When I landed in Baku, Azerbaijan, to attend COP29, I had a knot in my stomach. It was my first time attending a global climate conference of this scale, and
The Amazon rainforest makes its own rain. And less forest means less precipitation. As forest destruction affects climate and vice versa, the concern is that the Amazon will be caught up in a set of feedback loops that could dramatically speed up the pace of forest loss and degradation and bring the Amazon to a point of no return. This ‘tipping point’ may occur when a certain percentage of Amazonian habitat dies, after which it will all turn into a savanna-like ecosystem.
Coca consumption has its origins in the ancient Inca tradition, but the scale at which it is used now has nothing to do with beautiful rituals anymore. It causes deforestation, contamination and violence.
Excitement rushes over me as I arrive in Puerto Maldonado, a small city in the state of Madre de Dios, Peru, and the gateway to the southern Peruvian Amazon. Before
The Amazon rainforest is one of the most biologically diverse places on the entire planet. Why is that? In large part it is due to the tremendous amount of “micro
A light rain trickled down the leaves of the dense forest, glistening as the morning sun penetrated through the clouds. A troop of capuchin and squirrel monkeys passed noisily over
As a novice conservation ecologist I had the adventurous task of monitoring wildlife populations in the Peruvian Amazon. My perspiring students and I would walk in a straight line through
The first time I visited Madre de Dios, Peru, was in 2010. I took a boat up the Tambopata River, and saw that the water was laced with golden glitter
In a world fundamentally altered, and existentially threatened by climate change, it would benefit all of us to become far more adept at the art of care and careful attention – so that we stop creating problems we don’t know how to fix.
A jaguar is on the prowl on the outskirts of a local community deep in the Amazon rainforest. Its roars can be heard in the dead of night; its tracks
En estos últimos 10 años estuve viajando por diferentes afluentes de la Amazonía Peruana en Madre de Dios. En uno de estos viajes tuve la oportunidad de conocer el río
It was late 2014 and I was back in the Netherlands after a life-changing trip to Suriname. Being home was surprisingly challenging; I felt out of place back in a
Nací en Piura, una región al norte de Perú. A los 16 años junto con mis amigos tomé la decisión de salir de mi pueblo para dedicarme a trabajar. Trabajé
I have had a strange fascination with frogs since I was young, and for a long time, I asked myself why. Some years ago I decided to stop questioning myself
The Amazon rainforest is masterful at capturing and dispersing rainfall: bromeliads, pitcher shaped plants, drip tips. But what to do in a northern urban homestead? Water is a precious and
The forest was pitch black, its darkness amplified by the night. All I could see was a dense rainforest lit by a flickering flashlight held in one hand by Foca,
No he encontrado manera de responder esta pregunta sin conectarla con lo que me ha movido durante los últimos años a dar cada paso de aprendizaje sobre la vida en
I used to climb between the buttress roots of an old tree in a park that my parents often took me to as a child. I imagined that I was
