"I'm higher than 5,000 metres in the Peruvian Andes and feeling the altitude a little bit, making my way to the start point of what is gonna become the most extraordinary journey." "I can hear it, I can certainly hear it." "Oh, my God!" "This is it." "This trickle of water coming out of the rock here is the source of the mightiest river in the world, the Amazon, of course." "That is just spectacular." "I'm going to follow the greatest river on Earth from the source to the sea, from the High Andes of Peru to its vast mouth on Brazil's Atlantic coast." "Now I can feel the mighty strength of this river." "I'll be travelling for thousands of miles, through the largest unbroken tropical forest in the world..." "This is the best view of the forest I've ever, ever had." "...To explore the lives of the Amazon's people..." "I've never in my life had a greeting like this before." "...The tribes fighting for their land beneath the canopy." "They have decided they don't want me in the house." "And the loggers, the miners, and the cattle ranchers that are tearing it down." "As you can see it's just this huge expanse of destruction." "Oh, my God!" "I think we've found it." "The Amazon is a complex place." "There are more species here than anywhere else on Earth, but it's also home to millions of people." "We've just flown over completely illegal clear felling." "This is the frontline in an environmental war." "Tensions are running high and already blood has been spilled." "I want to tell the stories of the people that live in this amazing place, to share their lives." "That hurt." "And to understand how they will shape the future of the Amazon." "My journey begins here." "This is Nevado Mismi, the source of the Amazon." "It's a spring of glacial melt water, bursting from a rock face at 5,500 metres in the High Andes." "Mismi was finally named as the official source of the Amazon in 2000, after decades of debate, when a mapping team confirmed that this was the furthest point of the Amazon from its mouth, nearly 4,000 miles away in Brazil." "It's a barren, arid, breathtaking location, just the sort of place to start an epic journey." "I've no idea how long this journey's gonna take me." "But I reckon at least six months." "And I'm going to have lots of different forms of transport on my way to the ocean, but I'm really pleased that this first bit is by foot." "Amazingly there are lots of people that live, even at this altitude, in the Andes and there's someone who lives round the corner and that's my first stop." "This first part of my journey will be tough and dangerous, dominated by the illegal trade in cocaine." "Nevado Mismi is in the south of Peru, 700 miles from the capital, Lima." "The Amazon flows north through Peru and then swings east through the jungles of Brazil, until it reaches the Atlantic." "I'll follow the river most of the time, but I'll also head off into the forest to hear the stories of the people who live there." "From the source, the river tumbles down through steep mountain gorges to the cloud forest and the Apurimac Valley," "Peru's most volatile cocaine-producing area." "From here the river flows into the rainforest and the homeland of the Ashaninka people." "The cocaine trade is tearing these valleys apart." "I'll meet the people who make it and those who are fighting against it." "It's October 2007 and the wet season is approaching." "I've been trekking just a couple of hours, come down maybe 400 metres," "I'm still above the height of Mont Blanc in Europe." "This area is home to the Quechuan, tough mountain people who scratch a living from this barren land by herding llamas and alpacas." "I've arranged to spend a few days with Rodolfo and his family." "They live just six from hours' walk from the source and so for me, are the first people of the Amazon." "Buenas noches!" "Buenas noches." "Rodolfo." "Como esta, Bruce?" "Nice to meet you." "Gladys, gracias." "Wow, look at that!" "What a wonderful reception!" "Muchas gracias!" "Muchas gracias, senor." "Rodolfo lives here with his wife, Gladys, his mother and father and his little son Iker." "His daughter Rosemary is back from university for a visit." "Muchas gracias." "It's freezing up here." "Everyone sleeps in one room, and the whole family is sharing a bed." "As I'm a guest they're not taking any chances on me getting cold." "Lots of blankets being used here." "I think I might have the lion's share, but there's certainly no shortage." "Llamas and alpacas make life at this altitude possible." "It's too high to grow crops, but llamas and alpacas thrive in the thin air." "Over the centuries, trading routes have developed, with wool and meat being bartered for goods from the valleys below." "The Quechuan people have lived in these mountains for centuries." "They're the descendants of the Inca people and the old beliefs are still strong." "Today is a special day." "Rodolfo is shearing the alpacas for the first time this season and an offering must be made to Pachamama or Mother Earth." "Quechuans revere Pachamama above all other deities." "She is the fertility goddess, the bringer of plenty." "Pachamama." "First Pachamama, Mother Earth, little bit." "OK then, little bit for me." "And then for the alpaca." "Although Rodolfo and his family are devout Catholics, they believe it is Pachamama who puts food on the table." "They ask for a blessing from Mismi, the mountain from which the Amazon flows." "These are coca leaves, the raw ingredient for cocaine." "They're used throughout the High Andes to fight the effects of altitude sickness and to stave off hunger and thirst." "Used in this traditional way, coca is legal in Peru." "So this again is for Pachamama, which is Mother Earth, and I'm going to place it here, the three leaves, in this soil here." "To the Quechuan, coca is a gift from the gods, a sacred leaf that must be treated with the utmost respect." "With a wad of bitter leaves packed in my cheek, it's time for work." "Woo!" "This poor alpaca's making a bit of a squeal, but it's only because they're sensitive animals, there's no pain here, he's obviously just having his hair cut, but, of course this other than the dung of the sheep and the alpaca" "is pretty much their only cash crop." "The sun's warm, the radio's on, and the alpacas are being sheared." "Life is good in the High Andes." "Como esta?" "Buenito." "Buenito." "Este es tuyo." "Rodolfo and Gladys give me an alpaca." "Give it to you a present." "No, you can't do that." "This family just goes on and on, they're so generous." "Obviously I'm not gonna take it away with me, but even just as a...just as a token, it's a lovely gesture, and so they've asked me to name it." "I said I'd call it Mismi after the mountain where the spring of the Amazon is, which they all know very well." "Oi, che, che, che, che." "It's hard physical work in the thin air." "The family has very little, but shares everything." "Not a single E number, preservative or additive or anything like that, it's just straight from the land." "And it tastes like it." "Wow." "Yeah!" "Rapido!" "If only every kid would finish their food like that." "That's amazing." "Well done!" "He didn't even want it." "Then we said, "You've got to finish it."" ""All right!" and he just ate the lot and slurped down the remains." "What a good kid." "Well done." "I'm only here for a few days, but I want to earn my keep." "Rodolfo takes me to collect firewood." "Back home, I just turn on a switch to get my central heating, but Rodolfo's family's got to do this all year round." "I can safely say that of the three of us," "I've certainly done the least work." "He supplements the family's diet with trout from the nearby stream." "Hey!" "For you, in your tummy." "Yeah?" "Come, no?" "Come?" "It's time to bring the llamas in for the night." "I'm tired but happy." "Just being with them, the fun." "It's just, everything that's gone on has been full of smiles and happiness and friendship." "Out fishing and finally, even, taking the alpacas home is a dream." "They know where they're going," "I'm just kind of strolling behind, enjoying the scenery." "It's just extraordinary, I've had the nicest day you can imagine." "Like parents everywhere," "Rodolfo and Gladys want something better for their kids." "When you have finished your study, will you come back and live here in the High Andes?" "The next morning, Rodolfo kills a sheep." "He'll sell the fleece for food." "The blood is allowed to soak into the earth." "Pachamama is asked for her blessing." "It's nearly time for me to move on." "Rodolfo and his family have agreed to accompany me for the first part of my journey through the mountains." "Our journey must be blessed." "Yeah, gracias." "I give thanks for the extraordinary opportunity I have for being here amongst these wonderful people." "And please bless my journey for the next six months and all the people that I meet along the way, but most especially I want to bless this family and give them health and happiness for ever more." "And bless the animals that take us on our journey." "Suddenly a dust devil whirls through the enclosure." "Perhaps Pachamama has answered our prayers." "Tomorrow we'll be on our way." "Ugh!" "Blanco!" "Blanco!" "Blanco, blanco." "Oh, my lord!" "For me?" "Oh, muchas gracias." "I'll need that this morning I tell you." "Can't beat it, bit of coca tea." "Hot coca tea in the morning with a bit of sugar, it's delightful." "We need it, cos we've got a long journey ahead of us." "Hola, amigo." "Hiya." "Hiya." "We set off in high spirits, a caravan of llamas and donkeys following an ancient trail." "Llama, llama." "Shut." "Llama, llama." "Llama, llama." "Ch!" "Ch!" "This view from here is unbelievable." "The snow might be melting but our spirits certainly aren't." "We've already climbed quite a lot and we're all feeling strong, so that's what coca tea does for you in the morning." "These paths have been used since Incan times, trading goods up and down the Andes, potatoes, corn, coca leaves." "Llama, llama!" "Llama!" "Come on." "Ch!" "Ch!" "God, we've had the most epic day." "Beautiful start, snow to start, in glorious sunshine going up the hill." "It's only right really that it's gonna finish on a thunder and lightning storm at the end of the day." "Waaa..." "I thought we'd be sleeping out in the rain." "Might have a tin roof, but it'll do us." "Fantastic." "As night falls and the weather closes in, we stop in an abandoned house." "Life is hard in these high mountains and many people are leaving, looking for good land and better weather in the valleys and forests below." "The climate here is changing fast, the glaciers of the High Andes are retreating." "Life will only get tougher." "You're an amazing man and your family are extraordinary and thank you for everything." " And I'll always remember you." " Gracias, Bruce." "Safe journey home!" "I'll be thinking of you." "Muchas gracias." "Ciao, ciao, Bruce!" "Ciao, ciao." "I'm leaving this family to continue my journey down the Amazon." "I've only known them a few days, but I've been touched by their generosity and dignity." "I hope I can take something of their attitude with me on my travels." "We've had the nicest weather and the canyon started out really wide and it's just been getting narrower and narrower." "Been following this beautiful river and as the canyon has been getting narrower, of course the river's been getting narrower." "And here, finally, I think the river is deep enough that I'm gonna be able to put a boat into it and I can't wait." "Fed by the melting glaciers, the river plunges down through the mountains, gathering strength as it rushes through steep gorges, nearly two miles deep, twice the size of the Grand Canyon." "In just 300 miles, the river drops 13,000 feet, carving a deep scar in the landscape." "It's a tough place to live, but some people see this extreme landscape as an irresistible challenge." " Hi, Bruce." " Hello, mate, how are you?" "Hello." "Good stuff, good." "Welcome to the Apurimac River." "I want to get onto the water as soon as possible, so I'm joining a group of river guides for a few days'rafting." "I think it's going to be part of your challenge again, try to pass some of the rapids here, let's see what happen." "The upper stretches of the Amazon provide some of the most powerful and exhilarating white water in the world." "This river is called the Apurimac, that's a Quechuan word, which is, of course, the language of the Incas." "'Apu' meaning 'god', and 'rimac' meaning 'speak' or 'to talk'." "I think I'm just about to find out if this river really does talk to us." "Apurimac was the Great Speaker, the most powerful of the Incan oracles." "He spoke through the sounds of thundering rapids and foretold the arrival of the white bearded gods that would bring the Incan Empire to its knees." "The river will change its name many times before it becomes the Amazon." "The Ene, the Tambo, the Urubamba, the Ucayali." "But these are the headwaters of the greatest river system on Earth and I can feel its power already." "Now I've come to this, it's called the toothache and it's the first time I realise" "I might have been lulled into a false sense of security." "Cos even the pros now are saying, "Bruce, this is a scary one, man." ""Be careful." "We don't mess around in this one."" "And to see them suddenly worried has really put me into a whole new sphere." "And, yeah, I'm cacking it a little bit for this one." "OK, we're gonna begin up there, go over there and through the top." "These rapids are graded five plus, on a scale that only goes up to six." "I'm not a brilliant swimmer so if I fall in here I'd be in real trouble." "Have to paddle strong man, you have to paddle strong." "Unreal!" "My first ever day rafting." "One or two times crashing through the waves, one or two times sliding between tiny gaps, but just really exhilarating, but never felt unsafe." "As the Apurimac thunders down through the High Andes, the landscape changes." "Brown desert turns to lush cloud forest." "For the next few weeks," "I'll be travelling through some dangerous and difficult country." "Here, the humidity of the jungle meets the cold of the mountains, and creates the perfect climate for growing coca." "Over 100 tonnes of cocaine a year comes out of this valley." "It's a former stronghold of the Shining Path," "Maoist revolutionaries who fought a bloody war against the state in the '70s and '80s." "And their influence is still felt here." "This place is dangerous, so we switch to a convoy of vehicles." "This is one of the largest areas of coca production for the cocaine industry in Peru, and as a result it's one of the most dangerous." "It's had a state of emergency for the last four years, and even just a couple of weeks ago, a number of people were killed in raids on police stations." "It's a completely lawless area and just being here is really very difficult." "There's so many elements at play here." "The people, the peasant farmers who are just trying to make a living by making coca, the Shining Path that of course had a treacherous history here, the Americans and their war on drugs, the local police and the local military" "and what they're trying to do for the Americans." "The politics, the whole thing is a swirling mess." "Most people in this valley are involved in the production of coca in some way or another." "We stop for the night in a small community of coca farmers a few miles from the river." "Our fixer Luis goes ahead." "Right now we're just holding fire cos it is a sensitive thing." "Antonio!" "Buenas tardes." "El es Bruce." "Me nombre Bruce." "Muchas gracias por esta aqui, gracias." "They agree to let me stay." "As they show me around their home, it quickly becomes obvious that these people are not making much money from drugs." "Next morning, Antonio shows me round his farm." "This here is coffee, one of the products on the farm" "And, yeah, this is cacao, which is of course used for chocolate." "But today, we're out to harvest the coca." "Here we are, the harvest has already started over there, completely stripped of leaves and then these are the ones we're obviously gonna work on today." "It's legal to cultivate some coca in Peru for traditional use." "But in reality, the vast majority, around 90%, goes to making illegal cocaine." "Coca is an essential cash crop here." "Unlike coffee, the price rarely fluctuates and it can be harvested four times a year." "Simple economics force these people into the drug trade." "Just been talking to Antonio about money." "Now the coca he can do four times a year and in this particular three month section for this harvest, he reckons he's gonna get about 300 dollars for his produce." "But 200 of that will go on pesticides and labour, which means that he will get 100 dollars for this particular harvest." "That 100 dollars has got to pay for his kids to go to school, and the transport and his food and everything else." "And that 100 dollars is almost, co-incidentally, about the same price as a gram of cocaine on the streets of London." "The coca harvest is laid out in the sun to dry." "Oh, that's quite pungent." "They're not really rotting but it smells quite rotting, but it's more than that, it's quite acrid." "What Antonio does is part of a grey market." "The authorities turn a blind eye in order to avoid a full-scale war." "Growing coca, the raw material, isn't illegal, but what happens to it next is." "90% of the coca plants in this valley are producing leaves for the illicit cocaine industry." "The leaves themselves are not exported but are actually reduced down into a paste which they call base that is either then taken to a laboratory and made into the cocaine or exported as paste." "And we're gonna go and look at one of these sort of laboratories." "Just turned off the main road into a little side track, heading into the middle of nowhere really." "It's about an hour's drive and then we've got a walk after that to get to this processing plant." "We're not quite sure what we're gonna find when we get there, and our only hope really is that the military or police don't find it at the same time we're there." "Cor!" "Instantly you can smell it, that smell that I got when we were rolling the leaves at Antonio's." "There they are, it's really pungent." "We're not there yet." "This is just the storage area for the leaves, huge sacks of leaves and they've chosen this place because from the air it's less visible." "They take us away from the river with two massive bags of coca leaves." "Ah, so this is it." "The term bossa comes from this pit where all the leaves are kept." "And the guy who is gonna be doing the processing today has just told us that yesterday the military were here and they burned four of these in the local area." "And the way that they know where they are is of course through informers." "So he was really concerned that whoever the local informer was knew about this one too." "This is the rustic beginnings of what is a multi-billion-billion-dollar industry." "Wouldn't look like it here." "Death, wars, governments being overthrown, corruption, ecstasy, hatred, you name it, it all begins here." "This is the first step of the process and these bags here are chlorine." "And you can smell it already, it's quite pungent." "I think we're gonna see a few chemicals in use today." "Suddenly the smell of chlorine has been replaced by that pungent odour, that I'm getting so used to here, of the coca leaf." "Bizarrely, kind of, it's becoming an acquired smell." "Tony, you're a young man, you're 18." "What do you know about cocaine as a drug?" "Is it a bad thing, good thing?" "A toxic cocktail of chemicals is used to extract the cocaine from the leaves." "Bleach, kerosene and sulphuric acid." "Cocaine has all sorts of reputations round the world but one of them is... a sort of glamour drug." "This, and all the chemicals and the smell and what's going on, it most certainly isn't that." "What are you putting in now?" " Kerosene." " Kerosene." "Rather him than me." "The kerosene containing the coca alkaloid is skimmed off and the rest of the chemicals poured away." "Bleach and paraffin, and that's gonna go straight into the river systems." "The sad fact of all of this is that there is still a market for cocaine, patently, because it's booming here." "There is a war against it and the production of it is illegal, but the sad truth of that is that because it's illegal it's happening behind closed doors." "Because it's happening behind closed doors without a licence, this sort of pollution is rife." "And these people are the ones who are most affected." "They're not making any money from it, yet they're polluting their own backyard." "And that's the reality of this valley." "Suddenly there's trouble." "We hear the beat of a helicopter overhead." "It's the authorities out looking for coca labs." "We all run for cover." "The one thing we don't want at an illegal coca plant is the military popping in to say hello." "There it is, fuck." "Right overhead." "These guys understandably shaky." "Three to four years, and they know it." "Is it worth all this hiding?" "All this stuff that you know is against the law, is it worth it for the amount of money you get?" "This toxic brew is then strained and the residue heated." "His outlay in this has been about $900 US, that's with all the tarps and the barrels and the kero and the ammonia, the acid." "And of course 250kg of coca leaf." "From that, he says he'll make a profit of about $80 US once it's been sold as base." "And that's after four days of work." "There you have it, the second stage of the multi-multi-billion-dollar industry that is the cocaine industry." "Really surprising." "I was expecting white fluff." "But from here that will go to a laboratory where it becomes cocaine as we know it." "This beautiful valley is at war." "I've spoken to one side, now I want to talk to the other." "The US pays for three helicopter gunships in the Apurimac valley." "They fly local police three times a day, seven days a week, as part of their war against drugs." "The local commandante is Juamito." "He lives in this isolated fortress with a hundred men and two US special advisors." "The commandant's just come back and he's found one of the bossas, one of the plants, the laboratories." "And apparently it's near a road, so we're gonna go and have a look." "Si, OK, perfecto." "Right, this is it, we're off." "We have to cross the river." "Instantly you see why they like to use helicopters." "There's only one bridge and it's miles away." "If someone wanted to ambush us, now would be a good time." "And they tell me they're attacked at least once a year." "Columbia is still the world's biggest producer of cocaine, but Peru is second and catching up fast." "And now Columbia's hard-line stance has seen the drug cartels increasingly switch production to Peru." "Must be so strange for these guys living in that compound, never really going outside of it, and then the only time that they ever communicate with the outside world, and all the people in this valley, is in this form," "it's down the barrel of a gun or driving around or flying in and blowing things up." "The helicopters guide us to a patch of forest just above the river." "La bossa?" "Si, esta la bossa." "Juamito leads me to a disused bossa." "It's surrounded by huge mounds of coca waste." "There's another one nearby and this one looks like it's been used recently." "This is the pipe that collects the water from the stream to automate the filling of the bossa itself." "When you left this morning you did not know you would find this." "How did you spot it?" "Cos it seems quite overgrown." "It feels like the commandante is fighting a losing battle." "Destroying these simple bossas has almost no effect on production." "Here, in the Apurimac and Ene valleys, the amount of land given over to coca production has doubled in the past eight years." "In other parts of Latin America, drug enforcement agencies have used pesticides to eradicate entire coca crops." "But the commandante tells me it's not an option here." "This valley is just too volatile." "In the middle of our filming in the Apurimac valley, we received a shocking reminder of how isolated this place really was." "Our director, Matt Brandon, had become seriously ill." "He was complaining of extraordinary headache and back pains." "Yesterday afternoon he went to bed, he woke up and he hasn't spoken since." "Actually, this is the first time this morning that he's even given us any conscious cognitive reaction at all, and all we care about is our Matt and getting him out." "His symptoms suggested that his brain was infected or injured." "It could have been a stroke or cerebral malaria." "Both are extremely serious but we were hundreds of miles away from good medical help and it was dark." "No chopper would come till morning." "Everything is going to be fine, I promise you." "I promise you, man." "You'll there in no time." "The weather's good, the pilots are coming, everything is organised." "We've been a bit worried, but you're OK." "Yeah?" "You're with us now, yeah?" "So you've had a..." "Everyone's been looking after you and you're gonna be fine." "After a night of desperate phone calls, the anti-narcotics team agreed to fly Matt to a nearby airstrip from where he could be transferred to Lima." "We cleared a landing area for the helicopter." "We have a doctor with us who is willing to go all the way to Lima." "Matt was flown to a hospital, where he was diagnosed as having an abscess on his brain." "We delayed the journey while we waited for news." "He responded to treatment well and went on to make a full recovery." "With Matt safe, we decided to continue." "I'm back on the river heading north, out of the Apurimac valley." "We've been badly shaken so it's good to be on the move again." "But we're now seriously behind schedule and there's a difficult stretch of the river ahead." "I pass towns and villages that look desolate and forgotten." "There's not much evidence of drug dollars here, just poverty and neglect." "A feeling that I do get down here is that... there is a little bit of resentment towards the nation state here." "They feel they've been left alone, they feel that there are solutions that they see, but they're not being implemented." "One reason they're involved in what they know is an illicit trade is because they haven't, as they see it, any option." "It's the only thing that offers them stability, it's the only thing, as they see it, offers them an income that can support them in a way that isn't grinding poverty." "And who can blame them, actually?" "They're just getting on with it, and all of the negativity that's... about this horrible subject is happening elsewhere really." "But they feel that the war's being fought on their turf and they're the ones that are losing out." "As we move downstream, the river changes its name again." "It's now called the Ene and it flows through one of the most notorious areas in Peru." "This place is known simply as the Red Zone and it's a no-go area for the police and the army." "On this section of the river there's a tribe who are fighting their own war against the drug gangs." "Since coming to the valley there's one group of people" "I've been really looking forward to meeting and they're the Ashaninka, the original tribal indigenous inhabitants of this part of Peru." "For centuries, they've been trying to fight off people laying claim to their land, whether it's the Andean people coming down as farmers, or the Shining Path, and more recently they've been fighting in a bitter armed struggle" "against the Cocaleros, the coca-producing farmers, who are everywhere just trying to steal their lands." "The Red Zone is the last refuge of one of South America's most brutal terrorist organisations," "Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path." "They fought a bloody war against the Peruvian state in the '80s." "70,000 people were killed in the conflict." "The Ashaninka were caught in the middle and suffered horribly." "The Shining Path now provides protection for the drug gangs." "This is Catungo, an Ashaninka village three hours' drive from the river." "I'm hoping to stay here for a week or so and go on a patrol with the Ronderos, the Ashaninka's own defence force, who are fighting the drug gangs." "But we've arrived at a difficult time." "It's the village's 12th birthday party." "The local logging boss has organised a football tournament and a band." "The place is packed with outsiders, loggers from the camps in the forest and Lord knows who else." "I'm doing a journey that's gonna last six months, travelling from the source of the Amazon to the sea, meeting people and communities along the way." "And also to come around and ask you some questions about what it is like to live here and any views that you have on the changing times that we have in this area." "They've told me it's too dangerous to go out on a long patrol, not just because I'm here but because the whole situation is too hot at the moment." "So, instead, we're gonna do a perimeter patrol and just go and visit some of the sentries who are there, at all times, around the circumference of the village." "And why is it that you have to do this yourself?" "Why can't your government provide the security that you feel you need to protect your land?" "The word Ashaninka means "a brother to all"." "But now they stand alone, fighting against a wave of outsiders." "The Ashaninka need the forest to hunt, but the incomers just want to cut it down for timber and new land to grow yet more coca." "Por mi?" "Gracias." "I'm glad I asked." "I'm given a bowl of masato, traditional Ashaninka beer." "It's made from yucca and sweet potato." "The women chew the sweet potato and spit it back into the pot." "Their saliva causes it to ferment. '" "It's amazing really." "When we first arrived, I was a bit concerned about our reception, they kind of weren't expecting us and it wasn't... it was very cordial but it wasn't gushing in any way." "And I was worried about how our time here was gonna be but, now that I've got to know them and now that they realise that we're here just to film them and show their lives, they've opened up." "And when you consider what they've been through in the last 30 years and all the atrocities, it's not surprising they're cautious about visitors coming out of the blue." "The party gets into full swing." "The village is full of incomers." "The band has come from Ayacucho, miles away." "The mood is friendly, but tense." "Halfway through our stay, we get some worrying news." "The Ronderos are nervous." "People have been asking questions about us." "Everyone is twitchy, and there's a threat of violence in the air." "Is our staying here putting any Ashaninka's lives at risk?" "This is very important for us to know." "Si." "Si." "It seems that, because we arrived at the time when they had their 12th anniversary, that a lot of people who wouldn't normally have known we were here have seen us." "And at first, perhaps in our ignorance, we didn't think that was a bad thing, but we're just getting the message through now that that has filtered out to the colonos, the people who are invading the lands all around," "and that they have put the word out that if we try and go out on any of these patrols or whatever, they are there, they're armed and ready and they don't care whether there's gringos, white people, in the area," "they will protect their lands, as they see it, bizarrely." "It's not safe for us or our hosts so we pack our things and head back to the river." "It's a bit of a shame not spending more time in Catungo." "I was hoping to have really got to know some characters there and explored their story a bit more, but once again we got moved on, again for safety reasons." "It seems to have been the story of my journey so far, especially here in the Apurimac valley, that it's just really difficult." "People don't come here, there's no security and everyone's a little bit on edge every time we come by." "But my journey's not over yet and my hope is that today we can find another Ashaninka village and maybe, if I'm lucky, it'll be a more traditional one." "As we move downriver, I can see what the Ronderos are fighting." "Everywhere, the forest is being burned to create new coca fields." "We need to find somewhere safe to spend the night, hopefully somewhere beyond the influence of the cocaine trade." "This is the village of Pamikieri and we only radioed ahead to ask permission to come here yesterday when we left Catungo." "Buenas tardes." "Buenas tardes, senor." "Buenas tardes." "Buenas tardes." "Hola!" "Hey, little one, hey." "Wow." "Now, this is a little bit more like it, fantastic." "Si, si, si." "Gracias." "This place feels different immediately, as if the problems upriver have yet to arrive." "Even the masato tastes different." "Ooh!" "Straightaway, there's a difference!" "This is a little bit more potent." "These kids aren't shy." "We've had a complete line up, about 20 kids come past shaking everyone's hands." "The people of Pamikieri are preparing to celebrate their first birthday and the whole village is working together to make the place look nice." "This is only a year old, this community." "It's amazing when you see how much has been done, but when you get days like this, when you see the power of everyone working together, you realise just what it is that's going on here." "Really lovely." "The Ashaninka aspire to a life of peace and ease." "They try to avoid conflict at all costs and will often form breakaway villages in order to do so." "Pamikieri is such a place." "It was formed a year ago to resolve a dispute at a nearby village." "And, after the places I've been, this feels like a sanctuary." "I've just been told..." "that this is for me." "I'm the guest of honour, apparently, and that one over there is for everyone else." "Yeah, talk about hospitality." "This is a little bit beyond." "It's nearly time for me to leave these troubled valleys." "It's been a hard few months travelling through difficult country, but I've been met with smiles and warmth almost everywhere." "I can see why the people I've met choose to grow coca." "There seems to be nothing else for them." "And, as the demand for cocaine soars, they need more and more land to grow their plants." "But for the Ashaninka, it's a deadly harvest." "Their forest is being burned and their rivers are being polluted." "I'm afraid I have no answers, but the Ashaninka of Pamikieri at least seem to have found some temporary peace in their violent history." "I just hope it lasts." "I'm back on the river again, heading further into the jungles of Peru." "Next time, as my Amazon journey continues," "I push deeper into this great forest to meet the Achuar people, a remote tribe fighting to keep oil companies off their land." "And I undergo a profound shamanic ritual that shakes me to the core." "It's just sitting there like an evil menace in my stomach." "I'm travelling deep into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon to visit the Achuar people." "These hunter-gatherers live in one of the most untouched parts of the forest, and one of the richest natural environments left on Earth." "You feel something tickle against your leg." "It's like, you can't see a thing, it's so murky." "Once proud warriors, they are now fighting a new enemy, the oil companies." "Every single living thing in this particular area here will have died." "Their tribal lands sit on top of vast oil reserves." "And they don't trust outsiders." "They actually have decided that they don't want me in the house." "As my Amazon journey continues, I seek a vision to guide me on my way." "It's just sitting there like an evil menace in my stomach." "And, as I finally reach Brazil, things get very strange." "Can you believe it?" "I love this." "I'm travelling through the Amazon rainforest, following the river from the source to the sea, looking at the lives of the people who live here." "As I push further north, the mountain jungles of the Andes give way to endless forest." "This is the largest unbroken tract of tropical forest on Earth." "And from the air, it takes your breath away!" "But this is no empty wilderness." "This vast forest is home to some of Peru's most remote tribal groups." "The Achuar live in the north of Peru, near the border with Ecuador, along the rivers Pastaza and Huitoyacu." "Back in the '60s, seismic testing found huge deposits of crude oil here." "The oil companies have been working on the Pastaza for years, but the communities on the River Huitoyacu have so far refused them access." "And that's where I'm going first." "We land in a small settlement on the River Marañon called San Lorenzo." "Jorge, que tal?" "This is Jorge Fachin." "He's an Achuar leader, and has agreed to introduce me to the elders of his village, three days' travel up a remote tributary of the Amazon." "It feels like a bitter irony that oil should be found here of all places." "This part of the Amazon is one of the most bio-diverse places on Earth." "The river and forest weave a complex eco-system that supports the planet's most dazzling array of life." "Been all day on this boat, getting increasingly smaller as we go upstream." "This is the Huitoyacu." "It's just so glorious, and this time of the evening, with the sun going down, it's got an ethereal quality." "I'm so lucky to be allowed to come in here." "There are no roads, no towns, no real infrastructure, other than what the tribal people have traditionally had." "As we move into Achuar territory, we pass local people, but no-one smiles or waves." "Although the villagers know we are coming," "Jorge warns me not to expect too much of a welcome." "Although the Achuar have had contact with the outside world for over forty years, they are a superstitious people." "Their world is full of witchcraft and forest spirits to be feared and appeased." "They believe the pelacaras are evil spirits that stalk the forest." "And, as we move slowly upstream," "I begin to get the sense we are going somewhere strange and special." "This is the village of Wijint, which is the largest of all the Achuar communities." "Population of about 500 people, I think, spread out over quite some area." "And Jorge here, who's the old president, is gonna introduce me to some of the elders." "But we are nearly a day late and the Apus, or elders, are all out hunting." "The village is all but deserted." "The next morning, we are summoned by the elders." "I've been told we've all got to go in in single file, there's eight of us." "Then we've got to go up and stand in front of the area where the Apus, the elders, are going to come and greet us in their special way." "The hall is packed and their message is clear." "Although they were expecting us, they are nervous." "They don't even trust Jorge, and he grew up here and was one of their leaders." "I have already heard that you have concerns about your... natural resources being taken and many, many things, and I also fully understand everything that you have asked and said to me." "The meeting takes all day, but the elders finally, reluctantly, agree that we can stay." "Saris, the most outspoken against us, is chosen to be my host." "I'm very excited..." "Fantastic." "I'd heard before I came that the Achuar were a very organised group of people, they like their meetings and they like things to be deliberated." "They like to have the..." "It's all right, that's quite exciting." "But this is extraordinary." "It's better than any village fete I've been to back home." "It's really well orchestrated." "The Achuar lived here in relative isolation until the middle of the 20th century." "They escaped the devastation of the rubber boom that wiped out so many Amazonian tribes." "When missionaries arrived in the '60s, they found the Achuar living in a state of perpetual internal warfare, often sparked by the belief that shamans had cast evil spells." "The Achuar no longer live with the fear of constant war, but outsiders are still treated with suspicion." "Despite his initial hostility, Saris is warming to me." "His daughters, however, are not so sure." "Saris's sons-in-law live here too, but they are away hunting." "If I'm to stay here, I'll need to help out, so he shows me to his garden." "The Achuar are renowned for their use of forest medicine." "One of the most powerful plants in their medicine cabinet is ayahuasca." "The Achuar use ayahuasca to search for their vision, or path, through life." "They believe it can induce dreams in which the spirits speak to you." "Saris agrees to arrange an ayahuasca ceremony for me, in return for helping out." "OK." "Mañana?" "Mañana." "Fantastico..." "Perfecto." "No problemo." "..I've got my work cut out tomorrow, then!" "But the morning brings bad news." "Saris has had a change of heart." "Or rather, it seems, his daughters have had a quiet word." "And it seems that their reticence and their shyness hasn't disappeared and they actually have decided that they don't want me in the house." "So it's not looking good really, cos I don't want to be an imposition, even though he was really happy yesterday, they've had time to think and maybe it's not right." "I understand and I..." "the reason for me coming here is to try and learn about your culture, and the last thing that I want is to be an imposition on anyone." "In order to understand something of the Achuar way of life," "I want to stay with a family." "As most people are suspicious of myself and the crew, Jorge introduces me to his brother-in-law, Mantu." "He lives with his wife Carmela and their children in the forest outside the village." "Mantu is a skilled hunter." "He has just returned from the forest with food." "Traditionally, the Achuar house was the centre of the family's world." "Before the missionaries encouraged them to form villages, the Achuar would live in single houses spread throughout the forest." "These spectacular structures, up to eight metres high, would be home to the extended family and had alliances with nearby houses for trading and marriage." "The house is surrounded by gardens, called chakras, and a network of paths radiates outwards into areas for hunting and fishing." "Before dawn the next morning, I join the family in their morning ritual, drinking a bitter herbal tea called wayus." "It's both purgative and tonic." "After drinking litres of wayus, we all head outside." "Aah..." "Morning, everyone." "The Achuar do this every morning of their lives." "This ritual purging is followed by a period of quiet reflection, where the family can discuss the day ahead." "Mantu tells me the forest spirits are much on his mind." "To the Achuar, the forest is alive with spirits." "Mana is the mother of the animals." "Where she lives, the forest is full of game." "Arutem is the mother of the visions." "She is wise and appears in dreams to tell the future." "Shaam is dangerous." "Where she lives, the forest is quiet." "But now, there's a new spirit haunting the forest, the pelacara, or the skin peeler." "It's thought that the legend of the pelacara has a basis in horrific reality." "Early settlers here hunted tribal people and rendered their fat for oil lamps." "I'm beginning to understand why people are so scared of us." "Trying to lead the Achuar from the darkness into the light is a small mission of Colombian nuns." "Fantastic." "They manage the school and, unlike many missionaries, still encourage traditional beliefs." "So, what changes have you seen over the years?" "You must have seen a lot." "The nuns have their work cut out." "The Achuar legal system is more Old Testament than New." "Certain crimes are punishable by death." "I've agreed to help Saris chop some firewood." "I want to help as much as I can, but he's a hard task-master." "Making a bit of a pig's ear of it, cos so many obstacles in the way for my swing, I can't do it properly." "But I've got to get it right, cos if it goes the wrong way, it could take out half of his garden and all the plants and trees therein." "Oh, fuck!" "It's hard work in the heat." "And this morning's wayus is still giving me gyp." "It's..." "Fuck!" "Ooh, a bit woozy there." "They said when I was drinking this morning and vomiting, that if I didn't get it all out, there was a chance I could get nauseous in the day, especially on my first time." "And I just think I had a wave of that." "Ugh, about to be sick." "I feel faint, but I still want to carry the logs back to Saris's hut." "I was feeling great this morning after the wayus, wayus vomiting up, I thought it was quite a good sort of purgative, made me feel quite...fresh and healthy, but I'm feeling really nauseous now." "And he's still not finished with me." "I'm not here for long, and I'm finding Wijint a difficult place to make friends." "The people seem nervous and reserved." "So when Mantu offers to take me fishing, I jump at the chance." "Mantu's kept up a pretty good pace all morning." "We've been going for some time, and I can keep up with him on the straight, but as soon as we come to any obstacles or logs, I'm so much slower." "Whoa!" "See what I mean?" "Fishing with the Achuar is a family affair." "Three families have come together to maximise their catch." "I've just arrived, and I think that we're going to be making the poison, and some people are already here before me." "And the guys who are just ahead as well loving the flip-out screen on the camera." "They're using the leaves of the huaca plant to asphyxiate the fish." "First, it must be mashed." "Huaca stuns the fish by deoxygenating the water." "It doesn't kill them, and so the river will recover quickly afterwards." "Really?" "Like that?" "OK." "As the poison is released into the stream, fish begin to surface, gasping for breath." "The families move slowly downstream, gathering their catch." "Jorge, there's one over there, I think." "The river is healthy, clean, and full of huge fish." "I'm so far back, I'm just getting the tiddlers." "But up the front, some of the boys are getting some real whoppers." "I can actually see one rising and coming down like a porpoise, surfacing and breaching, and then it disappears, and you can feel something tickle against your leg, and it's like you can't see a thing, it's so murky." "Check the teeth on that." "I was told, watch out for that one, cos if he bites you, he doesn't let go." "Catch up with the family, I don't want to be last in this river." "It's been a good day, and I feel at last like I'm beginning to make some friends." "Just look at the catch, unbelievable." "There's one here, check that." "These... and these." "Amazing." "My paltry amount is just here... but I did get the bonus of getting the, er... the stingray." "But all in all, pretty good." "As hunter-gatherers, the Achuar rely almost completely on the forest and its river for their food." "They need a vast area to sustain this way of life." "But the oil companies are getting closer." "This man has just returned from a patrol to the edge of the territory where the oil companies are carrying out seismic testing." "Some of the Achuar villages nearby have agreed to oil exploration on their land." "They want development, jobs, money, electricity, education." "It's interesting, because although the Achuar are very unified as a group of people en masse, also there do seem to be some... some differences of opinion within the various communities." "And one community, for example, which borders this community, has accepted some of the petroleum companies on to their turf." "Now, there's massive dispute within their own community." "Some want it and some don't, but it seems that that fracture has allowed some of the seismic testing to come on board, which is making this community really twitchy and scared about how much closer it's going to come, and the contamination might come" "onto what is their ancestral lands." "Why is it that you are so adamant that you do not want these companies to come onto your land, when they seem to be offering you so much and they have so many promises for good things?" "Why is it that you do not want them to come here?" "It's hard to believe that a small community like this can keep big business at bay, but they have done so for decades." "Everything is connected here." "All the rivers flow into one, so if a tributary upstream is polluted, everyone will feel the effects." "The Achuars' only hope is to stand together." "And in such a remote part of the world, that is almost impossible." "Still weird, still don't feel like" "I've really broken into the community or the family yet." "But I'm hoping that, just by chipping away and being here and always being helpful and smiling, that they'll realise... that I'm not all that bad and... lighten up a bit." "That's my hope." "As we drink wayus," "Mantu and Carmela tell me what to expect from the ayahuasca." "Today's the big day." "Right." "Time for my morning vomit." "After this now," "I'm just going to have a bowl of masata... and that's going to be the only food substance I have all day until I drink the ayahuasca this evening." "Saris is not well, so two of the elders have been given the responsibility of organising the ceremony." "The ayahuasca is crushed, then boiled." "The drumming not only brings in the spirits and... entices the visions, but it's also an announcement to everyone in the surrounding area that we have an ayahuasca ceremony going on today." "And as a result, lots of faces peering in all around." "It's a real community spirit, it's lovely." "This is Mashenkish, an elder from a nearby village." "He will preside over the ceremony today." "He wears a traditional toucan feather headdress." "As evening approaches, I'm sent to the river to wash." "I think the hardest thing of all is gonna be just drinking litres of really nasty, toxic, bitter juice." "That's gonna be the hard bit." "But it's still a lovely ritual, I'm really looking forward to it." "There's a lot of build-up, and of course, central to the Achuar way of looking at life is this vision." "You might not get it powerfully, you might not get it first time, but you must have it, and that is something that's important to them." "It's how they see, how they look forward in their lives, and it's also how they fight their battles, as part of a community." "As night falls, the ceremony begins." "About 20 people will take the ayahuasca." "As we had the honour of preparing the vine, the two elders and I will drink later." "It's important that when you drink the ayahuasca, it's held by the hand of a respected elder, cos he has the power which he may be able to give to you." "The participants down litres of the foul-tasting brew." "Then the vomiting starts." "You must vomit until all the ayahuasca has come up, then drink litres of water." "This must also be expelled until there is nothing left." "If you don't, you may receive a bad vision." "I've vomited every day this week, but this is something else." "I've never seen anything like it." "And it's me next." "We've also got our own special bowl which was taken out earlier with all the really strong stuff, so we've got twice the amount, fewer people, stronger potion." "It's not looking good." "Well done." "Soon it's my turn." "Immediately, I feel as if I've been poisoned." "But it's only just beginning." "I'm feeling like, already, I don't know why, but just shaking all over, just..." "I have to drink about four litres." "But the taste is so disgusting that it triggers my gag reflex." "It's just sitting there like a lead weight of what feels like evil menace in my stomach." "We've got more." "I'm going to let it sit for as long as I can... to do its work." "But I know I've got to get it all out later, but I'm gonna try and keep it in because I really want to have a vision." "At this rate, I will." "The bowl is empty." "Thank God." "Mantu brings me water." "Then that, too, has to come up." "OK, in here?" "That one single act is the most wonderful thing that's happened to me since I've been here, and it's so lovely." "Mantu, who's so stoical and rarely smiles, and has just been a wonderful host, but always just a little bit separate, has just looked after me, at this moment, when I really needed him, so nicely." "And just washing my feet, imagine!" "That's really made my complete stay." "I'm so happy." "At last, we settle down to sleep and wait for the visions to come." "Mantu watches over me." "Before dawn, the drum starts again, and it's time to reveal what dreams have come." "Jorge thinks he has seen something." "But, for me, nothing." "There was a moment when I thought everything was changing, when this wind came through and we could hear distant thunder, and there was this bat flying around, and I had this moment of paranoia that I thought it was a vampire bat" "and was going to bite me and give me rabies." "So that kept me up for a while, and I thought maybe something was starting, but in reality, it just didn't happen, so I'm really a bit disappointed." "Just come to say thank you, really." "Thank you and goodbye." "It's time to leave Wijint and continue on my journey." "Mashenkish tells me it's common not to have a vision the first time, but that I must try again." "Muchas gracias." "Although I didn't find my vision, I did find friendship and fear." "The Achuar are fighting for their way of life as the modern world encroaches." "Their lives and culture stand at a crucial point of change." "I want to see what they are fighting against and what can happen when the oil companies come." "So much of the Peruvian Amazon has been split up into oil blocks or lots for exploration and extraction, and the area that I'm in now was one of the first to have actually had oil found in it." "The Rio Corrientes lies just east of the village of Wijint, but it's a world away." "The oil companies began their extraction of crude here before the indigenous people were awarded title to their land." "The law has now changed, but it comes too late for many of the communities on this river." "I was just wondering what it must be like in those days to have been an indigenous community, not having any idea that your world was about to change." "People suddenly arriving without any prior notice, cutting long lines in the jungle, exploding every hundred metres to discover what's under the soil, then lots and lots of labour forces coming in and roads being built, you having to move away," "lines being cut through villages, and the local people never having anyone to talk to, or to complain to, about these problems." "This is Andoas - an oil town, deep in the jungle." "I came here hoping to film the effects of oil extraction in the rainforest." "I'm not sure I need to look much further than this." "It's a relief to head out into the jungle, but the effects of the oil industry are everywhere." "So much machinery and plant, like this." "We're just coming across another one, in the middle of nowhere." "We've arranged to meet an Achuar man called Guevara." "He works as an environmental monitor, checking for the signs of pollution." "He tells me there's been a spill just a few weeks ago." "We were on the river for over an hour, and we've been trekking for 20 minutes, and in this, what should be the village's traditional hunting grounds, there's only one thing that's dominating my experience at the moment," "and that's the extraordinary sound this massive generator that's some distance ahead of us." "We emerge into a clearing." "Even if you could hear me," "I don't really need to say anything, do I?" "This is a pumping station, moving oil from a nearby well." "An hour's walk away, we find the oil well and the site of the spill." "Yeah, here you go." "Already..." "only a few feet away from the slick." "This is two weeks ago, let's not forget." "It's been cleaned up well." "But it's the first time I've ever actually come this close to this sort of crude oil, bitumen, tarry stuff, and I think I'm going to have... oily fingers for the rest of the day." "It's really..." "It's really not great stuff." "As we move down into the stream, we can see the effects of the spill." "The oil company has cleaned most of it up, but it's still devastating." "This spill happened 17 days ago, and all of this crude here has made its way down through this tributary into the main river, which is the source that all the villagers drink from, and every single living thing in this particular area here " "there is no doubt at all - will have died." "It's just mass destruction." "It's all I can see around me." "A stream runs into the Corrientes, which, in turn, runs through Guevara's village." "His people no longer drink the water or eat the fish." "The oil companies insist that regular tests are carried out by government agencies and there's no risk to human health or the ecosystem." "Those who live here aren't convinced." "That night, we stay in Guevara's village." "40 years ago, this was a traditional Achuar community." "The difference between here and Wijint is tangible." "Electricity, TVs, money." "But what has been lost?" "We leave Andoas the next day, heading south down the Rio Pastaza." "I feel really very sad, actually leaving Andoas and the River Corrientes, but the point, really, is that... there's billions and billions of dollars being made in the oil industry here, and sadly, so very little of it seems to be going" "to the people who own the land on which the oil's being extracted, and the people who are having their lives, both health-wise and socially, just completely turned inside out." "We head south again, down the Marañon, towards the main flow of the river." "This is an important point on my journey." "Even though I've been journeying for three whole months, amazingly, this place here is the first location that the river is actually formally known as the Amazon." "It's going to change its name again, and I'm going to go through many different transformations of this river, but for now, just being here feels amazing." "I'm travelling east on the Amazon for the first time, heading for the jungle port of Iquitos, the Peruvian Amazon's biggest city." "It was built on the wealth of the rubber boom, and has a certain faded opulence." "Now, Iquitos is becoming a centre for another jungle product - this time, my old friend ayahuasca." "I'm loving Iquitos." "It's got a real energy and buzz about it." "It's so busy and colourful." "It smells dirty and it's really fun." "It's so strange being in quite a busy city suddenly, having been in small towns and in the jungle and on the river for so long." "I promised the elders of Wijint I'd find my vision, and I think this is the place to do it." "There are a number of different ways of doing ayahuasca that the indigenous peoples do in the Amazon." "One is just the vine itself, like I did." "But many of the tribal communities mix it with other plants that bring on a much deeper, more powerful, strong and spiritual and visionary experience, and it's that I'm going to try and do, and I've found a place that does it nearby here, in Iquitos," "and I'm heading off there tomorrow to give it a go." "Percy Garcia Lozano is one of the youngest shamans in Iquitos." "His grandfather was a boatman on the Amazon and taught him the secrets of the tribes he met on his travels." "Walking through the forest with Percy is an education." "Where I see just trees and plants, he sees remedies for all manner of ailments." "Wakrapona?" "Pene pequeno, si!" "Gracias." "Well, I think we'll move on after that one!" "Percy will preside over the ayahuasca ceremony." "Unlike the Achuar, he adds other leaves to the mix." "Chacrona and datura, both powerful hallucinogens." "Where the Achuar visions are subtle dreams, the experience here will be much stronger." "There are other people staying at the retreat." "Peruvians and travellers from all over the world, all seeking something from the ayahuasca." "It has been used to treat addiction as well as to induce visions." "Often I'm wary of this sort of thing outside an authentic tribal setting, but I find Percy convincing and the other participants reassuring." "I heard about ayahuasca ten years ago and I decided to look for it because I was having a bad time in my life." "And it was great, amazing." "I stopped smoking." "OK." "I first heard about this only a few months ago, and I'm just curious why so many researchers and travellers alike are coming to this part of the world and coming back with experiences that are just really interesting." "Sure." "How was it for you, the first time you did it?" " Absolutely amazing." " What did it do?" "It's so hard to explain." "You'll find out tonight, but it was just an unbelievable experience." "The best dream you've ever had, but it's real." "A storm rumbles over the camp as evening approaches." "I have a sense of foreboding about the night to come." "What will my vision be?" "I'm feeling quite apprehensive, actually." "I think this is going to be quite a powerful experience for me." "From everything I've read and from the people I've spoken to, this is not something anyone should take lightly." "I don't know what's going to happen, is the honest truth, I've no idea." "I think that the ultimate result of it will be positive, but I wouldn't be surprised if I go through some quite traumatic moments during this process tonight." "One by one, we step forward to drink a bitter, viscous shot of the concentrated ayahuasca." "Totally different to my last experience of doing ayahuasca, which was very fluid." "Lots and lots of people were doing it in one area." "This is a totally different sort of ceremony, and all that remains is to see what the evening holds in store for me." "No going back." "In the darkness, Percy sings and whistles to call in the spirits and their visions." "Before long, the effects begin to kick in." "Some are familiar." "And others more difficult for me to dismiss." "As the ayahuasca floods my system, a battle rages inside my head." "The medicine is working in ways which, at first, are hard to bear." "I just couldn't stop my ego talking all the time, analysing and questioning the experience as it happened." "And so, for hours I had this battle between my conscious mind and the plant." "My arrogant self was challenging the vision." "At one stage, I talked to a snake, but the recurring image was of the ugliness of my own ego." "The ayahuasca was not going to reveal anything else until I dealt with this first." "It was a powerful lesson and a humbling experience." "Somewhat chastened, I leave Iquitos and head down river once more." "But from now on, I will be guided by my vision, to try to be humble as I listen to the stories of the people I meet on my Amazon journey." "Finally, I am entering Brazil." "My first stop will be the town of Benjamin Constant, and my timing couldn't be better." "As one might expect from a frontier town, Benjamin Constant's got quite a funny reputation, and I've no idea what's in store for me this next week." "But I do know it's carnival time." "Carnival has its origins in ancient Rome, where slaves and masters would exchange clothes for a day of drunken revelry." "It was later modified by the Catholic Church into a ceremony before Ash Wednesday." "But it soon evolved into a massive celebration of indulgence." "It's one last blow-out of alcohol, sex, food and dancing before the abstinence of Lent." "I can't wait!" "Can you believe it?" "I love this." "Carnival is celebrated all over Brazil, but in Benjamin Constant, it's a little different." "Cross-dressing is the order of the day." "I join a group of local businessmen for a bizarre game of football." "I've been sent off!" "How can you get sent off at a match like this?" "!" "Everyone was just enjoying it and so not caring and there was no ego." "It was just fun, fun, fun, and it was the best game I've ever played, without a doubt, I promise you that." "It's the last night of carnival, and thousands of people pack into the town's Sambadrome." "The word "carnival" originates from the Latin "carne vale', or "farewell to the flesh"." "For six days, every town in Brazil is partying." "It's a national holiday of epic proportions." "Can I introduce a couple of people to you?" "Assistant producer, director, sound man...and fixer." "There is nobody that's not getting involved today." "Hi, guys!" "I've been travelling for three months now and I'm ready to let my hair down." "I've been entered into the carnival queen competition, and I reckon I'm in with a good chance." "Everybody who does the fashion walk parade has to have a persona." "It's a rule." "You've got to be someone that people know." "So I settled with the Queen of England." "Somehow, I didn't win." "First prize went to a gaudy strumpet in a spangly skirt." "There's no accounting for taste." "But it's been the most wonderful introduction to Brazil." "After six days of parties, I'm back on the river again, heading east into the forest." "Next time, I travel into one of the most remote parts of the Amazon to see some old friends - the Matis." "Nice to see you, really nice to see you." "But I find them at a point of crisis, as an epidemic threatens the tribe." "And I live and work with some of the people often held responsible for destroying the forest." "I'm in the Brazilian Amazon, heading into the heart of a highly protected reserve, home to the highest concentration of uncontacted tribes anywhere in the world." "It's a real honour to call you my friend." "I meet my old friends the Matis who I stayed with two years ago, and find them in the middle of a crisis." "And I visit the most powerful tribe in the region, the Marubo, a shamanic people, whose elaborate rituals form the fabric of their daily life." "But contact with the outside world has brought disease and destruction." "Here we go." "I decide to go and see the very people who are responsible." "And discover that the bad guys aren't bad after all." "Lots of laughter." "These guys don't stop giggling." "I've already been travelling thousands of miles on my journey so far, but it's only when I get up here, into the air, that it really strikes me as to just how large my journey is," "and just how huge the Amazon is." "I can see in every direction for miles and miles, but here to me is the heartland of the Amazon." "I'm flying just south of the Amazon River, near the border with Peru and Colombia." "Below is a reserve stretching over eight million hectares." "That's roughly the size of Portugal." "It's called the Vale Do Javari, and it's a safe haven for some of the last tribal peoples of Brazil." "It's been protected by law since 1998." "Down here is an unknown amount of people living out their traditional lives." "I'm with Tota from Brazil's Indian Protection Service, or FUNAI." "After contact with the outside world, thousands of Indians died from diseases, so today's policy is to leave isolated tribes alone." "FUNAI has mapped six different uncontacted groups here, but they believe there are more out there that are still unknown." "Somewhere in this endless sea of green that we have beneath us is a small clearing with five huts that we're desperately trying to find, because there, housed, are the most recently discovered group of isolated Indians anywhere in Brazil." "It's like scouring for a tiny needle in the most enormous haystack." "With our fuel supply dwindling and bad weather on the way, we decide to give it just five more minutes." "Then suddenly our luck changes." "Oh, my God!" "I think we've found it." "Oh, yes, we have." "There it is, there it is, there it is." "Wow!" "It's incredible to think the people below us live in complete isolation from the rest of the world." "Who knows what they're thinking of this big, noisy white thing flying through the air above them, but it's really important that FUNAI does these research trips." "The weather was against us, and it's just an endless sea of green here, and we didn't have a proper grid reference, so to finally have found it is amazing." "The important thing now is we don't stay too long, we allow the FUNAI guides to get their information and then we will leave these people in peace." "Amazing." "It's been a moving day for me today." "Seeing that settlement with the isolated people is just the most powerful image, and I'm so happy that they have FUNAI looking after their interests." "And I'm also so happy that they have this reserve, allowing them the space to live out their lives." "And I just hope that they're able to keep that until it is that they decide that they want to make contact with the outside world." "For the next stage of my journey I'm back on the river." "Having seen this vast reserve from the air, I'm now travelling much more slowly, Amazon-style, into the heart of the Vale Do Javari." "This is an ancient rainforest, untouched and unspoilt for thousands of years." "Not only is it a pristine wilderness, but the indigenous peoples, who are very much part of that ecosystem, are still here, and that's very special." "Before coming here, the crew and I had to have thorough health checks, letters from our doctors and a full set of inoculations to avoid any risk of bringing in outside diseases." "I'm on a journey deep up the River Itui to meet a group of people called the Marubo, but on the way, I'm gonna go past a group called the Matis, who are very special to me, cos a couple of years ago I came and lived with them" "for a month and so there's no way" "I can go past their homestead without going in to say a quick hello first." "I've heard that since I last saw them, things haven't gone well for the Matis." "There's talk of health problems within the village, so I'm not quite sure what I'll find when I get there." "I recognise one or two of these bends." "I think we're really close now." "This boat makes such a racket" "I wouldn't be surprised if there'll be someone on the bank waiting." "Yeah, there they are." "Hi, everyone." "Compared to the last time I was here, the people waiting on the bank seem quite subdued and sombre." "Hello, my friend." "How are you?" "Ah, it's nice to see you, really nice to see you." "How is everyone?" "How is the community?" "Two people?" "Old people or young?" "I'm so sorry to hear that news." "Tell me, what is the illness?" "What exactly is the problem?" "I'm sorry." "I'm so sorry, my friend, to hear that." "I'm only here for a short time, but before I'm invited to stay in the village," "I'm asked to sit down for a formal meeting with the chief, Xema." "It seems I've come at a very difficult time and a very important time, so whatever I can do, please tell me all about it." "Thank you." "I'm shocked at the extent of the suffering." "They're asking me for my help, and my hope is that by telling their story, it will alert people to what's going on here." "When I stayed here last time, I lived with my host, Tumi, and his family, spending a whole month in their home." "He's had one new family member since I was here last." "After you Tumi, Tumi junior." " Minke." " Min..." "Minke?" "Yeah, si." "Come on." "Hey, little one." "You didn't burst into tears." "That's quite unusual." "As night falls, those who are well enough gather in the maloca - or longhouse - to watch the film I made on my last visit." "I'm a bit anxious about how they will react." "The long house is the centre of Matis life - a place for eating, meeting and important rituals." "This morning, several hunters have the bitter juice of a special root squeezed into their eyes." "That is as sore as it looks." "The parts of the film the audience seem to enjoy the most is watching me in pain or feeling ill, and it reminds me of their great sense of humour." "The Matis were first contacted by the outside world in 1976." "Within a decade, over a third of the tribe had been wiped out by outside diseases, especially measles and flu." "And now, 30 years on, they're suffering from yet another wave of epidemics." "Xema, the chief, has invited me and the crew into his home." "He wants us to meet his 21-year-old daughter, who's been extremely ill for the last few months." "Her condition is getting worse." "I know it's really difficult for you and your whole family, Xema, but please tell me what you have brought me here to show me." "Tupa, you've been told you have a form of hepatitis, but how is it manifesting itself?" "Xema and his wife, Tupa, have already lost a son to hepatitis, and are terrified of losing their daughter as well." "Hepatitis appears to be slowly working its way through the community." "With only 260 people in the tribe, the very survival of the whole Matis culture is at risk." "Paradoxically, it's the fit young men in the village who seem to be responsible for spreading the illness." "Hepatitis B is a sexually transmitted disease, brought into the Amazon from the outside world by loggers and other incomers who then spread it amongst the prostitutes in the local town." "At the village clinic, the nurse tries to teach some basic sex education, but it's a complex issue trying to change cultural behaviour, and the risks are now much greater." "While the government health agency Funasa says it's working hard to deal with the crisis in the region, the people here feel forgotten about." "They say the medicines simply aren't getting through." "Later that night the elders take their seats in the long house to discuss the ongoing health problems." "Before the arrival of outside diseases, the Matis relied on the village shaman - or medicine man - to treat their illnesses." "I hear that the Matis had powerful shamans once." "Where did they go?" "I'm about to leave the village to continue my journey but, before I go, my old friends have a little surprise in store for me." "I've just been introduced to one of the new arrivals in the village and this young chap here is called Bruce, much to my surprise." "Bruce." "Bruce, Bruce." "Yeah?" "The crew are teasing me, saying they can see the likeness which I find a bit cheeky, so I've brought along his father to prove that it wasn't me." "But apparently he's a good kid." "He plays a lot and we've just been introduced and he's a bit shy." "Nice to meet you, mate." "Tumi, I'm off." "I'm sorry my visit has been so short, but your message is very clear to me and please rest assured that I will pass your message on." "Wow..." "I'm so touched by your words." "It's a real honour to call you my friend," "Thank you for this, thank you so much." "Best of luck to all of you, best of luck." "I'll be thinking of you." "I'm back on the water, heading further up the River Itui, travelling deeper into the Vale Do Javari." "It's really sad listening to the Matis talk about their recent history, and so tragic, and one of the most poignant things is that they feel...is the loss of their shamanic culture." "All their shamans have disappeared, but there is one tribal group in the Javari region that still has a very strong tradition in that way and they're a group of people called the Marubo and it's them that I hope to meet next." "But this is the Amazon, where nothing ever quite goes according to plan." "Our boat has broken down." "So we'll have to re-plan." "This boat's had it." "I'm cross decking, to a little version." "I'm on my way to the Marubo village of Parana." "The Marubo are considered the most powerful of all the tribes in Javari." "They've been in contact with the wider world for over 100 years, but have chosen to stay in their villages all the way up here in the headwaters of the River Itui." "They already know I'm coming as we sent someone ahead to ask their permission." "We've been told this village is home to the most powerful shaman in the region." "I think this gentleman here... is Robson, who I've heard so much about." "Me nome Bruce." "Robson." "Nice to meet you." "Thank you, what a lovely meeting." "Hello there, hey." "I want to go and shake everyone's hands but I think I've been ushered into the longhouse, so I'm going to do that first." "Wow." "Me nome Makibre." "Makibre, me nome Bruce." "After such a quiet and sad time with the Matis, it's a shock to be given such a boisterous welcome." "This is extraordinary." "I've never in my life had a greeting like this before." "Very physical, very hands on." "The Marubo is a relatively new tribe." "It was formed from various scattered groups that fled deep into the forest after the rubber boom of the 19th century when tribal peoples were forced into slave labour." "This hybrid group has now combined its various dances and rituals to form a new and vibrant culture." "They've built their villages here, deep in the Vale Do Javari, as far from the outside world as possible." "The Marubo seem to be putting on a bit of a show for me and the crew." "They're obviously proud of their culture and traditions and are keen to show them off." "The dancing goes on all afternoon and into the evening and shows no signs of slowing down." "I think it's going to be a late night." "As if today hasn't already been full of enough amazing occurrences, I'm just about to witness a shamanic ceremony on a child who's not feeling very well." "Robson, the shaman, lies in his hammock in its special place over the door of the longhouse and starts to chant the ancient songs that herald the beginning of a shamanic session." "The men chant for hours late into the night and slowly enter the trance-like state needed to perform their healing rituals." "What started as a day and an evening of cultural song and dance has turned into the most intense night of shamanising." "These two children are suffering from what I can only describe as flu-like symptoms and these shaman here are drawing out all of that sickness." "What I can feel now, looking around at the intensity on everyone's faces is just pure unadulterated belief." "It's extraordinary." "The hypnotic rhythms continue into the early hours of the morning." "The flu is an introduced disease, but the Marubo still believe that the power of their songs can heal their children and it's this commitment to their shamanic traditions that seems to give them such strength." "I've been given permission to move into the maloca, the longhouse." "Hey..." "The Marubo live communally in the longhouse which will be my home for the next week." "Each family unit has its own private area but neighbours often share food and it feels like you're part of one large family." "After breakfast we head into the forest, hunting for the vital ingredients in a ritual test for the men of the tribe." "Looks can be deceiving." "If their... ritual dances don't look particularly warlike, some of their other ritual acts most certainly are pretty hardcore." "This ritual's called the Tocandira and apparently, this one involves ants and their stings." "I'm not particularly looking forward to it, I must admit." "We've found the ant nest." "We came across..." "Oh, my Lord, they're not small, these ants." "The Tocandira ant is also known as the bullet ant and has a fearsome reputation due to its very powerful and painful sting." "The Marubo use it as a test of courage." "I've just been given this little pot of menace to carry and I had a sudden wave of nausea." "I'm not feeling good right now." "The next part of the ceremony is to hand out the ants." "Each man carries his own, wedged into the end of a stick." "I think the idea is to make them as angry as possible so that they can inflict maximum pain." "I don't profess for a second to know much about ants but it looks like this one actually has a sting in its tail which means that's venom and that's what we're going to be experiencing." "Robson the shaman leads the proceedings." "Red plant dye is used to paint targets in strategic positions on the body where the ants will be applied and encouraged to unleash their stings." "Yeah?" "OK." "Wow." "Thank the Lord for that." "It looks like I'm getting let off lightly." "People are walking around with them on their faces." "Once the ants and the men are ready, there's another bout of singing and dancing, as we all head into the longhouse for the main event." "I'm allergic to wasp stings and apparently ant venom is made up of a similar substance, so I'm a little nervous about getting a severe reaction." "It's quite a slow torture just sitting in line waiting for you to have your venom delivered." "I've no doubt this is quite painful." "Kakaya, first time." "Ah!" "I felt that." "Ouch!" "You can see a slight reaction, very slight." "If I think this is painful, imagine having it there and there and there like some of these guys." "My arm's quite sore still." "It feels like I've still got a couple of hot needles in there." "We're gonna go all through the night and I've been told that the reason we go through the night is another test." "It's another proof of your courage and your manliness, whatever you want to call it, and very much part of this is some of the members here within the community are undergoing ritual shaman training and they must be seen to stay up all night." "Some of the men are obviously in a great deal of pain." "So interesting being here and experiencing all this." "There's so much depth to the culture, it's really proudly shown off here." "I think I'm in for a long night." "In order to stay up all night, the men take snuff, or Ape, a traditional mixture of herbs and tobacco." "The chief, Kakaya, has offered to give me my first taste of the Marubo's sacred stimulant." "This is my first time." "Can you explain what I should do, please?" "Unfortunately, with my lack of experience," "I managed to blow the snuff back into the chief's mouth..." "A bit of a faux pas in Marubo culture." "Lo siento." "That first one was so strong, it really hit me hard but I think I breathed out most of it back into his mouth." "Poor guy, he's having to cough up loads of snuff in his gob." "I feel a bit bad about that." "It's breakfast time in the maloca." "Each of us brings our own sort of..." "breakfast addition to the eating area." "I'll bring it down and place it in front of myself." "But as soon as it's there, it's for everyone." "Which, in turn, means that..." "I can take something off anyone else's plate." "Let me show you the highlight." "A bit of plantain with this." "It's like a meaty sauce, but it's also got chillies in." "Delicious!" "Neglecting my duties..." "Because I told the community to treat me as a small child, one of the kids' jobs is to come and get the refills and, believe me, we refill a lot, there's no shortage of food." "All of these pots are for today's meal." "I can't help but compare my experience here with the Marubo to my time with the Matis." "While the Matis are struggling to find their place in the modern world, and have lost so much, the Marubo seem highly motivated and determined to keep their culture alive." "I've been wondering to myself what the secret is for the Marubo's strength in their culture." "They really are proud of it and they're strong and one of the things, maybe, is that they stamp that identity all the time and the way they stay long into the night and all these things," "they're quite regimented, actually." "It's quite a routine that they have, and even their haircuts, sitting here next to this guy, it's kind of military almost." "I'm being painted in preparation for another ritual called the Aco ceremony." "There's a strange, almost cult-like feel about this place, centred around the young shaman, Robson, and I wonder if life is like this all the time here or if the camera is making them feel they have to perform." "Today's ceremony in our week of magical events is...off cutting down a tree in order to make a drum for the longhouse." "The best trees for the Aco are across the river, and the men set off for a hard day's work." "They all seem quite happy to let me do the hard work." "In fact, they seem to enjoy watching the gringo sweat." "The next job is to carve the Aco drum out of the log." "The whole process takes two days until the Aco is finally ready to go." "Now all that's required is taking it back into the village, no doubt with a fair bit of ceremony." "The log must weigh at least a tonne, and it takes all of our combined strength to carry it." "So many people over undulating ground." "Sometimes it's really light, and other times, you feel like you're carrying the whole thing yourself." "I really wasn't expecting the log to be this heavy." "Those few moments when you really took the weight yourself, it was extraordinary, back-breakingly heavy, and we've got that hill to go up now." "The women of the village come out to welcome in the new Aco and to encourage the men in their efforts." "I thought we were being wimps when we kept having to keep putting it down, but now I realise that's all part of it, because we've even got refreshment breaks on our route because they knew in advance it was going to take us this long." "Bizarrely, tickling plays a big part in the Aco Ceremony." "The customs and rituals of the Marubo never fail to surprise, and according to this tradition, the women must tickle their brothers-in-law as they take rests between carrying the massive log." "Last little leg into the longhouse, except, of course, we can't go through the near door." "We've got to use the, er..." "Ooh-ay!" "The Aco is used primarily as a communication tool to send messages to neighbouring villages." "They use it to announce a death or a birth, a party, or just a simple hunting trip." "Once it's in place, the men start to hammer out their rhythms on the Aco." "I get the feeling once again that we have a very long night ahead." "There are many superstitions surrounding the drum." "For example, if your wife is pregnant, you can't play, as it's considered bad luck." "The Aco Ceremony wouldn't be complete without the usual singing and dancing session, and all the young men and women take their partners for another all-night party." "It's nice to be popular, but I think I'll try and sit this one out if I get a chance." "As the night draws on, the crew heads for bed." "But as my hammock is now in the longhouse," "I keep dancing long into the night." "Once again, Robson and the other shamans start to sing their ancient songs, but one of the young girls reminds me that I'm still in the 21st century." "She handed me an earpiece, and in one ear" "I've got the village shaman, and in the other, I've got Michael Jackson's Thriller." "I can't quite get my head around it." "Unreal." "Get a load of that!" "Like many people here, the chief's 10-year-old son is suffering from malaria." "The chief sings to him for hours on end to try and rid him of the disease." "Malaria here is considered as an introduced disease, an outsiders' disease, and here we have a father's all-night vigil, using the power of song to try and save the life of his own son." "We've been up all night and I'm about leave." "There's time for just one last dip." "Finally, after an exhausting five days," "I say my goodbyes to Robson." "Thank you so much for looking after me during my short stay." "Thank you." "Whatever I think of the Marubo's intensive methods of maintaining their identity, it's clear that it's working, and their culture is very much alive - and they're happy." "I've now come to the very edge of the indigenous reserve, where the forest is no longer protected." "In this frontier zone, logging is big business and hundreds of chainsaw gangs are busy cutting down the valuable hardwoods for export." "I felt that I couldn't really leave the area until I'd seen a little bit of the other side of the coin, so I'm off to go and live with some loggers to see what life is like from their perspective." "I'm slightly nervous about the next few days." "The people I'm going to see are considered the bad guys, the men who are responsible for bringing diseases into the region and whose job it is to destroy the forest." "Oh, this must be the logging camp." "Well hidden." "Raymondo, hey!" "I'm at the right place, it seems." "That's a relief." " Nice to meet you." "Nice to meet you." " Cheers." "Wow, I like your camp." "Thank you." "Most of the loggers are out at work, but a few minutes later, dinner arrives." "Aqui, senor." "Amigo..." "My God." "This is Boto." "He's just got back from a hunting trip, in case you hadn't worked it out for yourself." "Much like the Matis and the Marubo, the loggers spend most of their lives in the forest, and they, too, have developed an extensive knowledge of the animals and plants of the region." "Throughout the afternoon, the camp gradually fills up as more and more loggers appear from the forest after a hard day's work." "Homely feeling around this camp, actually." "I've been made really welcome and there's just lots of laughter." "These guys don't stop giggling." "It's a really friendly, friendly environment." "But, Raymondo, my time here is to allow you to tell the world what you think about your job and what you are doing." "Boto and Victor have asked me to come and help them with some work." "It's rainy season in the Amazon and the water is steadily rising." "This the best time to move the cut logs down river, using the swollen stream as a living conveyer belt." "This is not easy." "Not easy for me, anyway." "Too late, too late, too late." "OK." "If you try too much to go on the ones in the middle and you step slightly off balance, they start spinning, and it's really hard to right that, and unless you've got another one to get onto, if you're like me," "you're straight in the water." "The idea is to free up all the logs and keep them moving down to the main river so they can eventually be rafted up, shipped out and sold." "It's really hard work, this." "You have to have a sure footing the whole time and really good balance, but just an hour or so and...knackering." "On the menu for tonight is woolly monkey stew." "Food always just tastes so much nicer outdoors, and if you've done a little bit of work, doesn't matter what it is, it just always seems to taste good." "What's your favourite food here in the jungle?" "That's very kind, but you're good teachers...and I enjoyed it." "It was good fun." "Bueno." "Having just watched the experts in action, they're now keen for me to have a go." "OK." "And is it OK to cut from there, or must I cut from the end?" " No." " So like that." "Then, will it...?" "So, I just hold it strong here?" "OK." "A real case of nerves, actually." "Not only am I understandably fearful of the chainsaw, a kind of healthy respect for it, but also, just a tree falling - I know how unpredictable it can be." "But just as I'm about to cut down my first tree, the chainsaw grinds to a halt." "Can you get the spark plug out and have a look?" "Kaput." "They've been playing this for a while, but it's not working, and this is their only chainsaw." "So, this tree has had a lucky escape and so, in many ways, have I." "But even without a chainsaw, the work must go on." "One of the hardest jobs is to get the logs from where they've been felled down to the river." "Using manpower alone, we have to clear a wide path through the forest and wrestle the logs to the stream." "The interesting thing about this, this isn't big logging at all." "This is not industrial clear felling." "This is what they call selective logging." "But there's still a question over how sustainable this form of logging is." "For every one tree you cut down, you lose several more trying to extract the logs." "No matter how much I love these guys, and I do - they are the nicest people that I've met on my journey for a long time," "I'm really enjoying their company - seeing this industry shows to me really what's going on." "Yah!" "Yah." "Here we go." "It's hard work, hard work." "Just one little length, just a short distance." "Victor, this log that we have just rolled in here, how much will you sell that for in town?" "How much is that worth?" "For all this effort and hard work, the men get just £ 12 a metre for their timber - roughly £50 a log, which has to be split between the whole crew." "Despite everyone's efforts, the chainsaw is still refusing to work this morning, so it's back on the river to take advantage of the recent rain to keep moving all the logs further downstream." "Much harder today because we've got to get all of these out somehow." "Steer it, and watch you don't get crushed from behind." "Come on!" "Trying to turn that end by this little lever, here." "Once you've got the direction right, you can have a little rest." "Just as I'm about to leave, something clicks." "At last, I'm getting the hang of it." "Now, this is the best bit, cos finally, having brought all of these logs from the forest into the creek, we're now in the river where it's big enough that we can raft them up" "and from here, it's a bit more steady, and it's plain sailing all the way down." "But, sadly, it's time to go." "I have to return to the main river and continue my journey downstream." " OK." " OK." "Victor, muchos obrigado." "Obrigado." "You've been a good man, and thank you for teaching me so much." " Obrigado." "OK." " Obrigado." "OK, my friend." "Hey, obrigado!" "During my time in Javari," "I've seen many perspectives of life in the forest." "The loggers are not the demons I once thought, but ordinary men living out the only life they know to satisfy our demand for hardwood." "The Marubo are keeping their culture alive through their regime of rituals, and the Matis are still struggling for their very survival as they grapple with the outside world." "I hope the uncontacted tribes can keep the chainsaws and diseases at bay and continue to live in isolation as long as THEY choose to." "On the next leg of my journey, I travel into the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, where I get to grips with the natural world." "This is fishing!" "I'm deep in the Brazilian Amazon." "I think you can safely say that this is the wet season." "Rainwater pours into the rivers, flooding vast areas of this great forest and creating one of the richest natural landscapes on earth." "It's the most extraordinary place." "My God!" "I'm on my way to live with the Ribeirinhos, the river people." "Meu nome e Bruce." "These are the descendants of early settlers and indigenous tribes and they rely on the river and the forest for their survival." "I'm off again on the hunt for pirarucu." "This is fishing." "They understand this place better than anyone." "He's calling for caiman." "And quite distressingly, they're calling back." "Now their unique knowledge may offer a lifeline for the future of the Amazon." "I'm leaving Tabatinga, a logging town on the borders of Brazil, Peru and Columbia." "So far on my journey, I've trekked with llamas, been in canoes, rafts, airplanes, buses, all sorts of transport, but for the next month I'm gonna be almost exclusively back on the Amazon," "and what better way to start this stage of my journey than on a public cruise ship like this one." "I started out four and a half months ago at the source of the Amazon River." "I'm following its course to the sea, learning about life here from the people I meet on the way." "Now I'm heading for a beautiful nature reserve called Mamiraua." "Ah, we don't set off for another couple of hours yet, but people are already milling around, because the secret is to find your hammock space really early." "Here people are utterly dependent on the river." "It's a lifeline linking towns and cities." "It's so nice to be finally on some proper public transport, because, of course, from here on in the Amazon just gets bigger and bigger and it is the route to get anywhere." "There's no roads or anything that go any distances round here." "So you want to get anywhere, you use these and I couldn't say that I'd even been on the Amazon unless I'd experienced this, so it's really nice to finally be here." "With very few roads through the dense jungle, tonnes of Peruvian and Columbian goods bound for Brazil and beyond are transported by river through this border town." "Thousands of people travel like this every day." "The distances are enormous, it can take days getting to your destination." "We're all packed in like sardines, so you soon get to know your neighbours." "Si?" "Oh..." "It's a very sociable form of transport, and a great way to see the Amazon." "There's not much to do, but lie in your hammock and watch the jungle slide slowly by." "One of the troubles with being in the border lands, especially between Brazil, Peru and Columbia is that any movement down the river here, you're gonna be subject to a fair bit of searching." "These guys here have been going through every single bag on this boat." "This is a major trade route from Peru and Columbia, so cocaine trafficking is rife." "The Brazilian Federal Police have posts along the river where they stop and check every vessel that passes through." "They turn the place over, searching every bag and box and it looks like they've found something." "They've just taken a guy off here, and I know that on the boat just before they found a bloke with 15 kilograms of cocaine." "Just been chatting to one of the policemen, they don't really want to show their face on camera, but what they did tell me was, for the last four months, every single boat like this that's come down this stretch of the Amazon" "they've found contraband, mostly cocaine." "And when you think this is the largest route access out, leaving Colombia and Peru, heading out towards the Atlantic, it's no surprise really." "Over 85% of the world's cocaine is produced in Colombia and Peru, hundreds of tonnes every year, and a lot of it is smuggled down the Amazon by boat." "How did you see this?" "The weight." " The weight of the bag?" " Look here." "Oh." "Wow!" "Here and here." "How much do you think all of this is?" "We really don't know, it's about two." " Two kilograms?" " Two kilograms." "About two." "OK, and if this becomes a prosecution and in Brazilian law for two kilograms of trafficking, what can somebody expect to get as a penalty?" "From five to 15." "Five to 15 years?" "We can prove it's cocaine." "You have the chemicals, yeah?" " If it gets blue it's cocaine." " Sure." "You want to see?" "Ah." "It's cocaine." "No doubt, it's cocaine." "The cocaine trade dominates the west of the Amazon." "I've seen it being processed in the hills of Peru and now being smuggled along the rivers of Brazil." "My next stop is one of the most interesting places in the Amazon Basin, the Mamiraua Nature Reserve." "It's a huge protected area, more than twice the size of Wales." "Every year, during the rainy season the rivers burst their banks, flooding a vast area." "This flooded forest is home to some of the Amazon's most amazing species." "But it's also the location for a pioneering experiment, a way to balance the needs of the environment and the people who live here." "Already the forest here looks really different to anything I've seen before and I am now actually within the Mamiraua Reserve, and the first village that I'm gonna go and visit is one of the larger fishing communities it's called Jarua." "There I hope to meet the president so that I can get permission to stay in this area." "More than 20 million people live in the Amazon Basin." "Most depend on the river and the forest for survival and overfishing and overhunting is decimating wildlife in many areas." "I'm about to meet people who are trying to find a way to live sustainably." "If they succeed they could help to protect wildlife across the whole Amazon." "Wooh!" "Cool!" "What a great looking place." "We've just come down the whole length of the village, everyone's just sitting in their doorways, like this line of houses, all of them on stilts and now I've just got to go and find Lourdes," "who's the community leader here." "The people here are known as Ribeirinhos, the river people." "They're the descendants of early settlers and indigenous tribes and their lives are shaped by the ebb and flow of the Amazon." " Todo bem?" " Todo bem." "Donde esta Dona Lourdes?" "Ah, OK." "Dona Lourdes?" "As the flood waters rise, the villagers will soon have to use canoes to visit their next-door neighbours." "Meu nome es Bruce." "Dona Lourdes is the president of Jarua Village." " Todo bem." " Todo bem." "She's arranged for me to spend some time with her son, Jorge, or Tapioca as he's known." "Tapioca is a fisherman, the best for miles around." "He's spent his life fishing in the flooded forest and knows this place better than anyone." "Tapioca, what's the biggest reason your nets here get destroyed?" "Really?" "Caiman are closely related to American alligators." "They can grow up to nine feet long and weigh up to 200 kilograms." "It's illegal to hunt them commercially within the reserve, but people do and use their fatty meat as bait to catch catfish." "Yeah, you can feel the difference." "That is a bit of hardwood!" "That is heavy." "Much of the hunting and fishing here is done with harpoons like this." "Hardcore bit of kit." "Wow!" "For decades, fishermen like Tapioca have made their money supplying fish for the rapidly growing cities of Brazil, Colombia and Peru." "But they could never supply enough and the fish populations of the flooded forest were crashing." "The Ribeirinhos' livelihood was threatened and there was a risk that some species would disappear from here for ever." "Between this open lake here and all the other secret hidden lakes further beyond, the only way to really get there through all this flooded forest is in these tiny little canoes." "This is where the fun starts." "OK." "Tapioca has spent much of his life canoeing through this forest." "We're actually paddling close to the forest canopy, which for the rest of the year is nearly 50 feet above the ground." "Now animals like sloths and howler monkeys that normally live high above the forest floor are only feet away from the water." "It's the most extraordinary place." "I've been in mangroves, swamps, and different types of watery forests before, but never like this, this is just like a normal rainforest, tropical forest, but just flooded and as a result just has this really sort of ethereal feel to it." "The flooded forest is a magical place." "This unique ecosystem supports a dazzling array of wildlife." "400 species of bird, and at least 45 kinds of mammal." "Rare pink river dolphins weave between the trees and giant otters play amongst the flooded branches." "The water teems with countless species of fish." "I can't believe it!" "Literally, it's only a minute since we tied up the net and we're just going back along its length and here we have two fish already." "Pirarucu." "Pirarucu is the name for the biggest species of freshwater fish that you'll find here in the Amazon." "And it's one of the things that I know that he is a specialist at." "And we were just sat here pulling these fish out and he heard one!" "Can you imagine hearing fish?" "This guy, unreal." "20 years ago, hunting and overfishing were posing such a threat to the environment here that something had to change and Mamiraua was designated a reserve." "In Brazil, people weren't normally allowed to live in a conservation area, but here a revolutionary approach was adopted." "The idea was to form an alliance between the conservationists, who were concerned about the wildlife and the environment and the Ribeirinhos who needed to make a living here." "The Ribeirinhos would use their unique river knowledge to collect data for the scientists." "The scientists in turn would teach the Ribeirinhos how to fish in a sustainable way." "Apparently the rain's gonna come, so Tapioca's asked if I can come and help this gentleman " "I think it's his brother-in-law - put the roof on his house." "I'm only here for a week, but I want to earn my keep." "To make a roof like this they need as much help as possible, so everybody pitches in." "We're trying to finish it before it rains again." "Wherever I go in the world, there's always a slightly different technique, a slightly different thatch, slightly different joint." "But always effective and always great fun." "The women have collected the palm fronds from the village plantation, a short boat ride from here." "We've got to get a move on, there's a storm blowing in." "The rain better not be imminent." "Cos this house ain't gonna be done in the next hour." "We pick up the pace, it's a race against the weather, a race we were never going to win." "We're in the middle of the wet season and it pours with warm heavy rain every day." "The Amazon is one of the wettest places on Earth." "Some areas average over six feet of rain a year." "It's not a good time to be without a roof." "I want to understand how the reserve operates, 228 scientists work alongside the Ribeirinhos and I'm heading out with one of them." "Robin Arias is studying caiman." "For many years they were hunted for their meat and their valuable skins and they became critically endangered, but after a hunting ban, their numbers have increased." "Tonight, Robin's gonna come out and try and spot and identify, maybe even capture some of the caimans that live in this area, but because he does that at night, which is the best way to capture them," "he has to actually reconnaissance the location during daylight hours." "Si, si, si." "It's just an extraordinary place looking around cos you can see last year's sort of high water mark, the dark rings on all of these trees around." "In a couple of months or so, the water will be up to there again, so all this green will have gone, it will just be water as far as the eye can see." "At this time of year, it's hard to break through these huge banks of grass, but Robin is confident we'll find some young caiman here once it's dark." "The Ribeirinhos are experts at spotting caiman, so they can gather detailed data for his research." "With this really high-powered beam, it's actually relatively easy to spot the caiman even in the rushes, because just like a rabbit in the headlights, we can see the shine of the light coming back at us," "which is where we identify them." "And then they're paralysed." "So as long as they're not scared off by the engine we can just go straight in and then with his noose, he'll just stick it round the end of their nose and hopefully stop those jaws from being too dangerous." "We're only looking for juveniles, but these reeds will be full of large adults too." "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." "Amazing little creature, not wriggling or anything." "He's quite placid in my hands." "And just the most beautiful textured skin, especially underneath where it's really soft." "Extraordinarily beautiful," "I think." "Ready." "Ouch." " Yes?" " OK." "Robin's work won't just save the caiman, it could soon help the Ribeirinhos too." "Wow." "Hey, multo buon." "Multo buon." "Once there's a clear idea of numbers, the reserve will allow the Ribeirinhos to hunt and sell caiman legally, knowing the species won't be threatened." "I've been in Jarua almost a week now, and it's nearly time for me to move on again." "But before I go, I desperately want to see one of the Amazon's most extraordinary animals, the pirarucu, one of the world's largest fresh water fish." "Tapioca has promised to find one for me." "I've been out fishing with him every day and his knowledge is astonishing." "He's calling for caiman." "And, quite distressingly, they're calling back." "Four different locations I can hear." "Tapioca used to hunt caiman illegally, but now works with the scientists to monitor the fish stocks, and he profits from the new fishing quotas they devise." "We paddle silently through the trees." "Tapioca has heard something in the forest." "A pirarucu coming up for air." "Pirarucu are perfectly adapted for this environment." "They've evolved to take gulps of air from the surface, an advantage in these murky deoxygenated waters, but it also helps the fishermen like Tapioca." "It's a perfect shot." "But it's not a pirarucu." "Suddenly something caught his eye." "And off he went." "And he threw it, must have been six, seven yards in front of him." "Not so long ago, this area was so overfished it was hard to catch anything here." "We search the forest for hours and Tapioca occasionally hears the telltale sound of the pirarucu." "But again, it's a different fish that he spears." "This time, it's a tambaqui." "We return home without a prized pirarucu but a good haul of fish." "It's the weekend and we take a well-earned rest from fishing." "Tapioca can afford to spend a couple of days at home with his family." "Christianity plays a large part in people's lives out here." "Most villages have a church, but some priests have to cover huge areas." "Father Volnei has travelled from Alvarães, an eight hour boat journey to get here." "He knows everyone and they're all excited to see him." "Bruce." "Bruce, si, si, si." "Oh, my God." "Oh, you speak some English." "You speak Portuguese." "Pico." "I speak a little bit of English." "Nice to meet you." "Nice to meet you." "No, I don't speak very well." "It's difficult for me." "My vocabulary is..." "I saw your boat arrive and you on the horn, eh-eh!" "I like my boat." "And I see that, I see you've been saying hello to everyone in the community, you know all their names." "It's really nice." "Here, in this community, I like it, I very like it." "You know." " It's one of your favourites." "Fantastic." " I like fishing." "Sure, sure." "Me too." "I've been trying with my friend Tapioca but..." "I like to eat crocodile." "Most of the village heads to the church." "Today, the father will be baptising two of the children." "This village is a mixture of Protestant and Catholic, but everyone comes to church when Father Volnei is here." "Dona Lourdes has really kindly invited Tapioca and myself to Sunday lunch." "Tapioca's house is only five hundred yards down there but he goes," ""I don't like walking, I think we'll take the boat."" "So here we are." "Nice to see you again." "Muito obrigado por comer." "Si, si, si, si, si, si." "Yeah, yeah I know." "I don't know if we're early." "If we are, we can help you." "We'd love to." " What are the different fish here?" " Pirarucu." " Pirarucu?" " Yeah." "My Lord!" "And this one?" "Sharon." "This is pirarucu." "The famous, elusive fish." "Are you sure it's escaping me, or is it escaping the fisherman?" "The people of Jarua took a risk when they agreed to work with the reserve, but some villages in Mamiraua weren't so convinced." "They've been through some hard times and they've also had to make some sacrifices in order to get today what they feel is a really happy lifestyle that they're really proud of." "And that's really the word, that they are all proud, they've all bought into it." "It's a cooperative, really, there isn't a single leader who's selling off all their fish to some fish farm down the road and getting rich individually." "It's all about everyone being together, everyone seeing the benefit together and everyone wanting to tell others." "The reserve has worked well for Tapioca and the people of Jarua." "But it's time for me to move on." "Mamiraua is huge." "There are more than 11,000 people living in hundreds of small communities scattered over a vast area." "Life in the more remote parts of the reserve is very different." "I'm on my way to the village of San Francisco do Boia, a day's boat ride away." "This tiny Ribeirinhos village is perched between the forest and the river and has yet to be accepted into the sustainable fishing programme." "The most noticeable difference between here and the village I was at previously, is that most of these houses seem to be floating." "Really feels different and looks different straight away." "I'm going to stay in one of these floating houses with Branco, his wife Lenilda and their three children." "Obrigado, obrigado." "Hello." "Bruce." "Branco." "Hola, Branco." "Oh, my God." "Obrigado." "Obrigado." "I'm right at home already." "What's your name?" "Alessandro." " Bruce." "Nice to meet you." "Bruce, hello, hi." "Carla, Alessandro, y?" "Benioto." "Hi, guys." "OK lovely, lovely." "Ah, you've got a cat." "Wow." "I've arrived at the busiest time of year." "The river is rising daily and everyone's rushing to harvest their crops before the fields are flooded." "Manioc is the staple foodstuff round here, a starchy root vegetable that's rich in carbohydrate." "It's crucial to get the timing of the harvest right or you risk losing the whole crop." "That really is a good reason to pull up all of your manioc." "This place will be completely flooded in a week." "Everything gone, so although they have all this great soil and sort of a lovely alluvial plain that they can plant this stuff, if they don't get it out now, it's lost for the season." "In San Francisco, they don't grow enough manioc to sell." "Their harvest will be just enough for Branco and his family for the coming year." "For some reason, I can only ever pull it when he gives me that last little tug." "The top of the plant is cut off, and the tubers we're pulling out will eventually be taken back to the village and processed." "It's back-breaking work." "Branco's made the decision and I can't say I'm against it, that it's suddenly become a little bit too hot." "OK, perfecto." "So we're just gonna cover up the manioc we've already pulled up to stop it drying out, and come back this evening." "Hard work, man." "Branco roasts the manioc for many hours." "Lenilda's prepared the family meal, but everyone seems a bit quiet, a bit distracted." "It was funny, we were all sitting down a minute ago and I was like, you know, "What are you gonna do later?" "What's your plan?"" "And they're all looking a bit sheepish and I could tell that something wasn't quite right." "I said, "Well, what's up, what's up?"" "And they're like, "Well, to be honest," ""Brazil's playing football" ""and that's what we really want to do." "We want to get the TV on."" "So I was like "Well, come on then, let's do it." So before I knew it, they all ran around, genny's been started, TV's on next door." "No beer, unfortunately, but I'm off to watch the match." "If there's one thing that unites Brazilians, young, old, male or female, it's football." "Brazil won, one nil." "And when the match is finished, Branco tells me we're heading out on the water." "Tonight, we're hunting caiman, but this time, it's not for science, it's for cash." "In actual fact, caiman hunting here is illegal." "But they're not gonna sell the meat or the skin of the caiman, they're gonna use it as bait to catch other fish." "It's the only source of income this community has at this time of year." "I've been hunting many times but it's normally to put food on the table." "I don't want to judge Branco but I've got mixed feelings about this trip." "He scans the reeds for the telltale glint of eyes in exactly the same way Robin did, but this time, we're looking for fully grown adults." "So still at the moment." "I can just imagine when we finally steal our way in and set the harpoon off, it's going to be a very different story when the whole scene erupts around us." "Not quite sure if I'm looking forward to it or not." "Branco does this two or three times a week." "It doesn't take long before we spot one high up on the bank." "I couldn't make it out as clearly as I'd liked because we went straight for it." "And it was on the bank, can you believe it?" "And he just stood up and threw it like a spear, the harpoon, and here we have it." "My God!" "Amazing looking creature." "Just the most extraordinary hunting, killing machine, hardly changed since dinosaurs ruled the earth." "Sixty million years it's been without evolving, because it's just so perfectly in tune with what it has to do." "What a horrible way to go." "It's still moving." "I get to sit in the bit where the croc is." "The caiman." "That's extraordinary." "Not really sure what to say about that." "I've hunted crocodiles before, actually, not caiman but crocodile and very similar, but for some reason, this just seemed a bit just slightly different." "Just a bit more..." "Quite horrific." "Such an extraordinary beast, and, uh..." "Quite sad, actually." "In other parts of the Amazon, caiman meat is considered a delicacy, but the villagers here never eat it." "And tomorrow, this will be nothing more than bait." "That was a night and a half." "Leave it out here." "Scare the cat in the morning." "The next morning, the dead caiman is taken to the riverbank." "Branco is not the only person who hunts caiman round here." "It's shocking to see so many of these magnificent creatures lying dead by the river, but life here is tough and the family needs cash." "The way these huge carcasses are used is unlike anything I've seen before." "The aim is to use the dead caiman to catch a type of catfish they call piracatinga." "The kids just running around while we chop up a caiman." "We slice off the caiman's fat." "This will be used as bait to draw in the catfish." "Within seconds, the water is teeming with piracatinga." "Then, you just grab the fish behind the gills and throw them into the open pen." "Easier said than done." "Mine's not working." "Raimundo and his brothers are true experts - they catch hundreds of kilos of piracatinga every week." "I'm just grabbing them too far back and they just slip forwards." "It's a classic mistake and I just haven't got the skill right to go to the front and then grab them." "And the couple that I have got have been quite small and the big ones just have been wriggling free." "It's a real art, as you might expect." "Amazing how much waste." "These huge chunks of meat are being just tossed to the side." "They're not needed." "It's just the fat that they like by the looks of it." "And the irony is that I've eaten caiman and crocodile before and I really quite like the meat and I hate catfish!" "They're throwing away all this meat to catch these." "And none of the people here eat these fish either." "They sell the catch on and they're eventually exported to Colombia." "It's time to see the fruits of our labour." "Even with me getting in the way," "Branco reckons we caught about three hundred kilograms of piracatinga." "Fishing like this seems pretty poor business." "They only get 30p for each kilo of fish." "At the moment, we're selling this fish here for about one real a kilogram." "Now, at the moment, the only caiman that's sold legally goes for about 45 reais a kilogram." "Now, if there was a management programme here, these caiman could actually be sold on constructively and make this community a lot more money." "For Branco and the people of San Francisco de Boia, becoming part of the Mamiraua project would guarantee a decent income without endangering species." "But until that does happen, communities like this will continue hunting caiman to catch piracatinga in order to make some sort of living." "The family has run out of wood to dry the manioc." "Everyone's heading out to replenish their stock." "This area of forest has the wood we're after, but in a few weeks time, it will be underwater and out of reach for many months." "Wood collecting in the reserve is sustainable." "All the wood taken here is already dead." "Everyone's got a job to do, no matter how small." "Clara's job is to clear the path and every time we come past, she's cleared a bit but she's also in the way or made more dead wood, so everyone's teasing her." "It's really funny." "Life here may be hard but it can be fun too." "How all these amazing kids have got all their fingers and aren't broken arms and legs and heads I don't know, cos there's so many near accidents here, but that's what makes them tough." "And they are aware of what's going on around them, and they're strong and fit and agile and they take the knocks." "And I love them." "We've got plenty of wood to dry the family's manioc." "On the way back, our boat starts to run out of petrol so we're given a tow." "This is a beautiful area of forest." "But it's not an easy place to live." "River people need to work hard and look out for each other to survive here." "To be a part of the Mamiraua conservation scheme and to be able to catch and sell fish legally, the villagers have to prove that they have protected an area from being over-fished for a number of years." "During my stay, Branco took me to a pirarucu lake where they've been doing just that." "If we catch a pirarucu, it will feed the whole village." "If you live here, you're allowed to fish for anything, even protected species, as long as it's to eat and not to sell." "I'm off again on the hunt for pirarucu." "This lake is much more isolated." "We've got a much harder job getting to it." "Branco paddles through the shallow lake, looking and listening for a pirarucu coming to the surface to breathe." "Then, he strikes." "Wow, that is a big fish." "Good shot." "My God." "The fish is strong enough to pull our canoe around." "Branco slowly hauls it in." "Oh, my God." "Why didn't it swim away?" "This is fishing!" "Oh, you're gonna kill it with this?" "OK." "Cansado." "OK." "Yeah, got it." "Oh, you found some..." "Oh, you just hold it in the eye." "That is a noise!" "I've never had a fishing experience like this." "I tell you that much." "Obrigado." "This weighs a ton, even supported in the water, but it's interesting because at this time of year, this community would never come out and fish for these." "Firstly, because it's really hard with the water being so high, but secondly, they're trying to conserve it, but because also this is the hardest time of year for them, because they have to get all their manioc out" "and they have to prepare it so it doesn't go off for the whole year." "Everybody is so busy doing that, that people aren't fishing as much as they normally would for the small stuff." "So they come out to get a monster which will feed the entire community." "So, pull it on?" "My God, you think, this," "Branco reckons, is a 20 kilogram specimen." "They can grow up to 200 kilograms." "Ten times this size, ten times!" "Branco, if you get a big, big, big one, how do you get it into the boat?" "Muito obrigado." "Last year, they counted 500 pirarucu in this lake, and they have another similar lake nearby." "What they desperately need is permission to sell the meat commercially." "That would provide a stable income for the village." "Until that happens, they still struggle to make a living." "The pirarucu will be cut up and shared amongst the villagers." "It's just like skinning and gutting a huge mammal, it's not just a question of brushing off the scales, they literally are taking the whole of the skin off." "And here we go for the main incision." "OK, we're gonna weigh it." "19." "He said it was a 20kg fish, and, uh... the bit that counts has come in at 19." "That's not bad, is it?" "The villagers now recognise that the new controls on fishing set by the reserve will be good in the long term and will preserve this area for their children." "Sadly, it's time for me to say goodbye." "I can honestly say this is one of the happiest times I've had in the community in my whole journey so far." "It's such an amazing group of people." "Really sad to bid them farewell, but the time has come." "Branco." "Senor, amigo." "Muito, muito obrigado." " Obrigado." " Adios." "Been amazing." "Yeah." "Ah, goodbye, everyone." "Good luck, my friend." "Thanks everyone." "Stay good, yeah, thank you." "They've got so much on their hands at the moment and I really, really wish them all the best." "The good news is that during our time here, the institute have given a really clear indication that if things go well, they could be part of the management programme within a few months, which is just extraordinarily good news." "And so, I hope that goes ahead and that will make a huge difference to the lives of everyone living here." "So, I wish them well." "Yay!" "Adios!" "It's good to leave on a positive note." "By combining the Ribeirinhos' traditional knowledge with 21st century science," "Mamiraua is improving people's lives and protecting wildlife." "It's a successful model that could be applied throughout the whole Amazon basin." "I continue my journey down river with renewed hope." "I'm back on the water heading towards the region's biggest city, Manaus." "The river is vast here and about to get much bigger." "This is the meeting of the waters where the black Rio Negro flowing from the north meets the cloudy Rio Solimoes, rich with sediments from the Andes." "Together, they form the Amazon, the greatest river on earth." "It's pretty unbelievable when you look around, and when I think back, all those months ago, to when I was at Nevado Mismi at a tiny trickle of water that was the source of the Amazon." "And then I check out this, it's just unbelievable." "What a journey I have had." "From here on in, it's only ever known as the Rio Amazonas." "I've been through all sorts of different names, seen all sorts of different terrains, but now, really, I can feel the mighty strength of this river." "And when you think that the Rio Negro here probably one of the world's, I don't know, fifth or sixth largest rivers, is just a tributary to the Amazon." "Now, if that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does." "The next stage of my journey," "I'm going in search of the riches of the Amazon." "I'll be partying with the millionaires of Manaus and joining the rush for new money in one of Brazil's illegal gold mines." "I'm not too sure what to expect so far, but the phrase Wild West comes to mind." "And I'll meet some people who are trying to value the Amazon in a revolutionary way." "It really is without a doubt the best view of the forest I have ever, ever had." "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 our journey'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 local...den 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, um...any 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." "I'm on my final stretch of my journey down the Amazon where the destruction of the rainforest is taking place on a massive scale." "This is the front line in the conflict over the Amazon's resources." "I ride out with the cowboys driving Brazil's booming cattle industry." "I go on a raid with the environmental police as they try to combat illegal logging." "Seems that their paperwork's not in order." "I meet the modern-day slaves, hidden in the shadows." "No-one deserves this." "I hear from the Kayapo Indians, fiercely defending their territory from invasion." "This is war paint, because, for the people here, it's a proper battle." "I've been travelling for seven months." "This now is the final stage of what's become quite an epic journey." "I can't quite believe that the end is almost in sight." "All the way through Brazil so far, I've been in Amazonas State, living with Coboclos, Ribeirinhos, loggers, fishermen, farmers." "But now, it's completely different." "What started as a tiny trickle in the high Andes has become this vast body of water." "The main river has been joined by the Madeira and the Negro, two of the longest rivers in the world." "But these are mere tributaries of the mighty Amazon." "Here, as I enter Para State at the end of the river, the forces of global commerce are now starting to dominate the landscape." "As the river now is just getting bigger and bigger, the stories are getting bigger and bigger, too." "In this part of the Amazon, vast swathes of rainforest have been destroyed to make way for agriculture." "Brazil has now become the world's largest exporter of beef and soya." "But Brazil's emergence as a global agricultural powerhouse comes at a huge cost to the environment." "And this is the dilemma at the heart of the Amazon." "It's home to a quarter of the world's known species and provides a fifth of the Earth's oxygen." "But it's also rich in land, gold, oil and timber." "At this point, I'm heading inland, away from the river, to see the damage to the forest, firsthand." "Oorgh!" "Obrigado." "OK." "Adios!" "I'm driving into the Amazon's new agricultural frontier where cattle ranching has taken over the jungle." "Not so long ago, all of this was pristine forest." "But, now that all the logs have gone, one of the biggest uses of this sort of land is for cattle ranching." "And I'm now right in the middle of cow country." "I've come south of the Amazon River, to the heart of Para State, to a region called Altamira, where the beef business is booming." "I'm travelling on the Transamazônica Highway, on my way to a cattle ranch, where I'll be spending a few days, experiencing life out on the range." "Bruce." "Wow!" "What a place!" "Hey!" "You're not gonna let me get too close." "Valdo is the head cowboy on the farm and he takes me to meet the rest of the gang." "Wow." "OK." "Nice to meet you." "So, tomorrow... amanha..." "I'll be helping you guys on the farm?" "You might have to give me some lessons." "I'm not very good at all this stuff." "It's my first morning on the ranch and my first task is to mount up." "They've found me a good horse." "This one's pretty placid, I can tell." "Not a slight quiver from a novice on its back." "This is a fattening farm." "It has roughly 4,000 head of cattle, covering roughly 70,000 hectares." "But it's a minnow compared to others in the region." "It takes a full day's riding across this vast farm before we round up the last of the cattle." "Two medium-sized herds that we've had to round up and drag through hedges and across streams and finally got them into this pen." "They're going to be fed up a little bit before they're sent for export." "My thighs are aching this morning, after a long day on horseback, but now, I'm facing a whole new challenge." "Today it's the turn of the calves, only it's gonna be a little bit different, because these guys..." "are gonna have that as well." "This morning, the farm manager, Big Tony, is here to help with the branding." "What's the fate of these young ones now?" "My first job is to catch the calves, which may sound easy as they look quite small, but they're very strong and pretty quick." "Each calf is branded so the cowboys know exactly when it was born." "These are tough zebu cattle, originally bred in Africa and now thriving on the new grasslands of the Amazon." "Grappling with the calves is a muddy business and makes me realise just how hard these guys work." "I'm absolutely knackered with all this heat." "It's overpowering." "This dude, about to lasso these huge calves - how cool is he?" "When the rope's handed to me, all I manage to catch with the lasso is one of the cowboys, Chico." "That's who I was trying to get." "What are you talking about?" "!" "My word." "I'm bushwhacked." "Obrigado, Tony." "Obrigado." "After a good morning's work, what could be better than a load of meat?" "I have to say that I'm really enjoying my time on the ranch." "I know that this beef comes at a cost to the environment, but it's wonderful to meet such friendly and hospitable people." "The sorting of the cattle is a never-ending task." "Just had a buyer turn up today who wants just white cattle." "So what we're gonna do is separate them here in the corral and then weigh them and he's then gonna take them away on his truck for export." "Minero is a typical entrepreneur in the region." "He's a cattle dealer, a middleman, buying from Tony's farm to sell to the big exporters." "Cattle is big in Brazil." "How is it for you?" "And what do you say to those people that accuse the ranchers of destroying the forest?" "What is your answer to those people?" "We've weighed them and we've sorted them." "All that remains is for the ones that we want to be branded and then put on the truck for taking away." "While we're waiting for the next truck to appear, some of the younger cowboys rope up a bull for practice as the rodeo season is about to start." "Vanderley is a budding rodeo star and makes it look deceptively easy." "They just saddled up a rodeo show for themselves and then some bright spark looked at me and said, "Oi, do you want to have a go?"" "Hand in here." "OK, and then?" "Squeeze here?" "And squeeze here." "And then just..." "Well, just..." "Stupid question, really, isn't it?" "What are you supposed to do?" "Grip, hold on and grip!" "Well, there you go." "OK, OK." "Right, here?" "And when I fall off, which I will..." "Just let go." "And fall, then..." "Ah, ah, ow!" "That hurt!" "Argh!" "That properly hurt." "That was about two seconds on the rodeo." "Whoo!" "That hurt!" "Ow!" "My last day of being a cowboy and I think..." "Good way to leave it, really." "Leave it to the big boys, the real cowboys." "The trucks are eventually loaded and we all head off to the cattle port of Victoria on the Xingu River." "From here, the cows will be shipped all the way to the end of the Amazon and out to sea." "As a meat-eater, you always know that the transporting of animals goes on, but when you're here and you see it, it really does make you reevaluate." "Brazil has over 200 million head of cattle and last year sold more than $4 billion worth of beef." "As economies grow and lifestyles improve, more people around the world want to eat meat." "The Amazon can produce it cheaper than anywhere else, but the forest is rapidly disappearing to satisfy this growing demand." "With such vast opportunities for exploitation," "Para State has become a magnet for some of the wealthiest landowners in the world who are making massive profits from the destruction of the forest." "At the forefront of this assault are the illegal loggers." "They're backed by powerful elites who take advantage of corruption and the lack of authority to sell their timber to legitimate markets." "I'm on my way to the town of Altamira to meet the Goverment agency responsible for policing the forest." "I'm at the IBAMA offices and today we're gonna go on a raid." "Not sure what, exactly." "It's kept quiet to the last minute." "I hear it might be a sawmill." "But just arriving in the offices, one of the first things I see is lots of confiscated wood." "I'm with Roberto Scarpari, head of the local IBAMA team." "They've got a tip-off that there's a sawmill some way ahead of us here dealing in illegal logs." "It looks like the sawmill operators have been told we're coming." "The place is deserted." "So what are you looking for here?" "Suddenly, one of the officers starts shouting from the gate." "Two lorries have arrived at the sawmill, loaded with freshly-cut timber." "This is a bust, you know." "It seems their paperwork's not in order... from their perspective, at the moment." "Just as the IBAMA officials are busy dealing with the first two trucks, another one appears with yet more logs." "These two are now three trucks, full of allegedly illegal wood, so the guys are going through the motions now of checking out the paperwork and it doesn't look good for the drivers." "With all of these discrepancies with the paperwork, who is to blame?" "Is it the driver, or the person that sent them?" "Gentlemen, you've just been stopped by IBAMA." "Tell me, from your perspective, what is going on here?" "You guys drive logs for a living." "In your opinion, how much of the wood that is being taken is illegal?" "It'll take the IBAMA team weeks of painstaking paperwork to mount a prosecution." "In the meantime, all the trucks and the timber will be impounded and the team go back to shut down the sawmill until the investigation is complete." "The next morning, we head off on another IBAMA operation, this time from the air." "It's only from up here that you start to get a sense of the sheer scale of deforestation." "I've been lucky enough to go up in the air quite a few times on my journey so far." "I've always been rewarded with an extraordinary view." "But this is completely different." "Never have I seen it looking like this." "The Amazon now is nearly all grass and it's quite shocking." "In the last 40 years, almost 20% of the Amazon has been cut down." "Para State alone has lost an area of forest eight times the size of Wales." "We're flying over one of the last remaining areas of intact forest in this aggressive logging frontier and already it's chequered with clearings." "So, this is where they're bringing the logs down, all the way to the river." "Wow." "That's properly going on there." "And all of this is illegal, yeah?" "We've just flown over a number of areas of completely illegal clear felling, where there's been big machinery used, whole areas completely bereft of trees." "All illegal activity and all seen really clearly from the air." "It's extraordinary, looking out the window here." "Straight lines, lots and lots of straight lines, which just have no place here in the Amazon." "We've just come across this barge with all these logs on it." "We're gonna land and we're gonna, well..." "we're gonna go and have a word." "OK, we can get out now." "He just said, "Have you got any documentation for this wood?"" "He goes, "Nothing."" "One thing I've noticed, just in my short time here with IBAMA is that there's so much bureaucracy, red tape, everyone's got an excuse, everyone's got some sort of paperwork that covers something along the line" "and it just takes for ever to get to the bottom of it." "The most interesting thing I've gleaned from today is that although this looks like a massive operation, big boat, big barge, machinery, lots of logs, in actual fact, just finding this is like a needle in the haystack" "compared to the vast areas of forest that we've flown over, just to get here." "If they hadn't been tipped off to this particular area, we'd never have found this." "There's places like this all over Para State." "This is one of the most expensive woods in the world." "It's so expensive." "Completely illegal to chop down." "You couldn't really get a more red-handed capture, yet statistically, notoriously, still this goes on and people aren't really being brought to justice." "Brazil's environmental laws may be amongst the most progressive in the world, but even IBAMA admits that only 10% of their fines are paid, due to corruption, red tape and lack of resources." "Scarpari has only 15 officers to cover an area the size of France." "The logging, soya and cattle industries are part of a wider wave of development sweeping through the Amazon." "Vast potential wealth is stored in the forest and in its rivers." "Brazil's growing economy is hungry for energy." "Controversial plans are now in place to harness the power of the Xingu River, by building a series of large dams." "But the dams will flood huge areas of forest and affect the lives of thousands of people." "The Indians of the Xingu River have declared war on the project." "They say it threatens their whole way of life and they've come to Altamira to make their voices heard." "It's been over two weeks since I first arrived here in Altamira." "Tony's ranch is somewhere over there, the IBAMA offices are behind me just in town." "But before I leave to go onto the next phase of my journey, there's one thing I simply could not miss." "Today is the largest gathering of indigenous peoples in Brazil for the last 20 years and they're here on a protest." "Several tribes have joined forces for a week-long demonstration to take their fight to the authorities." "Teams of heavily armed military police have been drafted in to keep order." "The atmosphere is highly charged, as some of the Indians have a reputation for aggressively defending their rights." "I've seen a number of tribal meetings before in my time, but I've never seen anything like this." "The company behind the dam, Electronorte, say it will supply clean energy to the industries across the south of the country, but the people of the Xingu say they are paying the price for Brazil's economic growth." "There's an extraordinary energy in the air here." "People have been arriving by the coach load for the last few days, from miles and miles around." "There's over 1,000 indigenous peoples here." "The largest group is the Kayapo." "But also other indigenous groups - Caboclos, Ribeirinhos, all of whom are going to be affected by this dam if it goes ahead." "Tensions are running high and already, blood has been spilt." "On the first day of the protest, before we arrived, an engineer from the electricity company was attacked with a machete." "The moment was caught by a local TV crew and shown across Brazil and beyond." "The battle for the Amazon is raging in Para State." "These dances are not for entertainment, they're a declaration of war." "A long day's demonstration and I, for one, am on their side." "On its final day, the protest moves to the bank of the Xingu River." "Imagine this is because your lives are about to change for ever and it's like a plea, a plea for help, a plea to be listened to." "And that's why the atmosphere here today is so strong and powerful." "At the centre of the action are the Kayapo Indians, considered one of the strongest and most politically active tribes of the Amazon." "As the protesters head back to their villages, it seems that first blood has gone to the Indians, but the battle for the Xingu River is far from over." "The industrial development of the region is going full-steam ahead, but there's a hidden face to the Amazon's economic success story." "I'm back on the Transamazônica highway heading deeper into cattle country to a town called Maraba." "I've heard that Brazil's farming business harbours a dark secret." "Much of its wealth is built on the backs of hidden workers who are trapped in a modern form of slavery." "It's unbelievable, but there's an estimated between 25,000 and 100,000 modern-day slaves here within Brazil and many of them are in Para State working at clearing away the forest." "This is the darkness at the heart of the Amazon." "The people I'm hoping to meet are some of the worst casualties of this war." "It's 6.30am and I'm off on a raid with the government's mobile anti-slavery team." "They've had a tip-off that there are slaves working on a cattle ranch a couple of hours east of Maraba and are hoping to liberate the workers, and if possible, prosecute the farm owners." "Really close now, the federal police are just up in front." "I saw them get their weapons ready." "It looks like this is the farm." "This is the right place, but the workers are in the fields so opening the gate, and that's where we're going now." "The police go in first in case there's any retaliation from the farm manager." "We've just come to what might be the residency for the workers." "When we arrive, the boss is nowhere to be seen." "Now that we're here, the anti-slavery squad can do its work which is interview the people who are the oppressed." "The workers are lured to these remote farms from poorer parts of Brazil on the promise of good wages and working conditions." "But they soon find themselves trapped in constant debt as they're charged a fortune for their transport, food and lodgings." "And their living conditions are appalling." "Just like here, which I thought was an outside loo is actually someone's accommodation." "More people arriving, guns being found, mattresses ripped out, everyone's got a different job to interview them about different aspects of their living conditions." "The more that we're here, the more we're uncovering and people are relaxing and beginning to say more as well." "Despite working up to 16 hours a day, with all the various costs they have to pay, the workers are in debt-bondage to the farm managers and can never get away." "Have you ever been physically mistreated?" "The enforcement team say that on many farms, the workers are kept under armed guard in case they try to escape." "Human Rights groups have documented more than 1,200 murders of slave-workers, which are often recorded as just farming accidents." "How do you feel now that the mobile unit has come today?" "And inside, you're happy?" "Slavery was officially abolished in Brazil in 1888, but from our experience on this farm, it's clear that it's still thriving today in these remote areas of the Amazon." "We get so desensitised to poverty with all of the images we have of Africa and other parts of the world, these days on television, but coming here now and speaking to these people, this might not look like a starving group, but it certainly is." "Unbelievable, the conditions that these people have to live in." "They've come from miles away, they're never given enough of their money so that they can leave." "They're charged for the basic necessities and they can never afford to get home, they can never afford to break their bonds of staying here, and this is right to be called slavery because no-one deserves this." "The team make a crucial discovery in one of the bedrooms, concrete proof of how the debt bondage system works." "What is this book that you found?" "How does this compare to the other places you've seen?" "The hard bit now is the logistics." "Some of these people have come from distant parts of Brazil and they've got to be taken home, so some will be taken now and others will be put up in town until they can get back to their homes." "But for the people involved, a happy day." "It seems that everything here is connected." "The gangs taking the land, the illegal loggers, the slaves clearing the forest and the ranchers, all working to make an easy profit for the wealthy elite." "And there's one final group I want to visit on my journey who also have a large stake in the outcome of this war." "Been driving all day, this extraordinary scenery." "As far as the eye can see, it's grassland and cattle but ahead of me, somewhere there is still one refuge where the forest is intact." "And the only reason it's intact is because it belongs to the indigenous group the Kayapo." "The Kayapo I met at the dam protest in Altamira have given me permission to visit them in their home territory." "They live just inside the Kayapo Indigenous Reserve, a vast area of three million square hectares, in the middle of cattle country." "Their forest home is supposed to be protected by law, but it's under constant attack from cattle ranchers and illegal loggers." "Ah, Pedro Paulo." "Nice to see you again." "Ah, really nice to see you again." "The Kayapo are renowned for elaborate body paintings and though I've only been here two minutes, I'm already being branded with a traditional Kayapo design." "Wow." "That is beautiful." "Do you use painting at all times or is it only when you're feeling good?" "Last time I saw the members of this community, they were stomping around by the river." "This is just so tranquil." "Everyone's just slowly coming up to me, introducing their family, introducing themselves, all saying good afternoon." "Great start." "It's my first morning in the village, and I've been woken up by the sound of chanting, and asked to join the Kayapo for their morning ritual." "We've been up doing this since 4.00 this morning, 4.30." "Great way to start the day." "They wanted to paint my face yesterday, but they couldn't because I had a bit of a stubble, so hopefully, after a little shower and now a shave, I'll get the full body paint job." "The Kayapo have a close relationship with the natural world." "Their body paintings represent the various animals of the forest and also help to reinforce their identity as a tribe." "I'm getting a maddening itch, but if you scratch your face, you've ruined an hour's work." "It's not just me getting a full paint-job, lots of other people are preparing themselves for some form of ceremony which is about to take place." "The people of Krinu are giving me a formal welcome to their village." "They're part of a wider group of Kayapo numbering between 6,000 and 7,000, most of them still living a traditional life in the forest." "Even though I don't know the words, it's just really powerful being in the group and doing the stomp and the movement and they all agree, they were like," ""Yeah, this is why we do it." "It's to bind us." It's really strong." "The Kayapo seem to have a foot in both worlds." "They're obviously committed to their traditions, yet they're tackling the modern world head-on and are acutely aware of the power of the camera." "They're a strong nation, with a clear message for us to take to the outside world." "Yesterday, when I arrived, I asked the community to speak with a clear voice, to give me a message to take away, and they're certainly doing that today." "It's been a really powerful evening, beautiful, emotional, and now, one by one, they're telling me about how they feel about what's going on in their world, and this is exactly what I wanted." "The next day, Ireo takes me downstream through the reserve to go and harvest a special crop at the heart of Kayapo culture." "Off getting Brazil nuts, quite a long journey down river because all of the nut trees near the village were burnt by the local farmers, and so now, they've got to go such a long distance," "just to get what previously used to be right on their doorstep." "Wow." "This is about the hardest thing there is to find here, and look, that's what you should have in your Christmas stocking." "Like you've never tasted a Brazil nut before." "Brazil nuts are essential to the Kayapo as a form of food and as a cash crop." "But Ireo says the cattle ranchers clearing pasture on the edge of their land have destroyed many of their trees, despite the fact that they're protected by law." "This morning, I'm helping the women to dig up sweet potatoes - a staple food of the Kayapo." "Ah!" "I've picked up an ants nest on my back." "I think that they must be crawling all over this..." "Ah!" "...this basket." "Ah!" "The potatoes are cooked over hot stones on the fire." "Then, we discover that fresh meat is on its way." "Can I help?" "My God!" "That's heavy, man!" "What have you got in it?" "Had an all day, really busy day with him, out collecting brazil nuts," "I was knackered, I go to bed, wake up in the morning and hear that he's been out hunting all night." "It's now midday, he's only just got back, the guy doesn't stop!" "Wild boar." "Oh, my God." "Piranha." "And...rear end and ribs." "It's perfect." "The Kayapo I met at the dam protest were fierce media-savvy warriors, but now I've been here a few days, I'm seeing a different side to this gentle family-based community." "During my stay, Ireo and the other elders take me to the top of a hill to show me the view across their territory." "This is, this isn't just, this isn't just any old paint, this is war paint, because for the people here, this is a battle, this is their lives, this is their homeland, this is their families," "their futures, their medicinal plants, the animals, everything, it's a proper battle and that's the real impression that I'm getting here for these people and, it's everything, it's everything to them." "Whoa, think it could be..." "Tell me why is it important, from your perspective, to keep the forest as it is?" "Powerful, powerful words from really wise men at the end of my long journey." "And to be here now on this hillside looking at pristine forest, and knowing why it's pristine, and it's thanks to these people, is a fitting end to this trip." "Tomorrow morning, I leave really early, and they said, before you go, can we say goodbye to you in our traditional way?" "That's so special." "Thank you." "Muito obrigado." "They've given me the name Mryprire, which means "tree full of flowers"." "Looking around at the faces of the people I've met here," "I can't help but be deeply moved by their warmth and kindness, but also by their strength and determination." "They've chosen to stay in their world here in the forest, but they have to defend their territory from the dangers of modern development if their culture is to survive." "I couldn't think of a more wonderful way of finishing my Amazonian epic." "The power here of this group is overwhelming." "And right now, at the end of my journey it's too much." "Yeah, I remember you." "Come on, girls." "You of all people have really made it special for me, you've brought me into the bosom of your family and made my whole time here so meaningful." "Your wisdom is extraordinary and you've taught me a lot." "The Kayapo speak with a powerful voice." "For me, they represent many of the people I've met on my journey down the Amazon." "Their traditional way of life is still based on a system of sharing and genuine sustainability - values that our society would do well to remember." "Many scientists believe that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point." "If much more forest is destroyed, the effects on the ecosystem will be irreversible." "This all begs the question, why should we care?" "It's got nothing to do with us." "But of course it does." "Because this does affect all of us throughout the world." "I came here thinking I wouldn't ever rant about this, but I've become so impassioned because I've met so many wonderful people that care so much and whose lives will be affected by this and that's why I want to really tell this story " "because it is important and we should care." "I'm at the end of the world's longest river." "It's been an amazing eight-month journey spanning thousands of miles, from the high Andes to the Atlantic Ocean." "It's been exhausting and at the same time, exhilarating." "This place is magic!" "I've witnessed the wars over cocaine, oil and gold." "And I've seen that the destruction of the forest is not only the fault of the people who live here." "It's hard work." "It's global demand for the Amazon's resources that is driving deforestation." "We are all responsible." "It may be that the last great hope for the Amazon is the world's growing awareness of climate change." "As a global community, we all need to change the way we look at the Amazon, so that it's worth more to us alive than dead." "Finally, I've reached the Atlantic Ocean and I can't go any further." "It's an amazing feeling." "Honest truth?" "I'm knackered, but I'm so happy." "I've had just the best trip of my life and it's all just come to an end." "I'm done." "Ah!"