
And then see how
the water levels could rise,
and you can almost physically
experience what it means
to have 10 meters of
water flooding a forest.
Thiago and
Julia's findings will give
a glimpse into the future,
predicting which trees may not
survive and what that means
for the creatures
who depend on them.
I want to
understand enough of the system
to be able to prepare for
that the best we can.
And make sure that we
don't lose everything
that those forests
have to offer.
It's not
just the animals who rely
on these forests,
but 40 million people
throughout the Amazon.
The vast majority
of the population lives
just by the river.
They depend on the
rivers for transportation.
They depend on this
forest for the fish.
They depend on it
for the timber itself.
So everybody depends
on the Amazon to live.
And the people
who live in the middle of it
are the key to protecting it.
The river is our livelihood,
but I think that if we
didn't have the river,
a large part of
humanity wouldn't exist.
The fight to
save this river economy
drives another team of
Explorers deep into the Juru,
a tributary of the Amazon,
to work alongside
local communities.
We see this relationship
as complementary,
within that system,
because people don't
just live in the forest,
they are part of it.
The ultimate goal of our project
is to try to understand
how we can align
the protection of biodiversity
with people's well-being.
The team
collaborates with locals
to protect the
giant river turtle
and increase numbers
of arapaima,
known locally as pirarucu.
Both are important for
local food security,
but also have high
commercial value.
Uncontrolled exploitation
of this resource
ended up greatly
reducing populations.
For me, pirarucu is
an Amazonian superstar.
It's bigger than me.
It weighs more than me.
It's the largest freshwater
scaled fish in the world.
But by the late '90s,
it was nearly
fished to extinction.
So researchers and local
fishermen joined forces to
create a sustainable fishing
plan based on a quota system.
The protection
of aquatic environments,
in which you
protect the pirarucu,
is like keeping a bank account.
Joo and the
team have been helping to
implement that plan here
in the Juru for 15 years.
If it weren't for them,
maybe we wouldn't be
where we are now.
It's an
incredible success story.
The pirarucu population
has increased by 600%.
We usually call the
pirarucu the "fish of change"
because it has brought several
social and economic changes
to these communities.
Now, they're taking
that success one step further.
Using the GPS tag on Pirarucu,
it's a really challenging task
because it was
never done before.
It was only possible
because we worked together
with local fishermen.
So, they have this
historical knowledge
interacting with this species.
They are fundamental in
the process of understanding
the best spot to
place the device.
If it works,
real-time data tracking
their range may lead to
additional protection,
and ultimately, more fish.
If we increase our
authorized quota number,
we will have greater
income in the pockets
of each pirarucu handler.
Further down the Juru River,
Joo and Andressa join
forces with other locals
in their fight to protect one
of the Amazon's iconic species.
We monitor the beach at night,
with a flashlight and a gun.
I do six hours and my
son does six hours.
If we aren't there monitoring,
poachers will surely come.
Every year,
female turtles emerge
on the riverbanks to nest.
They go into a trance-like
state while laying eggs,
making everyone,
mom included, vulnerable.
Despite their protected status,
river turtles and their eggs
are a delicacy in high demand.
For a large turtle in Carauari,
they're asking for
400, 500 reais.
So they will watch me here
in Tabuleiro do Manari,
for three, four, five days.
The poachers are relentless,
destroying 99% of nests
on unguarded beaches.
Almost all the turtles
that are laying their eggs
in an unprotected beach
are having their nests
predated by humans.
For nearly 30 years,
Bomba and his family
have lived across from
the turtle nesting beach,
or Tabuleiro, they protect.
We know that if we didn't
do this type of monitoring,
the teenagers who
are growing up now,
they wouldn't see any of this.
Bomba was one of
the first beach guardians
and today he's a very
strong representative
of all of the beach protectors.
What motivates me to continue is
seeing dad taking
care of them every year.
He inspires me.
They work at night,
he and Joo Pedro.
When it's six in the morning
sometimes seven o'clock,
I go see what has come
out on the tabuleiro.
What Chica
finds is that their hard work
is paying off.
On protected beaches,
poaching rates drop to just 2%.
That to me
is the greatest joy I have.
Numbers have increased a lot.
Good morning,
Mister Bomba! All good?
Good morning!
All good, and you?
But unlike the fishermen,
beach guardians don't
profit from what they protect.
To keep the program going,
they need help.
A problem we face with
the protection of beaches
is that we still haven't
managed to get good pay
for the beach protectors.
Their payment
is a monthly food basket,
and only for the
months they work,
from nesting to hatching.
This is something that,
if we stop and think about,
it isn't enough even
for us to buy shoes,
let alone keep a home.
So they're fully
dependent on fundraising.
One of the goals we have
is precisely to raise resources
that allow this beach
protection program to extend
indefinitely.
I know that
if we leave this place,
poachers will
destroy everything.
So we fight for it.
The fight for a
healthy Amazon impacts us all.
The forests here alone
store so much carbon,
they help protect
the entire planet.
Every forest, every tree
has a, a role in that
because they remove CO2
from the atmosphere.
Angelo Bernardino
wants to know how much.
He heads to the
mouth of the river,
where the water that
started in the glaciers
empties into the Atlantic,
at the rate of 84
Olympic swimming pools
every second.
So, this should be fantastic!
Here, lives a
coastal forest unlike
anything they've ever seen.
This is a mixed mangrove forest,
so it's going to be really neat
to see what's going on in there.
Let's go!
Angelo's studying
the Amazon mangroves
for the first time.
I think mangroves here
in Brazil are such a, a,
an iconic place.
They're really important to
protect the coast and
as a life-supporting system.
Most mangroves
grow in salt or brackish water.
Not these.
We are right here at the ocean,
and we are
measuring the salinity,
and the salinity is zero,
it's freshwater.
Forcing these
mangroves to adapt.
This might be a very
unique forest on the coast of
the Amazon, we've
never seen this before.
There it is!
They're taking
samples to find out just
how much carbon is stored here.
What do you think?
I'd reckon it's about
400 years' worth of
sediment deposition here.
Nice.
What's really important, guys,
is to twist all the time,
so hopefully you get
your soil sample out.
Look at that.
That's beautiful.
We've got it.
We got our two-meter core.
But what's incredible is how
much carbon we can still see
even at two meters in depth.
You can even see old leaves
that are thousands of years old
that have been
preserved in the soils.
Amazon rainforests sequester
120 billion tons of carbon.
It turns out these
mangroves contain even more.
Amazon mangroves hold
three to four times more carbon
than the same area in the
Amazon upland forests.
We can use this natural
function of mangroves
in the Amazon River mouth
towards mitigation
of climate change.
They are sustaining life
by just being there,
by just being preserved.
The Amazon's global
impact doesn't stop here,
and neither does the Amazon.
The plume of fresh water and
sediment that pours from the
Amazon into the ocean
reaches as far as the
Caribbean Islands.
So you can actually detect the
freshwater of the Amazon
as far north as Puerto Rico.
All that freshwater
carries an infusion
of nutrients,
whose impact on the
marine ecosystem
is yet to be fully understood.
We are now in Tobago,
in the eastern Caribbean Sea.
Tom and Angelo
team up to see it first-hand.
Are we all ready?
A lot of the marine
life that we see here may be
directly dependent on the
food that is delivered by
the Amazon River plume.
And that
translates into a completely
different marine ecosystem.
Here, you have reefs that
are dominated by sponges.
Even like blue sponges.
I've never seen blue
sponges in my life.
The sponge is
actually uniquely responsible
for taking the riches
the Amazon River bestows on
the Caribbean and
transforming it into
compounds that all the other
species in the food web
can actually access as well.
We are only scratching
the surface in terms of
understanding the far reaches
of the Amazon River plume.
When it comes to the Amazon,
one thing is clear.
Everything is connected,
from sponges in the Caribbean,
all the way back to its
icy origin in the Andes.
We're good.
Okay, we've powered it up.
The battery's charging.
Awesome job.
This weather station is the, the
highest in Peru and the highest
in the tropical Andes.
And ultimately will
improve climate projections
into the future.
We're in a
position that we know that the
decisions we take in the next
decade or so will determine
what the face of
the Earth looks like
for thousands of years to come.
What we do in the next
few years really matters.
So everybody can
keep enjoying this beautiful,
amazing place that is
our home, no? Our planet.
Entonces estamos
Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia,
Colombia, Ecuador, India,
Nepal, y Venezuela.
Perfecto.
1, 2, 3.
River dolphins!
The answers about how to
conserve the Amazon,
how to best use natural
resources are here,
with these people,
in these places.
We're not going
to bring it here,
we're going to build it here.
Raise your arm
and says "it's so-and-so."
It's not only about science.
It's also about solutions.
Also about working with
local communities,
and also about hope.
Deep in the Amazon,
there's a place where
dolphins fly through trees.
I'm amazed about how
it's possible these animals,
these incredible creatures
are here in the jungle.
A place where
bears live in the clouds.
The Andean bear is like the
engineer of the cloud forest.
A place where
turtles have guardian angels.
It is a place that
has caught me in such a way that
I can't imagine it
will let me go.
And the trees,
they soak up 20 billion
tons of water every day
to create rivers in the sky.
That water is what
connects it all.
We're talking about the
largest river of the world.
It's not just water in rivers.
It's water in the glaciers,
in the atmosphere,
in the clouds.
The Amazon is
changing in real-time,
and there's so
much we don't know.
There are a lot of threats
here in the Amazon, but still,
there are some people trying
to make the difference.
In an unprecedented
two-year expedition,
National Geographic is bringing
together a passionate
group of scientists to
follow the water,
as they explore the magnificent
ecosystems within.
From the tops of the Andes,
across 4,000 miles,
to the Atlantic Ocean,
and beyond.
Science enables us to
see into the future.
To ensure
that it's still standing
for the next generation.
It matters what we do.
When you think of the Amazon,
these 20,000-foot peaks
may not come to mind,
but this is where it all begins.
We actually are in
the Amazon Basin.
We're right on the edge,
right on the eastern
side of the Andes.
This is an important
water tower.
The snow and ice
that you see here
eventually is going to make
its way down into the Amazon.
But the glaciers
here are disappearing,
and we don't know how quickly.
That's what National Geographic
Explorer Baker Perry
is here to find out.
I'm leading this expedition
to install a weather station
near the summit of Ausangate.
Having lived in
the Andes when he was younger,
this is a sort of
homecoming for Baker.
Just in my lifetime,
I've seen tremendous
changes happening in the Amazon
with ongoing deforestation.
And what we're trying
to understand is
how glaciers are responding.
We have a very, very limited
understanding of the weather
or climate at the tops of
these Andean mountains.
So Baker, Tom,
and their team of local
guides and experts
set out to tackle one
of the highest peaks
in the Amazon Basin.
These enormous
glaciers store water
for communities downstream.
As the climate's warming,
that kind of reliable source
of fresh water is in danger.
That water is
intricately tied to the water
cycling through all of Amazonia.
The water
molecules that fall as snow
on the Andean peaks are coming
from evaporation from these
mighty trees in the Amazon.
Flowing up through the trees,
it releases into the atmosphere.
Then it's going
to condense out, form a cloud.
And that cloud is gonna
be moved by the winds
into the Andes,
where it's going to
eventually fall as snow.
When one part is altered,
the entire system reacts.
If you cut
down trees in the rainforest,
the amount of snowfall
that occurs here drops.
A weather station
will provide insight
into how much these
glaciers are shrinking.
But first, they
need to get there.
Ausangate is
not an easy mountain.
It's a huge effort to get
weather equipment up to these elevations.
That's why it hasn't
really been done before.
Good luck up there.
Thank you.
The physical challenges on
these expeditions are real.
The hardest part of climbing is
the lack of oxygen.
It's about half past
two in the morning,
looking forward to sunrise in
about three and a half hours.
We have one little
section to go up here.
And then another fixed
line going up there.
If they succeed,
the data from atop
Ausangate will be invaluable
to the millions of
people who depend on it.
In the last 10 years,
water is decreasing every year,
every year is less,
less, less water.
For Quechuan biologist
Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya,
this loss is personal.
She grew up in the high Andes,
where the glacier has
always protected the people.
The glacier is a key
part of our culture.
As a child,
her grandmother would
tell stories about
a mythical bear.
This character
called the Ukuku is the
semi-god between a
bear and a human.
They go to the Ausangate
to carry blocks of ice to the
communities as a sign they're
going to have more water.
The Ukuku story
has played out for centuries
in the Qoyllur Rit'l festival.
My grandmother
used to tell me that the ice
was very nearby.
But now, with climate change,
the snow is far away.
They are not able to bring
this ice cube anymore.
Ukukus are more than a myth.
Ukuku means the Andean
bear in Quechuan, yeah.
For Ruth, the real
thing is just as mysterious.
We are trying to
understand the secret life
of the Andean bear.
A creature we know little about,
except that it's vital for
forests in the clouds
that sit below Ausangate.
Glaciers may be the water
tower for the Amazon Basin,
but Andean cloud forests
are the rain machine.
They act like a sponge,
soaking up moisture and
releasing it downstream.
I always liked to climb trees.
It's a different perspective
being in the canopy.
It's a different world,
completely different world.
Both the forest
and bears are threatened,
and they need each
other to thrive.
As voracious plant eaters,
bears spread seeds
wherever they go.
They are very
good tree climbers.
They spend most of their
time actually in the trees.
Camera traps will
track their movements to help
Ruth understand their
effect on the forest.
All good.
Let's see what the
camera trap captures.
The Andean bears
is very hard to study,
especially in this
kind of terrain.
In order to get
this information,
we need to also hike a lot.
It's time to check the cameras,
all 75 of them.
We leave these
camera traps for the whole year,
but we are doing the
monitoring every two months.
Oh, no bears.
While the
bears avoid the spotlight,
others aren't so shy.
- Is it a lone little fox?
- Yes.
What do you see?
A puma.
Oh wow, a big one!
To follow their trail,
Ruth brings along
her top tracker.
Ukuku!
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
As the bears are moving,
they are helping to disperse
many of these tree species.
They eat the seed
and they, they poo...
So this poo
has the seeds and has
the nutrients to, to grow.
This is vaccinium.
It is a wild blueberry.
And this is one of the
bears' favorite fruits.
The feces we just found
contained fruits of this kind.
We have a camera trap
10 meters from here.
Let's just hope
the camera worked.
Bear!
Bear, bear!
A little one!
When we see a bear like this,
we all are happy, very happy.
While the
cameras reveal bear behavior,
to really understand
how they move,
they need to get closer.
The first time
we capture our first bear,
I couldn't describe
the feeling I, I have.
I don't know, like my brother,
like my elder brother.
I feel like part of my family.
It's just incredible creature.
GPS collars
track their every move.
And for the first time, a
National Geographic Critter-Cam
goes on walkabout with
a bear named Sunchu.
We can see from
the perspective of the bear
how it's moving around.
We are following the journey
and we're learning a lot.
It turns out Sunchu,
and the other 40-plus
bears she's identified so far,
are covering a larger and
higher range than expected.
You see some clusters.
This means they spend
quite a lot of time in
this part of the forest.
Her findings are extraordinary.
As the climate warms
and the bears move higher,
they'll bring seeds with them,
helping forests regrow
at cooler elevations.
Now we are thinking how
the bears are gonna help
many of these tree species
adapt to the new environment.
They just
may be the key to ensuring
the cloud forest survives.
So it can keep the water moving
down the Andes and
into the headwaters,
where it begins to transform
into something recognizable.
It's not just one river.
You have thousands of
small rivers just flowing
to the big Amazon.
Making up 20% of the freshwater
for the entire planet.
The Amazon is the
heart of the planet,
and all these rivers are
the veins of this heart.
One magical
creature considers the
whole river system home.
Dolphins don't
recognize borders.
They basically move
free on the rivers.
So does Fernando Trujillo,
who moved to the
Colombian Amazon
to dedicate his life to them.
When I just came here,
it was difficult to
find the dolphins because
I didn't have a trained eye.
And this was full of life,
but I couldn't see the life.
So it took time until
I start to understand
a little bit the river.
After 35 years,
Fernando's vision is clear,
protect the animal keeping
the equilibrium of this system.
Dolphins are
the jaguars in the water.
They are the top predators.
They are able to move in
the main rivers, lakes,
flooded forests, everywhere.
That equilibrium
is under constant assault
and pink dolphin populations
are decreasing in
record numbers.
The deforestation is there,
there are burnings,
there are pollution.
And there's drought.
More than 100 dolphins
were found dead in a lake
in the Amazon over seven days.
The main suspicion is that
the deaths are related to
drought and the
high water temperature.
The Amazon saw its
worst drought on record in 2023.
Low water levels trap
more heat from the sun,
spiking temperatures.
For the first time, we have a
kind of phenomenon
where a lot of dolphins
were dying very quickly.
We lost 70 dolphins
in just one day.
Millions of fish have died.
Fernando's
working with local teams
to conserve these dolphins
any way they can.
By tagging them,
they hope to identify
feeding and nursing areas
and expand protections.
And who better than
them to show us?
Go, go, go, go!
- Go, go! Left.
- Left.
In the capture of
dolphins you have to move
faster than in fishing.
Because when you spread the net,
fish fall in it by themselves.
On the other hand, the
dolphin must be encircled
in order to capture it.
Now we captured three dolphins,
they are inside the big net.
On three,
understand? One, two, three.
One, two, three, up!
When I am near a dolphin,
I feel that my heart
is totally filled.
Like I have a purpose in life.
During a capture,
veterinarian
Mara Jimena Valderrama
monitors the dolphin's health.
Let's keep quiet.
This is a pregnant female.
Quiet please, everybody.
It's in some way invasive.
We are taking out of the
water an aquatic animal.
There we are taking its
heart rate and respiratory rate.
Breathe!
If I see that
the animal is too stressed,
I think it's always best
to release the animal.
Because the main thing
for us is its well-being.
This is a female, a big one,
two meters, 20.
It's already pregnant.
A dolphin can have one calf
every four or five years and
their pregnancy is 13 months.
So in a lifetime they,
they can have like
four or five calves.
So it's very important for
this animal to try to conserve.
Any animal, they count.
I'm in charge of taking
both blood and tissue samples.
We tag it quickly.
With anesthesia, we make sure
that the animal doesn't feel
any pain during
installation of the
satellite transmitter.
You, go there.
The tagging became a very
powerful tool to understand
what areas are
really important for
the conservation
of the dolphins.
Fernando's
finding that males have
large home ranges.
The males move away looking for
other groups of females.
But females
stay in areas where they
always have access to food.
This puts them in direct
conflict with humans.
Sometimes, the fishermen say,
look the dolphins
are stealing our fish.
They go to our nets and
take the fish from our nets.
These dolphins have learned
to associate fishing activities
with a free meal.
Marine biologist
and photographer
Thomas Peschak joins the
expedition near the Negro River
to get a look at this behavior
from the dolphins' perspective.
The direct conflict can
end with a dolphin death,
or it can damage the
net from fishermen.
But there's a possible solution.
The pingers
are acoustic deflectors,
it's a way to put
noise on the nets
to avoid the dolphins
approach the net.
Pingers have
worked in the ocean,
but they've never been
tested in the Amazon.
So we are testing here for the
first time with Mariana.
We are working with the
community inside Acajatuba Lake,
and we have two
fishermen supporting us
doing the pilot tests.
These give us some learning
about how dolphins are
motivated to catch
the fish in the net.
They perceive the sound,
and back away.
Right after that,
they try again.
They persist and get the fish.
The pingers likely
didn't work because the
dolphins in this lake
are used to people.
So testing continues.
I am hopeful
because if it works,
it's mutual benefit for
conservation and people.
Knowing how they behave,
knowing how they steal a fish,
might actually help better
employ these pingers to
deter these dolphins
from stealing fish.
As a National
Geographic photographer,
Thomas's ultimate goal
is to help create the will
to protect the Amazon
and all its creatures.
We need
beautiful pictures underwater
to connect the people
with the dolphins.
Diving with
these dolphins is truly magical.
There are individuals
that are incredibly shy.
There are individuals
that are bold.
And there are curious ones.
Every year,
during the rainy season,
an incredible phenomenon
occurs throughout the Amazon.
The rivers flood into
the surrounding forests,
up to 12 miles past
the riverbanks and
nearly 50 feet deep.
Everything has evolved
to follow that pulse,
it's like a heartbeat.
The forest, the animals,
the people that live here,
they're all living to the
pulse of flood and dry.
Including the dolphins.
Flexible flippers and
unfused vertebrae give them
seemingly magical powers.
They can literally
fly between the trees.
That's amazing.
They rely on these trees to feed
their fishy prey.
When the forest floods,
fish can access fruits
and seeds on the branches.
There is always
this connection between systems
that is very important to
maintaining biodiversity,
and things working
as they should.
But for how much longer?
When threats like deforestation
and warming temperatures
disrupt the Amazon's ability
to create its own rainfall,
the entire system reacts,
including the flood pulse.
If you change the availability
of water, just a little bit,
the ecosystem is
not used to that.
And it's gonna start
behaving differently.
How the trees
will react is a mystery
Thiago Silva and his
team head to Brazil's
flooded forests to solve.
We're here to
understand how trees can cope
with months and
months of flooding
and how climate change
could affect the future
of these wetland forests.
We don't know about the
physiological properties
of these trees.
So we don't know exactly
how they will cope.
They work in the dead of night,
collecting samples while
the plants are resting.
The idea is to get the
fully exposed branches
so where the sun is
illuminating all of these
branches during the day,
and then he has to climb
very high and to get these
very big branches
for us to sample.
So it's quite an adventure.
Julia is investigating traits,
like vessel size,
telling her how each tree
will respond to wetter
or drier conditions.
Thiago is using
cutting-edge technology
to map the bigger picture.
What fascinates
me about plants is how they
run this whole
mechanism of maintaining
the environment ecosystem,
while the animals,
most of the time they're
just the, the actors, right?
But the plants, they
really set the scene.
Now, for the first time,
Thiago's bringing that scene
to the rest of the world.
He's using LIDAR
to create a 3-D,
360-degree snapshot.
I like plants equipped
with technology.
This is a terrestrial
laser scanner.
It will send a beam
of lasers in a cone
all around this rotating head.
The idea here is to
overfly with the drone and
get the 3D model from
the top of the canopy.
One thing that we
expect to be able to do
is to have a virtual environment
where anyone can go
inside the forest.
And then see how
the water levels could rise,
and you can almost physically
experience what it means
to have 10 meters of
water flooding a forest.
Thiago and
Julia's findings will give
a glimpse into the future,
predicting which trees may not
survive and what that means
for the creatures
who depend on them.
I want to
understand enough of the system
to be able to prepare for
that the best we can.
And make sure that we
don't lose everything
that those forests
have to offer.
It's not
just the animals who rely
on these forests,
but 40 million people
throughout the Amazon.
The vast majority
of the population lives
just by the river.
They depend on the
rivers for transportation.
They depend on this
forest for the fish.
They depend on it
for the timber itself.
So everybody depends
on the Amazon to live.
And the people
who live in the middle of it
are the key to protecting it.
The river is our livelihood,
but I think that if we
didn't have the river,
a large part of
humanity wouldn't exist.
The fight to
save this river economy
drives another team of
Explorers deep into the Juru,
a tributary of the Amazon,
to work alongside
local communities.
We see this relationship
as complementary,
within that system,
because people don't
just live in the forest,
they are part of it.
The ultimate goal of our project
is to try to understand
how we can align
the protection of biodiversity
with people's well-being.
The team
collaborates with locals
to protect the
giant river turtle
and increase numbers
of arapaima,
known locally as pirarucu.
Both are important for
local food security,
but also have high
commercial value.
Uncontrolled exploitation
of this resource
ended up greatly
reducing populations.
For me, pirarucu is
an Amazonian superstar.
It's bigger than me.
It weighs more than me.
It's the largest freshwater
scaled fish in the world.
But by the late '90s,
it was nearly
fished to extinction.
So researchers and local
fishermen joined forces to
create a sustainable fishing
plan based on a quota system.
The protection
of aquatic environments,
in which you
protect the pirarucu,
is like keeping a bank account.
Joo and the
team have been helping to
implement that plan here
in the Juru for 15 years.
If it weren't for them,
maybe we wouldn't be
where we are now.
It's an
incredible success story.
The pirarucu population
has increased by 600%.
We usually call the
pirarucu the "fish of change"
because it has brought several
social and economic changes
to these communities.
Now, they're taking
that success one step further.
Using the GPS tag on Pirarucu,
it's a really challenging task
because it was
never done before.
It was only possible
because we worked together
with local fishermen.
So, they have this
historical knowledge
interacting with this species.
They are fundamental in
the process of understanding
the best spot to
place the device.
If it works,
real-time data tracking
their range may lead to
additional protection,
and ultimately, more fish.
If we increase our
authorized quota number,
we will have greater
income in the pockets
of each pirarucu handler.
Further down the Juru River,
Joo and Andressa join
forces with other locals
in their fight to protect one
of the Amazon's iconic species.
We monitor the beach at night,
with a flashlight and a gun.
I do six hours and my
son does six hours.
If we aren't there monitoring,
poachers will surely come.
Every year,
female turtles emerge
on the riverbanks to nest.
They go into a trance-like
state while laying eggs,
making everyone,
mom included, vulnerable.
Despite their protected status,
river turtles and their eggs
are a delicacy in high demand.
For a large turtle in Carauari,
they're asking for
400, 500 reais.
So they will watch me here
in Tabuleiro do Manari,
for three, four, five days.
The poachers are relentless,
destroying 99% of nests
on unguarded beaches.
Almost all the turtles
that are laying their eggs
in an unprotected beach
are having their nests
predated by humans.
For nearly 30 years,
Bomba and his family
have lived across from
the turtle nesting beach,
or Tabuleiro, they protect.
We know that if we didn't
do this type of monitoring,
the teenagers who
are growing up now,
they wouldn't see any of this.
Bomba was one of
the first beach guardians
and today he's a very
strong representative
of all of the beach protectors.
What motivates me to continue is
seeing dad taking
care of them every year.
He inspires me.
They work at night,
he and Joo Pedro.
When it's six in the morning
sometimes seven o'clock,
I go see what has come
out on the tabuleiro.
What Chica
finds is that their hard work
is paying off.
On protected beaches,
poaching rates drop to just 2%.
That to me
is the greatest joy I have.
Numbers have increased a lot.
Good morning,
Mister Bomba! All good?
Good morning!
All good, and you?
But unlike the fishermen,
beach guardians don't
profit from what they protect.
To keep the program going,
they need help.
A problem we face with
the protection of beaches
is that we still haven't
managed to get good pay
for the beach protectors.
Their payment
is a monthly food basket,
and only for the
months they work,
from nesting to hatching.
This is something that,
if we stop and think about,
it isn't enough even
for us to buy shoes,
let alone keep a home.
So they're fully
dependent on fundraising.
One of the goals we have
is precisely to raise resources
that allow this beach
protection program to extend
indefinitely.
I know that
if we leave this place,
poachers will
destroy everything.
So we fight for it.
The fight for a
healthy Amazon impacts us all.
The forests here alone
store so much carbon,
they help protect
the entire planet.
Every forest, every tree
has a, a role in that
because they remove CO2
from the atmosphere.
Angelo Bernardino
wants to know how much.
He heads to the
mouth of the river,
where the water that
started in the glaciers
empties into the Atlantic,
at the rate of 84
Olympic swimming pools
every second.
So, this should be fantastic!
Here, lives a
coastal forest unlike
anything they've ever seen.
This is a mixed mangrove forest,
so it's going to be really neat
to see what's going on in there.
Let's go!
Angelo's studying
the Amazon mangroves
for the first time.
I think mangroves here
in Brazil are such a, a,
an iconic place.
They're really important to
protect the coast and
as a life-supporting system.
Most mangroves
grow in salt or brackish water.
Not these.
We are right here at the ocean,
and we are
measuring the salinity,
and the salinity is zero,
it's freshwater.
Forcing these
mangroves to adapt.
This might be a very
unique forest on the coast of
the Amazon, we've
never seen this before.
There it is!
They're taking
samples to find out just
how much carbon is stored here.
What do you think?
I'd reckon it's about
400 years' worth of
sediment deposition here.
Nice.
What's really important, guys,
is to twist all the time,
so hopefully you get
your soil sample out.
Look at that.
That's beautiful.
We've got it.
We got our two-meter core.
But what's incredible is how
much carbon we can still see
even at two meters in depth.
You can even see old leaves
that are thousands of years old
that have been
preserved in the soils.
Amazon rainforests sequester
120 billion tons of carbon.
It turns out these
mangroves contain even more.
Amazon mangroves hold
three to four times more carbon
than the same area in the
Amazon upland forests.
We can use this natural
function of mangroves
in the Amazon River mouth
towards mitigation
of climate change.
They are sustaining life
by just being there,
by just being preserved.
The Amazon's global
impact doesn't stop here,
and neither does the Amazon.
The plume of fresh water and
sediment that pours from the
Amazon into the ocean
reaches as far as the
Caribbean Islands.
So you can actually detect the
freshwater of the Amazon
as far north as Puerto Rico.
All that freshwater
carries an infusion
of nutrients,
whose impact on the
marine ecosystem
is yet to be fully understood.
We are now in Tobago,
in the eastern Caribbean Sea.
Tom and Angelo
team up to see it first-hand.
Are we all ready?
A lot of the marine
life that we see here may be
directly dependent on the
food that is delivered by
the Amazon River plume.
And that
translates into a completely
different marine ecosystem.
Here, you have reefs that
are dominated by sponges.
Even like blue sponges.
I've never seen blue
sponges in my life.
The sponge is
actually uniquely responsible
for taking the riches
the Amazon River bestows on
the Caribbean and
transforming it into
compounds that all the other
species in the food web
can actually access as well.
We are only scratching
the surface in terms of
understanding the far reaches
of the Amazon River plume.
When it comes to the Amazon,
one thing is clear.
Everything is connected,
from sponges in the Caribbean,
all the way back to its
icy origin in the Andes.
We're good.
Okay, we've powered it up.
The battery's charging.
Awesome job.
This weather station is the, the
highest in Peru and the highest
in the tropical Andes.
And ultimately will
improve climate projections
into the future.
We're in a
position that we know that the
decisions we take in the next
decade or so will determine
what the face of
the Earth looks like
for thousands of years to come.
What we do in the next
few years really matters.
So everybody can
keep enjoying this beautiful,
amazing place that is
our home, no? Our planet.
Entonces estamos
Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia,
Colombia, Ecuador, India,
Nepal, y Venezuela.
Perfecto.
1, 2, 3.
River dolphins!
The answers about how to
conserve the Amazon,
how to best use natural
resources are here,
with these people,
in these places.
We're not going
to bring it here,
we're going to build it here.
Raise your arm
and says "it's so-and-so."
It's not only about science.
It's also about solutions.
Also about working with
local communities,
and also about hope.