Amazon with Bruce Parry (2008) s01e05 Episode Script
Part 5
This pit here is in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest and right now, I'm looking for gold.
This phase of my journey is all about searching for the riches of the Amazon.
My quest takes me to some dangerous places.
I'm not too sure what to expect so far, but the phrase Wild West comes to mind.
I live and work in one of the largest illegal gold mines in Brazil.
Somewhere in there is three days' worth of pay.
Ah, thank you, thank you.
I go deep underground.
Wow, how exciting! And I climb high up into the trees.
Really is without doubt the best view of the forest I have ever, ever had.
It's here that I learn the true value of the largest rainforest on earth.
It's been nearly six months since I started my Amazon odyssey high up in the Peruvian Andes.
But myself and the river still have over a thousand miles to go downstream before we reach ourjourney's end at the Atlantic coast.
I've been lucky enough to live with all sorts of people on my journey so far, but this next phase is gonna take me into a completely different world.
And there is my guide for the next phase of my journey.
I'm going into town, cold caiperinias, big parties, the whole works, I can't wait.
Nice to meet you, Bruce.
Well, well, well, I've heard a lot about you.
Oh, thanks.
It's such a pleasure to have you here, man.
Really.
Tony Netto is very different from the remote tribes, farmers and fishermen I've met so far on my journey.
With a personal fortune of more than a million pounds, he's one of a new breed of Amazonian entrepreneurs.
Even though we're still a long way from the Atlantic ocean, the Amazon river is up to 15 miles wide here.
As it gets bigger, so do the towns along its banks.
And this is Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon basin.
A thousand miles upriver and surrounded by rainforest, Manaus grew and prospered as the centre of the Amazon's rubber boom.
In the late 19th century, it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world.
Grand buildings like this opera house were built with the profits of the rubber trade.
Today, the Brazilian government is giving tax breaks to high-tech industries and businessmen like Tony are reaping the benefits.
Tony's factory makes fire extinguishers.
Others produce computers, motorbikes, electrical goods.
Manaus is booming once again.
Cities don't always excite me, but I love the look of where I'm going to be staying.
I've been travelling now for almost six months and this is one of the few chances I've had for a night out.
And Tony makes sure I enjoy it.
I'm going with Tony to meet his family and friends.
- So this is the opera house.
- Wow! The most famous building here? Yeah, one of the most famous in Brazil also.
In the early 20th century, Manaus was the sole supplier of rubber and one of the world's most important cities.
These streets were some of the first to be lit by electricity.
Today, because of the manufacturing boom, Manaus is still the wealthiest city in the Amazon.
Tony's family live a sophisticated lifestyle, but his mother insists the influence of the rainforest is always there.
It's magic, I think.
We are so lucky to have this here.
It's calm, it's quiet, the people are so warm, and I think that makes the difference, it's why we are the way we are, because of the nature.
- You're in touch with the natural world? - The influence is so strong.
- Energy, the nature that we have.
- The influences.
Something so natural that we feel nice, every single day, every single time, you know.
- Wow.
- Really.
Could you live anywhere else? No, I'm gonna die here.
The most interesting thing for me, and in a way surprising actually, is just, from the few people I've met so far, the intense love of Manaus, they're so proud and they really want to talk about it and they really love it so much and it's not just the city, but it's the fact that they're in the Amazon.
It keeps coming across in every conversation.
It's that, we're here, and we're surrounded by this beautiful forest and we care about it and that as a sentiment is something that is really nice.
Not everyone in the Amazon has the same attitude towards the forest.
The next stage of my journey will bring me face to face with people involved in its destruction.
I'm leaving the river and heading south.
I'm flying to an area of the Amazon basin that's being cut down at a rapid rate.
It's not long before I see one of the main causes of this deforestation.
Beneath me is the Transamazonica Highway, developed and built in the late '60s, early '70s, with the express intention of opening up the Amazon for development and exploitation.
The Transamazonica runs 5,000 miles from east to west across Brazil.
It was the first of a network of roads intended to bring development to the southern Amazon basin, but it had a completely different effect.
80% of all deforestation in the Amazon is within 30 kilometres, just 30 kilometres, of an official road.
One fifth of the rainforest has already been cut down.
Most has been turned into cattle ranches, like this.
But farming isn't the only way people have tried to make their fortune in this part of the Amazon.
When the Portuguese and Spanish first came to the Amazon in 1500, they were looking for gold, El Dorado.
They didn't find it at all, but in actual fact they were wrong.
There was gold here all along, and it's only actually when you have roads like this put in, that you've been able to access many of those areas previously undiscovered because of the lack of getting there by water routes.
Today, the high price of the metal is fuelling an Amazonian gold rush.
I want to meet the people who dream of striking it rich in the rainforest and see how much destruction they're leaving in their wake.
After a couple of hours of driving down the Transamazonica, with bare fields either side, finally now we've turned off, and this is a bespoke road that goes straight to the mine but the most interesting and instantly obvious thing to me is that the forest is right up to the edge of the road.
It's just a short ride across river to one of the largest illegal gold mines in the Amazon.
I'm not too sure what to expect so far, but the phrase Wild West comes to mind.
Obrigados.
It's quite a spooky time to arrive, it being dusk.
All I can make out is just lamps, tarpaulins, filth and litter, incessant sound of a thudding generator.
And what feels like lots of people living on top of each other.
The 3,000 or so people in the mining camp don't have permission to be here.
And the place has a bad reputation of prostitution, guns and murder.
With its muddy streets and dodgy bars, it feels like I'm walking into a Hollywood Western.
It's not long before I get my first look at what's drawn everyone to this corner of the rainforest.
Check this out.
These scales here.
You come along, sprinkle a bit of your gold dust, so to speak, and that's the currency, or currency at least in this particular store.
There's only one hotel in town.
I've been told it doubles as a brothel.
Oh, they've got rooms.
It's the only hotel, if you can call it that, in the area, which is great.
And they have rooms, which is cool.
It's also the localden of iniquity.
I'm trying to think of the word.
Judging by how thin these walls are, I don't anticipate getting much sleep.
The night passes peacefully.
It seems I was misinformed.
It's not a brothel after all.
I really want to see the mine, and my landlady Hussia takes me there.
- Oh, my God, wow! - Look at that.
This is Grota Rica, the rich grotto.
As you can see, it's just this huge expanse of of destruction really, as Apparently at one stage, this height where I'm stood now was exactly the same height as the rest of this terrain, but it's all been excavated by individuals who are here for all sorts of different reasons.
Amazing to think that, not that long ago, this was just a tiny little creek surrounded by woodland, kind of in the middle of nowhere.
The story of the beginning of the mine is a local legend.
Two years ago, men found gold here and swore a pact of secrecy.
But one of them got drunk in town and boasted of their find.
Within days, the forest was swarming with thousands of people.
Though it's the worst environmental damage I've seen in the Amazon, I want to get to know the people here to find out what their lives are like.
My landlady, Hussia, has been here since the height of the gold rush.
I want to meet the people at the heart of this place, the miners.
Most of the gold found here is found by teams like this one.
Wow, finally.
My first real sighting of the guys at work.
90% of this excavation of all the area that we've seen has been done by high-powered water hose.
And because it's all alluvial soils, it's very loose clays and muds, it just washes away, and no doubt it will end up in the local river.
My translator, Dudu, used to be a gold miner, and knows how this place operates.
How do they know where to go and do the exploration next? There's no seismologists, geologists, geophysicists They found gold in one spot, then they go digging around just trying to find it.
- Just looking for it and that, that's it.
- Completely random? Yes, they just go in and dig a hole.
There's no real technology here.
It's faith and desire.
Yes, yes.
Wow.
Generators draw water from a nearby stream for hoses.
Muddy water is then pumped up to these wooden cascades.
The heavy gold settles on a mesh carpet while mud and stones are washed away.
Each team has a boss who pays for the generator, and therefore gets a majority share of the gold.
There's only one thing to do to get to know these men a little bit better.
Would it be possible for me to help out as well sometime, do you think? Si, si, si.
OK, I think I've just got myself a job.
Brilliant.
The next morning, I get to the mine just as the sun is rising.
All the generators are beginning to spark up, and what was for a second, a brief second, a nice tranquil moment, is gonna be another day of thunderous noise, as all of these generators, not only here, but back in the village, pump out their volume.
I've been six months travelling and I've hardly done a day's work.
I'm really quite excited, actually, about doing something physical.
I just hope I'm up to the challenge.
I start work under the watchful eye of the boss, Caverna.
They certainly started me off with the easy job.
I'm just filtering out all the big stones so they don't all go into the pipe and clog the engine.
A few hours later, I move up a grade.
I'm weakening the earth for the hose man.
This is monotonous, hard work in the searing heat.
Everyone takes a quick break for coffee.
Ahh.
Muito obrigado.
Perfecto.
If ever there's an incentive to doing some manual labour, it's looking for gold, isn't it? Come on, let's face it.
The hose looks like the hardest job, but the most fun, too.
The guys say I can have a go.
Somewhere in all this slurry we're hoping there are tiny little grains or if we're really lucky, maybe even nuggets of gold.
If I was to let go of this it would go all over the place, just like in the cartoons.
I can feel the weight, like pushing me back.
That shows you the strength of the hose.
You've gotta really lean into it like that, and then push.
If you look closely, there's little gold pebbles everywhere.
And when I first started I thought I was going mad, but it's just a gold coloured stone, innit? It's not metal at all.
I'm gutted.
There's gold in them there hills, but I ain't seen none yet.
As well as taking care of the pump, the boss feeds his team, too.
When he arrives with lunch, it's time to freshen up.
Such a great team.
I mean, with all that racket going on down there, it's hardly possible to even have any communication at all.
So I'm looking forward to a beer tonight and I can have a proper chat.
The boss, Caverna, reckons there's a lot more wealth buried beneath the rainforest.
We get back to work.
Despite the noise, I'm starting to make friends with Gugu, one of the most experienced miners, and Janis, the newest member of the team.
It rains for most of the afternoon, but this doesn't stop our hunt for gold.
After 12 hours'hard graft, Caverna tells us to give the pit a final hose down.
It's all really about this - this is where the action really is going on because all the time they're hosing down, all the particles are being held in the water, being sucked up by the big pump.
Most of it is enticed down this shallow gradient where they get caught in this mesh, and beneath it, a fine carpet and that, hopefully, because the gold is the heaviest thing of all, is where it will stay.
Every few days, the carpets are cleaned and the gold collected and shared out.
Today is pay day.
And this is the residue.
Somewhere in there is three days' worth of pay for everybody.
These granules of gold will be shared out among the team.
Caverna's taking all the financial risk, so he gets the biggest cut.
Five grams is Six grams each.
Each miner earns about £70 for the three day's work.
This is much more than they'd get in a factory or on a cattle ranch.
But it's not the regular wage that's keeping them here.
So would you class yourselves as gamblers, as gambling personalities? If you weren't here doing this, what would you be doing? A lot of money is being made here but a lot is being spent, too.
Grota Rica is full of temptation.
Gugu's been a miner for years, but he seems a bit tired of the lifestyle.
My landlady Hussia is more than just a hotel owner.
Where you taking me now, Hussia? What's down here? For a small fee, she'll pump clean, chlorinated water to your house.
She's sunk a lot of money into this community.
She's not just here to get rich quick, she wants the place to prosper.
But the mine is still illegal.
The army could come in and close it down at any time.
So she's taking a big risk investing here.
There you go, job done.
And you're much stronger than me.
General repairs of their water, waterworks of the village with Hussia.
And now we have a happy customer who's gonna have fresh drinking water and maybe even a shower this evening.
Fantastic, cool.
The mining has devastated a big area of forest.
But all the slurry from the hoses must be having a wider impact.
The river water is naturally black in colour, darkened by organic material from the forest.
But just downstream of Grota Rica, it's very different.
Already, this merging has substantially changed the colouration.
It just means that this otherwise clear river is now, look here full of silt.
Oh, my God, there's so much more than I thought.
Adding silt to a river can fundamentally change the ecosystem, killing many species.
There may well be other chemical pollution from the mine too.
I've spent my whole time just looking at the destruction of a small area of land and really this mine is tiny compared to some of the huge mines that you find in and around the world and in Amazonia, but the biggest destruction is not the loss of trees and the scarring of the landscape, but it's the rivers.
It just completely changes the landscape overnight.
Caverna's mining team normally works seven days a week.
But if they get any time off, they get as far away from the mine as possible.
The boys here have got the afternoon off so their normal ritual is to go out to this beautiful waterfall that they all go and have a good scrub for the week.
And they've kindly allowed me to join them.
It's so beautiful here on a great day out.
And just to think, three years ago, the mine was exactly like this.
My aim throughout my whole journey is not to come here with with issues or crosses to bear, it's just to listen to the stories of people like you.
But I do know that some environmentalists might have some negative things to say about mining.
What would you say to those people? The noise of the town's generators is being drowned out by an unfamiliar sound.
When I first saw this, I thought all the houses were on fire, but it's just a fumigation service provided by the association to kill all the bugs, especially the mosquitoes, who provides us with this spectacle every night.
The miners hope that by forming an association and tackling problems like malaria, the Government won't close Grota Rica down.
Hussia's waiting for one of her daughters to arrive at the mine.
10-year-old Sasha lives with friends in Apui, a town three hours'drive away, and Hussia hasn't seen her for three months.
While she waits, she casually fixes one of the river taxi's engines.
Her daughter should have been here hours ago.
Something must have held her up.
As the night draws in, she gets more and more worried.
Sasha and her sisters spend most of their time in Apui, many miles away from their mother.
Everyone I've met in Grota Rica has been a risk taker, but I'm about to meet some men who could be the biggest gamblers of all.
The main mine is back there, behind me, and this is the biggest hill in the area that's overlooking it.
Somewhere underneath this land mass, this hill, is where the source of all of the gold that's trickled down into that area has come from.
There's a group of miners who believe there's gold beneath this hill.
Not just the odd gram, but tons of it.
And to get it, they're digging deep underground.
This is Milton, the lead miner, and his business partners Hoosevelt and Feliciano.
And this is their tunnel.
How much longer do you think you'll be before you find the jackpot? They've been here six months and have dug a horizontal tunnel 60 metres into the side of the hill.
They live apart from the rest of the mine in a shack in front of the entrance.
This is a much more skilled operation than the open-pit mining.
This is the work of a professional.
This place looks so well organised.
You're obviously all very expert.
What's your own personal experiences of mining? The tunnel looks well built and they say it's safe, so I decide to join Milton on his next run.
There's not a lot of oxygen at the gold face, so it's only Milton and myself going in.
But I've said that I will bring the barrow out and that's the custom.
Anyone who goes to the front must bring a barrow load of detritus out with them, so that's what I'll be doing.
Luckily, I'm very short.
You and me, baby, let's go.
Yah! Thank you, my friends.
See you very soon.
Woo! Here we go.
Oh, that's goodbye to the camera.
- Bye-bye, Keith.
- Bye, Bruce.
Good luck! Thank you, mate.
And I'm gonna have to switch to night vision.
Oh, look at that.
Wow.
How exciting.
I know there's a plank in the middle.
And it's a bit muddy and wet and I'm really bent over.
Wow.
This really is troglodyte realm now, Jesus! Now If you look at the sides here, they're quite well-shaped, and then the occasional board.
I've done caving before, but that's completely different, cos of course it's all stone.
You really have the threat of, umany collapse.
You just point that at me.
You can feel very slightly the lack of oxygen, but only slightly.
Oh, fuck.
Don't want to be knocking them down too often.
The hardest bit is coming out Oh, this isn't so bad.
It's a good job I do, pretty much.
I'm so grateful for being small.
Whether it's the flight on the way out or whether it's running through the jungle or even being cool in the desert or even being a troglodyte underground, being short, it's just got all the advantages.
Imagine all the sweat, blood, tears and toil that have gone into this extraordinary tunnel with no real knowledge of what's at the end.
A lot of hope, but no assurances, for six months.
My Lord, I really hope they get what they're looking for.
Ah, here we are.
Ah, thank you, thank you.
I don't know why these guys Well, they're so lovely that they're pleased for me but I dug that much and they've dug 60 metres.
Muito obrigado, boss, obrigado.
It's so nice just hanging out with my new chums.
We're about to have dinner, but first we're gonna have grace.
Milton and his friends are taking a big gamble with this tunnel.
I get the feeling they have faith in more than just their mining skills.
It's not just their faith that sets them aside from the miners on the other side of the hill.
I hope their gamble pays off and they at least get something for so much time and effort.
Hussia is full of surprises.
I've found out that she's prospecting for gold in a location far away from the main mine.
She's already found a bit of gold here, but her machines keep breaking down and she's losing money.
So when this is going chug chug, you're happy? For now, she's still in the mining business, but only just.
Her dream of getting rich quick is starting to fade.
One thing is for sure, and that is that Hussia is an extraordinary woman.
She's a hotelier, she's a waterworks entrepreneur and she's even a gold prospector.
Not just mining, like everyone else, but out finding new turf.
She certainly is an incredibly charismatic and courageous lady.
But also a big risk taker because she's sunk a lot of money into this place and she knows that it's still not legal here and it could all be taken away tomorrow and she would not have a leg to stand on.
And she's got a family, she's got nine children and a husband.
They're relying on her and she's taking big risks.
Everyone works hard all week, but on Saturday night they let their hair down.
Hussia is getting ready for a night out.
Hussia's got an appointment to keep before she hits the nightclub.
She's throwing a party for a pregnant friend.
I never expected so many mothers and babies to be living in an illegal gold mine.
There's the beginnings of a community here, with Hussia at its heart.
If there's one thing I've learnt about Brazilians, they love to dance.
But despite the fun and the laughter, there is a bit of an edge here.
The mix of drink, guns and gold is a dangerous one.
It's almost time for me to leave the gold mine.
But before I go, there's one last person I want to meet.
Someone told me that one of the first three, the original finders, is still here, and apparently this is his place.
Ever since I arrived, people have told me how the man who first found gold here was let down by his friend who got drunk, opened his mouth, and started a gold rush.
Hey, nice to meet you.
This is Mariano, the prospector who found gold in the rainforest, but then saw it slip through his fingers.
Before the mine was overrun, Mariano found four kilograms of gold.
That's £50,000 worth, a lifetime's wage for most Brazilians.
But he squandered it as others got rich around him.
Everyone I've met is dreaming of such a find.
But does gold make you happy? Mariano tells me he wishes he'd never set eyes on this place.
He may have found riches in the rainforest, but he didn't find happiness.
The mine is buzzing with some shocking news.
Did you see it? Do you know where it happened? Were you aware of it quite early on? A miner was shot and almost killed in a dispute over ten grams of gold.
He was taken across the river and driven to the hospital in Apui.
Everyone says that it's very rare, it doesn't ever happen.
But when you turn the camera off and chat with them, they say, ''Oh, well.
These sorts of things do happen occasionally.
'' So it's quite telling, really.
It's a reminder of how lawless this place can be.
To be honest, I'm glad it's nearly time for me and the crew to move on.
I've been lucky with the people I've met here.
Hussia has the kind of get-up-and-go that would be applauded and rewarded at home.
But here she's an outlaw trying to make a living in the jungle with only her dreams to keep her going.
So much of what's going on here is just about people trying to make their lives better, which we all do, all over the world.
And it will continue to happen here so long as substances like gold are worth what they're worth.
Until we've put our value in other things, this is gonna be the end result.
Ciao, ciao! Si, successo.
I fly back north across an endless sea of green.
I've been in the Amazon for many months.
I've seen the forest being cut down for oil, timber and now gold.
Is there another way to make money from the Amazon, one which might protect it, not destroy it? I'm hoping the people I'm about to meet can answer this very question.
30 miles north of Manaus, this scientific reserve is one of the most studied areas in the whole of the Amazon basin.
These scientists from the National Institute for Amazon Research are trying to value the rainforest in a revolutionary way.
Bruce, I'd like to introduce you to our collaborators, researchers.
Dr Antonio Manzi is one of the leaders of a thousand-strong team of scientists.
Even though I've been travelling six months, really, you guys are the first people that I've met that can give me a slightly bigger view of what the Amazon is worth.
Recent research estimates that a quarter of all living species are found in the Amazon.
The forest produces a fifth of the Earth's oxygen, and has a huge influence on global climate.
However, no-one has yet put a dollar value on all this.
But global warming is forcing us to consider the cost of something else, carbon dioxide.
Burning the forest releases CO2, but living trees absorb it.
The Amazon rainforest could play a crucial role in the fight against climate change, if only we valued it properly.
Alessandro Araujo samples levels of carbon dioxide in the forest.
We are going to sample the air at a flow rate of about one litre per minute.
Because the air is not as clean as we want, we are going to use a filter to avoid insects or micro things to get into the tube.
- OK.
- Just get close and blow.
OK.
- Oh, my God! - Bruce, you destroyed my machine! I did, look at that.
My God.
Check that.
The CO2 in my breath sends the reading off the scale.
To show me how much CO2 is being taken in by the forest, Alessandro is going to rig his sampling equipment high up in the canopy.
Now this is the place to be.
It really is without doubt the best view of the forest I have ever, ever had.
I'm touching the tree, I'm at the top of the canopy, I can see everything and I really feel part of it.
Wow.
Wow! That's proper vertigo stuff.
I am thoroughly high.
I'll take up the slack now, yeah? From a special tree hammock, I haul up the gear.
This is great fun, Alessandro.
I'm really enjoying it.
I'm happy to hear it.
All for science.
I knew there was a scientist inside of your soul.
I rig the CO2 sampling tube as high as I can.
We're now ready to take our first reading.
Plugged in now.
And it's so sensitive.
- It is.
- You can see me doing my manoeuvring.
I also saw your breath.
Did you! I did that on purpose.
- Just a little gift.
It's like a kiss.
- Oh, Bruce! You're terrible.
Alessandro needs to compare carbon dioxide readings taken during the day and the night.
We're going to be sleeping 120 foot up, high in the canopy.
Ah, bring on the night.
This is gonna be a super, super evening.
It feels really different at night, doesn't it? - Have you looked over the edge? - No, I didn't.
Don't look over the edge.
Believe me, don't look over the edge.
During the day, trees absorb CO2.
But photosynthesis stops at night and CO2 levels rise.
The difference between day and night is how much CO2 the rainforest is taking out of the atmosphere.
It's so beautiful up here.
It's just really still and quiet.
I managed to grab a few hours'sleep.
In the morning, we take our last reading before we head down.
What a great time I've had up here.
Amazing.
CO2 sampling like this has shown that the Amazon rainforest is taking in up to 600 million tons of carbon every year, as much as the European Union releases by burning fossil fuels.
But the Amazon isn't just absorbing carbon.
It's continually storing it too.
And this could be worth billions of dollars to the people who live here.
When the forest burns, CO2 is released into the atmosphere.
Paying the Brazilian Government to protect it could be a quick and easy way of fighting climate change.
Good luck with saving it, for all of our sakes.
More than $ 100 billion have already been traded on a global carbon market.
Governments, businesses and individuals are starting to offset the carbon they produce by paying for the protection of forest.
The Amazon is potentially worth much more alive than dead.
The scientists have been some of the most important people I've met so far on my journey.
They've given me a glimpse of the big picture of how much the rainforest is worth to us all.
I've had so many different perspectives on the Amazon since my journey started, each one completely different.
I've met some extraordinary people.
And as my journey continues towards the coast, the river's getting bigger and the issues are certainly getting bigger.
I've still got 1,000 miles to go, a lot of people to meet, and so much more to learn.
But there's one thing I now know for certain.
The true value of the Amazon is in keeping the forest alive and not cutting it down.
Next time, my expedition takes me to the front line of the battle for the Amazon.
Tensions are running high and already blood has been spilt.
I meet cowboys and see the destruction of the forest.
And I live with the Indians fighting to protect it.
If you wanna know more, visit our website, bbc.
co.
uk/amazon
This phase of my journey is all about searching for the riches of the Amazon.
My quest takes me to some dangerous places.
I'm not too sure what to expect so far, but the phrase Wild West comes to mind.
I live and work in one of the largest illegal gold mines in Brazil.
Somewhere in there is three days' worth of pay.
Ah, thank you, thank you.
I go deep underground.
Wow, how exciting! And I climb high up into the trees.
Really is without doubt the best view of the forest I have ever, ever had.
It's here that I learn the true value of the largest rainforest on earth.
It's been nearly six months since I started my Amazon odyssey high up in the Peruvian Andes.
But myself and the river still have over a thousand miles to go downstream before we reach ourjourney's end at the Atlantic coast.
I've been lucky enough to live with all sorts of people on my journey so far, but this next phase is gonna take me into a completely different world.
And there is my guide for the next phase of my journey.
I'm going into town, cold caiperinias, big parties, the whole works, I can't wait.
Nice to meet you, Bruce.
Well, well, well, I've heard a lot about you.
Oh, thanks.
It's such a pleasure to have you here, man.
Really.
Tony Netto is very different from the remote tribes, farmers and fishermen I've met so far on my journey.
With a personal fortune of more than a million pounds, he's one of a new breed of Amazonian entrepreneurs.
Even though we're still a long way from the Atlantic ocean, the Amazon river is up to 15 miles wide here.
As it gets bigger, so do the towns along its banks.
And this is Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon basin.
A thousand miles upriver and surrounded by rainforest, Manaus grew and prospered as the centre of the Amazon's rubber boom.
In the late 19th century, it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world.
Grand buildings like this opera house were built with the profits of the rubber trade.
Today, the Brazilian government is giving tax breaks to high-tech industries and businessmen like Tony are reaping the benefits.
Tony's factory makes fire extinguishers.
Others produce computers, motorbikes, electrical goods.
Manaus is booming once again.
Cities don't always excite me, but I love the look of where I'm going to be staying.
I've been travelling now for almost six months and this is one of the few chances I've had for a night out.
And Tony makes sure I enjoy it.
I'm going with Tony to meet his family and friends.
- So this is the opera house.
- Wow! The most famous building here? Yeah, one of the most famous in Brazil also.
In the early 20th century, Manaus was the sole supplier of rubber and one of the world's most important cities.
These streets were some of the first to be lit by electricity.
Today, because of the manufacturing boom, Manaus is still the wealthiest city in the Amazon.
Tony's family live a sophisticated lifestyle, but his mother insists the influence of the rainforest is always there.
It's magic, I think.
We are so lucky to have this here.
It's calm, it's quiet, the people are so warm, and I think that makes the difference, it's why we are the way we are, because of the nature.
- You're in touch with the natural world? - The influence is so strong.
- Energy, the nature that we have.
- The influences.
Something so natural that we feel nice, every single day, every single time, you know.
- Wow.
- Really.
Could you live anywhere else? No, I'm gonna die here.
The most interesting thing for me, and in a way surprising actually, is just, from the few people I've met so far, the intense love of Manaus, they're so proud and they really want to talk about it and they really love it so much and it's not just the city, but it's the fact that they're in the Amazon.
It keeps coming across in every conversation.
It's that, we're here, and we're surrounded by this beautiful forest and we care about it and that as a sentiment is something that is really nice.
Not everyone in the Amazon has the same attitude towards the forest.
The next stage of my journey will bring me face to face with people involved in its destruction.
I'm leaving the river and heading south.
I'm flying to an area of the Amazon basin that's being cut down at a rapid rate.
It's not long before I see one of the main causes of this deforestation.
Beneath me is the Transamazonica Highway, developed and built in the late '60s, early '70s, with the express intention of opening up the Amazon for development and exploitation.
The Transamazonica runs 5,000 miles from east to west across Brazil.
It was the first of a network of roads intended to bring development to the southern Amazon basin, but it had a completely different effect.
80% of all deforestation in the Amazon is within 30 kilometres, just 30 kilometres, of an official road.
One fifth of the rainforest has already been cut down.
Most has been turned into cattle ranches, like this.
But farming isn't the only way people have tried to make their fortune in this part of the Amazon.
When the Portuguese and Spanish first came to the Amazon in 1500, they were looking for gold, El Dorado.
They didn't find it at all, but in actual fact they were wrong.
There was gold here all along, and it's only actually when you have roads like this put in, that you've been able to access many of those areas previously undiscovered because of the lack of getting there by water routes.
Today, the high price of the metal is fuelling an Amazonian gold rush.
I want to meet the people who dream of striking it rich in the rainforest and see how much destruction they're leaving in their wake.
After a couple of hours of driving down the Transamazonica, with bare fields either side, finally now we've turned off, and this is a bespoke road that goes straight to the mine but the most interesting and instantly obvious thing to me is that the forest is right up to the edge of the road.
It's just a short ride across river to one of the largest illegal gold mines in the Amazon.
I'm not too sure what to expect so far, but the phrase Wild West comes to mind.
Obrigados.
It's quite a spooky time to arrive, it being dusk.
All I can make out is just lamps, tarpaulins, filth and litter, incessant sound of a thudding generator.
And what feels like lots of people living on top of each other.
The 3,000 or so people in the mining camp don't have permission to be here.
And the place has a bad reputation of prostitution, guns and murder.
With its muddy streets and dodgy bars, it feels like I'm walking into a Hollywood Western.
It's not long before I get my first look at what's drawn everyone to this corner of the rainforest.
Check this out.
These scales here.
You come along, sprinkle a bit of your gold dust, so to speak, and that's the currency, or currency at least in this particular store.
There's only one hotel in town.
I've been told it doubles as a brothel.
Oh, they've got rooms.
It's the only hotel, if you can call it that, in the area, which is great.
And they have rooms, which is cool.
It's also the localden of iniquity.
I'm trying to think of the word.
Judging by how thin these walls are, I don't anticipate getting much sleep.
The night passes peacefully.
It seems I was misinformed.
It's not a brothel after all.
I really want to see the mine, and my landlady Hussia takes me there.
- Oh, my God, wow! - Look at that.
This is Grota Rica, the rich grotto.
As you can see, it's just this huge expanse of of destruction really, as Apparently at one stage, this height where I'm stood now was exactly the same height as the rest of this terrain, but it's all been excavated by individuals who are here for all sorts of different reasons.
Amazing to think that, not that long ago, this was just a tiny little creek surrounded by woodland, kind of in the middle of nowhere.
The story of the beginning of the mine is a local legend.
Two years ago, men found gold here and swore a pact of secrecy.
But one of them got drunk in town and boasted of their find.
Within days, the forest was swarming with thousands of people.
Though it's the worst environmental damage I've seen in the Amazon, I want to get to know the people here to find out what their lives are like.
My landlady, Hussia, has been here since the height of the gold rush.
I want to meet the people at the heart of this place, the miners.
Most of the gold found here is found by teams like this one.
Wow, finally.
My first real sighting of the guys at work.
90% of this excavation of all the area that we've seen has been done by high-powered water hose.
And because it's all alluvial soils, it's very loose clays and muds, it just washes away, and no doubt it will end up in the local river.
My translator, Dudu, used to be a gold miner, and knows how this place operates.
How do they know where to go and do the exploration next? There's no seismologists, geologists, geophysicists They found gold in one spot, then they go digging around just trying to find it.
- Just looking for it and that, that's it.
- Completely random? Yes, they just go in and dig a hole.
There's no real technology here.
It's faith and desire.
Yes, yes.
Wow.
Generators draw water from a nearby stream for hoses.
Muddy water is then pumped up to these wooden cascades.
The heavy gold settles on a mesh carpet while mud and stones are washed away.
Each team has a boss who pays for the generator, and therefore gets a majority share of the gold.
There's only one thing to do to get to know these men a little bit better.
Would it be possible for me to help out as well sometime, do you think? Si, si, si.
OK, I think I've just got myself a job.
Brilliant.
The next morning, I get to the mine just as the sun is rising.
All the generators are beginning to spark up, and what was for a second, a brief second, a nice tranquil moment, is gonna be another day of thunderous noise, as all of these generators, not only here, but back in the village, pump out their volume.
I've been six months travelling and I've hardly done a day's work.
I'm really quite excited, actually, about doing something physical.
I just hope I'm up to the challenge.
I start work under the watchful eye of the boss, Caverna.
They certainly started me off with the easy job.
I'm just filtering out all the big stones so they don't all go into the pipe and clog the engine.
A few hours later, I move up a grade.
I'm weakening the earth for the hose man.
This is monotonous, hard work in the searing heat.
Everyone takes a quick break for coffee.
Ahh.
Muito obrigado.
Perfecto.
If ever there's an incentive to doing some manual labour, it's looking for gold, isn't it? Come on, let's face it.
The hose looks like the hardest job, but the most fun, too.
The guys say I can have a go.
Somewhere in all this slurry we're hoping there are tiny little grains or if we're really lucky, maybe even nuggets of gold.
If I was to let go of this it would go all over the place, just like in the cartoons.
I can feel the weight, like pushing me back.
That shows you the strength of the hose.
You've gotta really lean into it like that, and then push.
If you look closely, there's little gold pebbles everywhere.
And when I first started I thought I was going mad, but it's just a gold coloured stone, innit? It's not metal at all.
I'm gutted.
There's gold in them there hills, but I ain't seen none yet.
As well as taking care of the pump, the boss feeds his team, too.
When he arrives with lunch, it's time to freshen up.
Such a great team.
I mean, with all that racket going on down there, it's hardly possible to even have any communication at all.
So I'm looking forward to a beer tonight and I can have a proper chat.
The boss, Caverna, reckons there's a lot more wealth buried beneath the rainforest.
We get back to work.
Despite the noise, I'm starting to make friends with Gugu, one of the most experienced miners, and Janis, the newest member of the team.
It rains for most of the afternoon, but this doesn't stop our hunt for gold.
After 12 hours'hard graft, Caverna tells us to give the pit a final hose down.
It's all really about this - this is where the action really is going on because all the time they're hosing down, all the particles are being held in the water, being sucked up by the big pump.
Most of it is enticed down this shallow gradient where they get caught in this mesh, and beneath it, a fine carpet and that, hopefully, because the gold is the heaviest thing of all, is where it will stay.
Every few days, the carpets are cleaned and the gold collected and shared out.
Today is pay day.
And this is the residue.
Somewhere in there is three days' worth of pay for everybody.
These granules of gold will be shared out among the team.
Caverna's taking all the financial risk, so he gets the biggest cut.
Five grams is Six grams each.
Each miner earns about £70 for the three day's work.
This is much more than they'd get in a factory or on a cattle ranch.
But it's not the regular wage that's keeping them here.
So would you class yourselves as gamblers, as gambling personalities? If you weren't here doing this, what would you be doing? A lot of money is being made here but a lot is being spent, too.
Grota Rica is full of temptation.
Gugu's been a miner for years, but he seems a bit tired of the lifestyle.
My landlady Hussia is more than just a hotel owner.
Where you taking me now, Hussia? What's down here? For a small fee, she'll pump clean, chlorinated water to your house.
She's sunk a lot of money into this community.
She's not just here to get rich quick, she wants the place to prosper.
But the mine is still illegal.
The army could come in and close it down at any time.
So she's taking a big risk investing here.
There you go, job done.
And you're much stronger than me.
General repairs of their water, waterworks of the village with Hussia.
And now we have a happy customer who's gonna have fresh drinking water and maybe even a shower this evening.
Fantastic, cool.
The mining has devastated a big area of forest.
But all the slurry from the hoses must be having a wider impact.
The river water is naturally black in colour, darkened by organic material from the forest.
But just downstream of Grota Rica, it's very different.
Already, this merging has substantially changed the colouration.
It just means that this otherwise clear river is now, look here full of silt.
Oh, my God, there's so much more than I thought.
Adding silt to a river can fundamentally change the ecosystem, killing many species.
There may well be other chemical pollution from the mine too.
I've spent my whole time just looking at the destruction of a small area of land and really this mine is tiny compared to some of the huge mines that you find in and around the world and in Amazonia, but the biggest destruction is not the loss of trees and the scarring of the landscape, but it's the rivers.
It just completely changes the landscape overnight.
Caverna's mining team normally works seven days a week.
But if they get any time off, they get as far away from the mine as possible.
The boys here have got the afternoon off so their normal ritual is to go out to this beautiful waterfall that they all go and have a good scrub for the week.
And they've kindly allowed me to join them.
It's so beautiful here on a great day out.
And just to think, three years ago, the mine was exactly like this.
My aim throughout my whole journey is not to come here with with issues or crosses to bear, it's just to listen to the stories of people like you.
But I do know that some environmentalists might have some negative things to say about mining.
What would you say to those people? The noise of the town's generators is being drowned out by an unfamiliar sound.
When I first saw this, I thought all the houses were on fire, but it's just a fumigation service provided by the association to kill all the bugs, especially the mosquitoes, who provides us with this spectacle every night.
The miners hope that by forming an association and tackling problems like malaria, the Government won't close Grota Rica down.
Hussia's waiting for one of her daughters to arrive at the mine.
10-year-old Sasha lives with friends in Apui, a town three hours'drive away, and Hussia hasn't seen her for three months.
While she waits, she casually fixes one of the river taxi's engines.
Her daughter should have been here hours ago.
Something must have held her up.
As the night draws in, she gets more and more worried.
Sasha and her sisters spend most of their time in Apui, many miles away from their mother.
Everyone I've met in Grota Rica has been a risk taker, but I'm about to meet some men who could be the biggest gamblers of all.
The main mine is back there, behind me, and this is the biggest hill in the area that's overlooking it.
Somewhere underneath this land mass, this hill, is where the source of all of the gold that's trickled down into that area has come from.
There's a group of miners who believe there's gold beneath this hill.
Not just the odd gram, but tons of it.
And to get it, they're digging deep underground.
This is Milton, the lead miner, and his business partners Hoosevelt and Feliciano.
And this is their tunnel.
How much longer do you think you'll be before you find the jackpot? They've been here six months and have dug a horizontal tunnel 60 metres into the side of the hill.
They live apart from the rest of the mine in a shack in front of the entrance.
This is a much more skilled operation than the open-pit mining.
This is the work of a professional.
This place looks so well organised.
You're obviously all very expert.
What's your own personal experiences of mining? The tunnel looks well built and they say it's safe, so I decide to join Milton on his next run.
There's not a lot of oxygen at the gold face, so it's only Milton and myself going in.
But I've said that I will bring the barrow out and that's the custom.
Anyone who goes to the front must bring a barrow load of detritus out with them, so that's what I'll be doing.
Luckily, I'm very short.
You and me, baby, let's go.
Yah! Thank you, my friends.
See you very soon.
Woo! Here we go.
Oh, that's goodbye to the camera.
- Bye-bye, Keith.
- Bye, Bruce.
Good luck! Thank you, mate.
And I'm gonna have to switch to night vision.
Oh, look at that.
Wow.
How exciting.
I know there's a plank in the middle.
And it's a bit muddy and wet and I'm really bent over.
Wow.
This really is troglodyte realm now, Jesus! Now If you look at the sides here, they're quite well-shaped, and then the occasional board.
I've done caving before, but that's completely different, cos of course it's all stone.
You really have the threat of, umany collapse.
You just point that at me.
You can feel very slightly the lack of oxygen, but only slightly.
Oh, fuck.
Don't want to be knocking them down too often.
The hardest bit is coming out Oh, this isn't so bad.
It's a good job I do, pretty much.
I'm so grateful for being small.
Whether it's the flight on the way out or whether it's running through the jungle or even being cool in the desert or even being a troglodyte underground, being short, it's just got all the advantages.
Imagine all the sweat, blood, tears and toil that have gone into this extraordinary tunnel with no real knowledge of what's at the end.
A lot of hope, but no assurances, for six months.
My Lord, I really hope they get what they're looking for.
Ah, here we are.
Ah, thank you, thank you.
I don't know why these guys Well, they're so lovely that they're pleased for me but I dug that much and they've dug 60 metres.
Muito obrigado, boss, obrigado.
It's so nice just hanging out with my new chums.
We're about to have dinner, but first we're gonna have grace.
Milton and his friends are taking a big gamble with this tunnel.
I get the feeling they have faith in more than just their mining skills.
It's not just their faith that sets them aside from the miners on the other side of the hill.
I hope their gamble pays off and they at least get something for so much time and effort.
Hussia is full of surprises.
I've found out that she's prospecting for gold in a location far away from the main mine.
She's already found a bit of gold here, but her machines keep breaking down and she's losing money.
So when this is going chug chug, you're happy? For now, she's still in the mining business, but only just.
Her dream of getting rich quick is starting to fade.
One thing is for sure, and that is that Hussia is an extraordinary woman.
She's a hotelier, she's a waterworks entrepreneur and she's even a gold prospector.
Not just mining, like everyone else, but out finding new turf.
She certainly is an incredibly charismatic and courageous lady.
But also a big risk taker because she's sunk a lot of money into this place and she knows that it's still not legal here and it could all be taken away tomorrow and she would not have a leg to stand on.
And she's got a family, she's got nine children and a husband.
They're relying on her and she's taking big risks.
Everyone works hard all week, but on Saturday night they let their hair down.
Hussia is getting ready for a night out.
Hussia's got an appointment to keep before she hits the nightclub.
She's throwing a party for a pregnant friend.
I never expected so many mothers and babies to be living in an illegal gold mine.
There's the beginnings of a community here, with Hussia at its heart.
If there's one thing I've learnt about Brazilians, they love to dance.
But despite the fun and the laughter, there is a bit of an edge here.
The mix of drink, guns and gold is a dangerous one.
It's almost time for me to leave the gold mine.
But before I go, there's one last person I want to meet.
Someone told me that one of the first three, the original finders, is still here, and apparently this is his place.
Ever since I arrived, people have told me how the man who first found gold here was let down by his friend who got drunk, opened his mouth, and started a gold rush.
Hey, nice to meet you.
This is Mariano, the prospector who found gold in the rainforest, but then saw it slip through his fingers.
Before the mine was overrun, Mariano found four kilograms of gold.
That's £50,000 worth, a lifetime's wage for most Brazilians.
But he squandered it as others got rich around him.
Everyone I've met is dreaming of such a find.
But does gold make you happy? Mariano tells me he wishes he'd never set eyes on this place.
He may have found riches in the rainforest, but he didn't find happiness.
The mine is buzzing with some shocking news.
Did you see it? Do you know where it happened? Were you aware of it quite early on? A miner was shot and almost killed in a dispute over ten grams of gold.
He was taken across the river and driven to the hospital in Apui.
Everyone says that it's very rare, it doesn't ever happen.
But when you turn the camera off and chat with them, they say, ''Oh, well.
These sorts of things do happen occasionally.
'' So it's quite telling, really.
It's a reminder of how lawless this place can be.
To be honest, I'm glad it's nearly time for me and the crew to move on.
I've been lucky with the people I've met here.
Hussia has the kind of get-up-and-go that would be applauded and rewarded at home.
But here she's an outlaw trying to make a living in the jungle with only her dreams to keep her going.
So much of what's going on here is just about people trying to make their lives better, which we all do, all over the world.
And it will continue to happen here so long as substances like gold are worth what they're worth.
Until we've put our value in other things, this is gonna be the end result.
Ciao, ciao! Si, successo.
I fly back north across an endless sea of green.
I've been in the Amazon for many months.
I've seen the forest being cut down for oil, timber and now gold.
Is there another way to make money from the Amazon, one which might protect it, not destroy it? I'm hoping the people I'm about to meet can answer this very question.
30 miles north of Manaus, this scientific reserve is one of the most studied areas in the whole of the Amazon basin.
These scientists from the National Institute for Amazon Research are trying to value the rainforest in a revolutionary way.
Bruce, I'd like to introduce you to our collaborators, researchers.
Dr Antonio Manzi is one of the leaders of a thousand-strong team of scientists.
Even though I've been travelling six months, really, you guys are the first people that I've met that can give me a slightly bigger view of what the Amazon is worth.
Recent research estimates that a quarter of all living species are found in the Amazon.
The forest produces a fifth of the Earth's oxygen, and has a huge influence on global climate.
However, no-one has yet put a dollar value on all this.
But global warming is forcing us to consider the cost of something else, carbon dioxide.
Burning the forest releases CO2, but living trees absorb it.
The Amazon rainforest could play a crucial role in the fight against climate change, if only we valued it properly.
Alessandro Araujo samples levels of carbon dioxide in the forest.
We are going to sample the air at a flow rate of about one litre per minute.
Because the air is not as clean as we want, we are going to use a filter to avoid insects or micro things to get into the tube.
- OK.
- Just get close and blow.
OK.
- Oh, my God! - Bruce, you destroyed my machine! I did, look at that.
My God.
Check that.
The CO2 in my breath sends the reading off the scale.
To show me how much CO2 is being taken in by the forest, Alessandro is going to rig his sampling equipment high up in the canopy.
Now this is the place to be.
It really is without doubt the best view of the forest I have ever, ever had.
I'm touching the tree, I'm at the top of the canopy, I can see everything and I really feel part of it.
Wow.
Wow! That's proper vertigo stuff.
I am thoroughly high.
I'll take up the slack now, yeah? From a special tree hammock, I haul up the gear.
This is great fun, Alessandro.
I'm really enjoying it.
I'm happy to hear it.
All for science.
I knew there was a scientist inside of your soul.
I rig the CO2 sampling tube as high as I can.
We're now ready to take our first reading.
Plugged in now.
And it's so sensitive.
- It is.
- You can see me doing my manoeuvring.
I also saw your breath.
Did you! I did that on purpose.
- Just a little gift.
It's like a kiss.
- Oh, Bruce! You're terrible.
Alessandro needs to compare carbon dioxide readings taken during the day and the night.
We're going to be sleeping 120 foot up, high in the canopy.
Ah, bring on the night.
This is gonna be a super, super evening.
It feels really different at night, doesn't it? - Have you looked over the edge? - No, I didn't.
Don't look over the edge.
Believe me, don't look over the edge.
During the day, trees absorb CO2.
But photosynthesis stops at night and CO2 levels rise.
The difference between day and night is how much CO2 the rainforest is taking out of the atmosphere.
It's so beautiful up here.
It's just really still and quiet.
I managed to grab a few hours'sleep.
In the morning, we take our last reading before we head down.
What a great time I've had up here.
Amazing.
CO2 sampling like this has shown that the Amazon rainforest is taking in up to 600 million tons of carbon every year, as much as the European Union releases by burning fossil fuels.
But the Amazon isn't just absorbing carbon.
It's continually storing it too.
And this could be worth billions of dollars to the people who live here.
When the forest burns, CO2 is released into the atmosphere.
Paying the Brazilian Government to protect it could be a quick and easy way of fighting climate change.
Good luck with saving it, for all of our sakes.
More than $ 100 billion have already been traded on a global carbon market.
Governments, businesses and individuals are starting to offset the carbon they produce by paying for the protection of forest.
The Amazon is potentially worth much more alive than dead.
The scientists have been some of the most important people I've met so far on my journey.
They've given me a glimpse of the big picture of how much the rainforest is worth to us all.
I've had so many different perspectives on the Amazon since my journey started, each one completely different.
I've met some extraordinary people.
And as my journey continues towards the coast, the river's getting bigger and the issues are certainly getting bigger.
I've still got 1,000 miles to go, a lot of people to meet, and so much more to learn.
But there's one thing I now know for certain.
The true value of the Amazon is in keeping the forest alive and not cutting it down.
Next time, my expedition takes me to the front line of the battle for the Amazon.
Tensions are running high and already blood has been spilt.
I meet cowboys and see the destruction of the forest.
And I live with the Indians fighting to protect it.
If you wanna know more, visit our website, bbc.
co.
uk/amazon