Expedition Amazon (2024)

[bunniefuu]

Deep in the Amazon,

there's a place where

dolphins fly through trees.

I'm amazed about how

it's possible these animals,

these incredible creatures

are here in the jungle.

A place where

bears live in the clouds.

The Andean bear is like the

engineer of the cloud forest.

A place where

turtles have guardian angels.

It is a place that

has caught me in such a way that

I can't imagine it

will let me go.

And the trees,

they soak up 20 billion

tons of water every day

to create rivers in the sky.

That water is what

connects it all.

We're talking about the

largest river of the world.

It's not just water in rivers.

It's water in the glaciers,

in the atmosphere,

in the clouds.

The Amazon is

changing in real-time,

and there's so

much we don't know.

There are a lot of threats

here in the Amazon, but still,

there are some people trying

to make the difference.

In an unprecedented

two-year expedition,

National Geographic is bringing

together a passionate

group of scientists to

follow the water,

as they explore the magnificent

ecosystems within.

From the tops of the Andes,

across 4,000 miles,

to the Atlantic Ocean,

and beyond.

Science enables us to

see into the future.

To ensure

that it's still standing

for the next generation.

It matters what we do.

When you think of the Amazon,

these 20,000-foot peaks

may not come to mind,

but this is where it all begins.

We actually are in

the Amazon Basin.

We're right on the edge,

right on the eastern

side of the Andes.

This is an important

water tower.

The snow and ice

that you see here

eventually is going to make

its way down into the Amazon.

But the glaciers

here are disappearing,

and we don't know how quickly.

That's what National Geographic

Explorer Baker Perry

is here to find out.

I'm leading this expedition

to install a weather station

near the summit of Ausangate.

Having lived in

the Andes when he was younger,

this is a sort of

homecoming for Baker.

Just in my lifetime,

I've seen tremendous

changes happening in the Amazon

with ongoing deforestation.

And what we're trying

to understand is

how glaciers are responding.

We have a very, very limited

understanding of the weather

or climate at the tops of

these Andean mountains.

So Baker, Tom,

and their team of local

guides and experts

set out to tackle one

of the highest peaks

in the Amazon Basin.

These enormous

glaciers store water

for communities downstream.

As the climate's warming,

that kind of reliable source

of fresh water is in danger.

That water is

intricately tied to the water

cycling through all of Amazonia.

The water

molecules that fall as snow

on the Andean peaks are coming

from evaporation from these

mighty trees in the Amazon.

Flowing up through the trees,

it releases into the atmosphere.

Then it's going

to condense out, form a cloud.

And that cloud is gonna

be moved by the winds

into the Andes,

where it's going to

eventually fall as snow.

When one part is altered,

the entire system reacts.

If you cut

down trees in the rainforest,

the amount of snowfall

that occurs here drops.

A weather station

will provide insight

into how much these

glaciers are shrinking.

But first, they

need to get there.

Ausangate is

not an easy mountain.

It's a huge effort to get

weather equipment up to these elevations.

That's why it hasn't

really been done before.

Good luck up there.

Thank you.

The physical challenges on

these expeditions are real.

The hardest part of climbing is

the lack of oxygen.

It's about half past

two in the morning,

looking forward to sunrise in

about three and a half hours.

We have one little

section to go up here.

And then another fixed

line going up there.

If they succeed,

the data from atop

Ausangate will be invaluable

to the millions of

people who depend on it.

In the last 10 years,

water is decreasing every year,

every year is less,

less, less water.

For Quechuan biologist

Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya,

this loss is personal.

She grew up in the high Andes,

where the glacier has

always protected the people.

The glacier is a key

part of our culture.

As a child,

her grandmother would

tell stories about

a mythical bear.

This character

called the Ukuku is the

semi-god between a

bear and a human.

They go to the Ausangate

to carry blocks of ice to the

communities as a sign they're

going to have more water.

The Ukuku story

has played out for centuries

in the Qoyllur Rit'l festival.

My grandmother

used to tell me that the ice

was very nearby.

But now, with climate change,

the snow is far away.

They are not able to bring

this ice cube anymore.

Ukukus are more than a myth.

Ukuku means the Andean

bear in Quechuan, yeah.

For Ruth, the real

thing is just as mysterious.

We are trying to

understand the secret life

of the Andean bear.

A creature we know little about,

except that it's vital for

forests in the clouds

that sit below Ausangate.

Glaciers may be the water

tower for the Amazon Basin,

but Andean cloud forests

are the rain machine.

They act like a sponge,

soaking up moisture and

releasing it downstream.

I always liked to climb trees.

It's a different perspective

being in the canopy.

It's a different world,

completely different world.

Both the forest

and bears are threatened,

and they need each

other to thrive.

As voracious plant eaters,

bears spread seeds

wherever they go.

They are very

good tree climbers.

They spend most of their

time actually in the trees.

Camera traps will

track their movements to help

Ruth understand their

effect on the forest.

All good.

Let's see what the

camera trap captures.

The Andean bears

is very hard to study,

especially in this

kind of terrain.

In order to get

this information,

we need to also hike a lot.

It's time to check the cameras,

all 75 of them.

We leave these

camera traps for the whole year,

but we are doing the

monitoring every two months.

Oh, no bears.

While the

bears avoid the spotlight,

others aren't so shy.

- Is it a lone little fox?

- Yes.

What do you see?

A puma.

Oh wow, a big one!

To follow their trail,

Ruth brings along

her top tracker.

Ukuku!

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

As the bears are moving,

they are helping to disperse

many of these tree species.

They eat the seed

and they, they poo...

So this poo

has the seeds and has

the nutrients to, to grow.

This is vaccinium.

It is a wild blueberry.

And this is one of the

bears' favorite fruits.

The feces we just found

contained fruits of this kind.

We have a camera trap

10 meters from here.

Let's just hope

the camera worked.

Bear!

Bear, bear!

A little one!

When we see a bear like this,

we all are happy, very happy.

While the

cameras reveal bear behavior,

to really understand

how they move,

they need to get closer.

The first time

we capture our first bear,

I couldn't describe

the feeling I, I have.

I don't know, like my brother,

like my elder brother.

I feel like part of my family.

It's just incredible creature.

GPS collars

track their every move.

And for the first time, a

National Geographic Critter-Cam

goes on walkabout with

a bear named Sunchu.

We can see from

the perspective of the bear

how it's moving around.

We are following the journey

and we're learning a lot.

It turns out Sunchu,

and the other 40-plus

bears she's identified so far,

are covering a larger and

higher range than expected.

You see some clusters.

This means they spend

quite a lot of time in

this part of the forest.

Her findings are extraordinary.

As the climate warms

and the bears move higher,

they'll bring seeds with them,

helping forests regrow

at cooler elevations.

Now we are thinking how

the bears are gonna help

many of these tree species

adapt to the new environment.

They just

may be the key to ensuring

the cloud forest survives.

So it can keep the water moving

down the Andes and

into the headwaters,

where it begins to transform

into something recognizable.

It's not just one river.

You have thousands of

small rivers just flowing

to the big Amazon.

Making up 20% of the freshwater

for the entire planet.

The Amazon is the

heart of the planet,

and all these rivers are

the veins of this heart.

One magical

creature considers the

whole river system home.

Dolphins don't

recognize borders.

They basically move

free on the rivers.

So does Fernando Trujillo,

who moved to the

Colombian Amazon

to dedicate his life to them.

When I just came here,

it was difficult to

find the dolphins because

I didn't have a trained eye.

And this was full of life,

but I couldn't see the life.

So it took time until

I start to understand

a little bit the river.

After 35 years,

Fernando's vision is clear,

protect the animal keeping

the equilibrium of this system.

Dolphins are

the jaguars in the water.

They are the top predators.

They are able to move in

the main rivers, lakes,

flooded forests, everywhere.

That equilibrium

is under constant as*ault

and pink dolphin populations

are decreasing in

record numbers.

The deforestation is there,

there are burnings,

there are pollution.

And there's drought.

More than 100 dolphins

were found dead in a lake

in the Amazon over seven days.

The main suspicion is that

the deaths are related to

drought and the

high water temperature.

The Amazon saw its

worst drought on record in 2023.

Low water levels trap

more heat from the sun,

spiking temperatures.

For the first time, we have a

kind of phenomenon

where a lot of dolphins

were dying very quickly.

We lost 70 dolphins

in just one day.

Millions of fish have died.

Fernando's

working with local teams

to conserve these dolphins

any way they can.

By tagging them,

they hope to identify

feeding and nursing areas

and expand protections.

And who better than

them to show us?

Go, go, go, go!

- Go, go! Left.

- Left.

In the capture of

dolphins you have to move

faster than in fishing.

Because when you spread the net,

fish fall in it by themselves.

On the other hand, the

dolphin must be encircled

in order to capture it.

Now we captured three dolphins,

they are inside the big net.

On three,

understand? One, two, three.

One, two, three, up!

When I am near a dolphin,

I feel that my heart

is totally filled.

Like I have a purpose in life.

During a capture,

veterinarian

Mara Jimena Valderrama

monitors the dolphin's health.

Let's keep quiet.

This is a pregnant female.

Quiet please, everybody.

It's in some way invasive.

We are taking out of the

water an aquatic animal.

There we are taking its

heart rate and respiratory rate.

Breathe!

If I see that

the animal is too stressed,

I think it's always best

to release the animal.

Because the main thing

for us is its well-being.

This is a female, a big one,

two meters, 20.

It's already pregnant.

A dolphin can have one calf

every four or five years and

their pregnancy is 13 months.

So in a lifetime they,

they can have like

four or five calves.

So it's very important for

this animal to try to conserve.

Any animal, they count.

I'm in charge of taking

both blood and tissue samples.

We tag it quickly.

With anesthesia, we make sure

that the animal doesn't feel

any pain during

installation of the

satellite transmitter.

You, go there.

The tagging became a very

powerful tool to understand

what areas are

really important for

the conservation

of the dolphins.

Fernando's

finding that males have

large home ranges.

The males move away looking for

other groups of females.

But females

stay in areas where they

always have access to food.

This puts them in direct

conflict with humans.

Sometimes, the fishermen say,

look the dolphins

are stealing our fish.

They go to our nets and

take the fish from our nets.

These dolphins have learned

to associate fishing activities

with a free meal.

Marine biologist

and photographer

Thomas Peschak joins the

expedition near the n*gro River

to get a look at this behavior

from the dolphins' perspective.

The direct conflict can

end with a dolphin death,

or it can damage the

net from fishermen.

But there's a possible solution.

The pingers

are acoustic deflectors,

it's a way to put

noise on the nets

to avoid the dolphins

approach the net.

Pingers have

worked in the ocean,

but they've never been

tested in the Amazon.

So we are testing here for the

first time with Mariana.

We are working with the

community inside Acajatuba Lake,

and we have two

fishermen supporting us

doing the pilot tests.

These give us some learning

about how dolphins are

motivated to catch

the fish in the net.

They perceive the sound,

and back away.

Right after that,

they try again.

They persist and get the fish.

The pingers likely

didn't work because the

dolphins in this lake

are used to people.

So testing continues.

I am hopeful

because if it works,

it's mutual benefit for

conservation and people.

Knowing how they behave,

knowing how they steal a fish,

might actually help better

employ these pingers to

deter these dolphins

from stealing fish.

As a National

Geographic photographer,

Thomas's ultimate goal

is to help create the will

to protect the Amazon

and all its creatures.

We need

beautiful pictures underwater

to connect the people

with the dolphins.

Diving with

these dolphins is truly magical.

There are individuals

that are incredibly shy.

There are individuals

that are bold.

And there are curious ones.

Every year,

during the rainy season,

an incredible phenomenon

occurs throughout the Amazon.

The rivers flood into

the surrounding forests,

up to 12 miles past

the riverbanks and

nearly 50 feet deep.

Everything has evolved

to follow that pulse,

it's like a heartbeat.

The forest, the animals,

the people that live here,

they're all living to the

pulse of flood and dry.

Including the dolphins.

Flexible flippers and

unfused vertebrae give them

seemingly magical powers.

They can literally

fly between the trees.

That's amazing.

They rely on these trees to feed

their fishy prey.

When the forest floods,

fish can access fruits

and seeds on the branches.

There is always

this connection between systems

that is very important to

maintaining biodiversity,

and things working

as they should.

But for how much longer?

When threats like deforestation

and warming temperatures

disrupt the Amazon's ability

to create its own rainfall,

the entire system reacts,

including the flood pulse.

If you change the availability

of water, just a little bit,

the ecosystem is

not used to that.

And it's gonna start

behaving differently.

How the trees

will react is a mystery

Thiago Silva and his

team head to Brazil's

flooded forests to solve.

We're here to

understand how trees can cope

with months and

months of flooding

and how climate change

could affect the future

of these wetland forests.

We don't know about the

physiological properties

of these trees.

So we don't know exactly

how they will cope.

They work in the dead of night,

collecting samples while

the plants are resting.

The idea is to get the

fully exposed branches

so where the sun is

illuminating all of these

branches during the day,

and then he has to climb

very high and to get these

very big branches

for us to sample.

So it's quite an adventure.

Julia is investigating traits,

like vessel size,

telling her how each tree

will respond to wetter

or drier conditions.

Thiago is using

cutting-edge technology

to map the bigger picture.

What fascinates

me about plants is how they

run this whole

mechanism of maintaining

the environment ecosystem,

while the animals,

most of the time they're

just the, the actors, right?

But the plants, they

really set the scene.

Now, for the first time,

Thiago's bringing that scene

to the rest of the world.

He's using LIDAR

to create a 3-D,

360-degree snapshot.

I like plants equipped

with technology.

This is a terrestrial

laser scanner.

It will send a beam

of lasers in a cone

all around this rotating head.

The idea here is to

overfly with the drone and

get the 3D model from

the top of the canopy.

One thing that we

expect to be able to do

is to have a virtual environment

where anyone can go

inside the forest.

And then see how

the water levels could rise,

and you can almost physically

experience what it means

to have 10 meters of

water flooding a forest.

Thiago and

Julia's findings will give

a glimpse into the future,

predicting which trees may not

survive and what that means

for the creatures

who depend on them.

I want to

understand enough of the system

to be able to prepare for

that the best we can.

And make sure that we

don't lose everything

that those forests

have to offer.

It's not

just the animals who rely

on these forests,

but 40 million people

throughout the Amazon.

The vast majority

of the population lives

just by the river.

They depend on the

rivers for transportation.

They depend on this

forest for the fish.

They depend on it

for the timber itself.

So everybody depends

on the Amazon to live.

And the people

who live in the middle of it

are the key to protecting it.

The river is our livelihood,

but I think that if we

didn't have the river,

a large part of

humanity wouldn't exist.

The fight to

save this river economy

drives another team of

Explorers deep into the Juru,

a tributary of the Amazon,

to work alongside

local communities.

We see this relationship

as complementary,

within that system,

because people don't

just live in the forest,

they are part of it.

The ultimate goal of our project

is to try to understand

how we can align

the protection of biodiversity

with people's well-being.

The team

collaborates with locals

to protect the

giant river turtle

and increase numbers

of arapaima,

known locally as pirarucu.

Both are important for

local food security,

but also have high

commercial value.

Uncontrolled exploitation

of this resource

ended up greatly

reducing populations.

For me, pirarucu is

an Amazonian superstar.

It's bigger than me.

It weighs more than me.

It's the largest freshwater

scaled fish in the world.

But by the late '90s,

it was nearly

fished to extinction.

So researchers and local

fishermen joined forces to

create a sustainable fishing

plan based on a quota system.

The protection

of aquatic environments,

in which you

protect the pirarucu,

is like keeping a bank account.

Joo and the

team have been helping to

implement that plan here

in the Juru for 15 years.

If it weren't for them,

maybe we wouldn't be

where we are now.

It's an

incredible success story.

The pirarucu population

has increased by 600%.

We usually call the

pirarucu the "fish of change"

because it has brought several

social and economic changes

to these communities.

Now, they're taking

that success one step further.

Using the GPS tag on Pirarucu,

it's a really challenging task

because it was

never done before.

It was only possible

because we worked together

with local fishermen.

So, they have this

historical knowledge

interacting with this species.

They are fundamental in

the process of understanding

the best spot to

place the device.

If it works,

real-time data tracking

their range may lead to

additional protection,

and ultimately, more fish.

If we increase our

authorized quota number,

we will have greater

income in the pockets

of each pirarucu handler.

Further down the Juru River,

Joo and Andressa join

forces with other locals

in their fight to protect one

of the Amazon's iconic species.

We monitor the beach at night,

with a flashlight and a g*n.

I do six hours and my

son does six hours.

If we aren't there monitoring,

poachers will surely come.

Every year,

female turtles emerge

on the riverbanks to nest.

They go into a trance-like

state while laying eggs,

making everyone,

mom included, vulnerable.

Despite their protected status,

river turtles and their eggs

are a delicacy in high demand.

For a large turtle in Carauari,

they're asking for

400, 500 reais.

So they will watch me here

in Tabuleiro do Manari,

for three, four, five days.

The poachers are relentless,

destroying 99% of nests

on unguarded beaches.

Almost all the turtles

that are laying their eggs

in an unprotected beach

are having their nests

predated by humans.

For nearly 30 years,

Bomba and his family

have lived across from

the turtle nesting beach,

or Tabuleiro, they protect.

We know that if we didn't

do this type of monitoring,

the teenagers who

are growing up now,

they wouldn't see any of this.

Bomba was one of

the first beach guardians

and today he's a very

strong representative

of all of the beach protectors.

What motivates me to continue is

seeing dad taking

care of them every year.

He inspires me.

They work at night,

he and Joo Pedro.

When it's six in the morning

sometimes seven o'clock,

I go see what has come

out on the tabuleiro.

What Chica

finds is that their hard work

is paying off.

On protected beaches,

poaching rates drop to just 2%.

That to me

is the greatest joy I have.

Numbers have increased a lot.

Good morning,

Mister Bomba! All good?

Good morning!

All good, and you?

But unlike the fishermen,

beach guardians don't

profit from what they protect.

To keep the program going,

they need help.

A problem we face with

the protection of beaches

is that we still haven't

managed to get good pay

for the beach protectors.

Their payment

is a monthly food basket,

and only for the

months they work,

from nesting to hatching.

This is something that,

if we stop and think about,

it isn't enough even

for us to buy shoes,

let alone keep a home.

So they're fully

dependent on fundraising.

One of the goals we have

is precisely to raise resources

that allow this beach

protection program to extend

indefinitely.

I know that

if we leave this place,

poachers will

destroy everything.

So we fight for it.

The fight for a

healthy Amazon impacts us all.

The forests here alone

store so much carbon,

they help protect

the entire planet.

Every forest, every tree

has a, a role in that

because they remove CO2

from the atmosphere.

Angelo Bernardino

wants to know how much.

He heads to the

mouth of the river,

where the water that

started in the glaciers

empties into the Atlantic,

at the rate of 84

Olympic swimming pools

every second.

So, this should be fantastic!

Here, lives a

coastal forest unlike

anything they've ever seen.

This is a mixed mangrove forest,

so it's going to be really neat

to see what's going on in there.

Let's go!

Angelo's studying

the Amazon mangroves

for the first time.

I think mangroves here

in Brazil are such a, a,

an iconic place.

They're really important to

protect the coast and

as a life-supporting system.

Most mangroves

grow in salt or brackish water.

Not these.

We are right here at the ocean,

and we are

measuring the salinity,

and the salinity is zero,

it's freshwater.

Forcing these

mangroves to adapt.

This might be a very

unique forest on the coast of

the Amazon, we've

never seen this before.

There it is!

They're taking

samples to find out just

how much carbon is stored here.

What do you think?

I'd reckon it's about

400 years' worth of

sediment deposition here.

Nice.

What's really important, guys,

is to twist all the time,

so hopefully you get

your soil sample out.

Look at that.

That's beautiful.

We've got it.

We got our two-meter core.

But what's incredible is how

much carbon we can still see

even at two meters in depth.

You can even see old leaves

that are thousands of years old

that have been

preserved in the soils.

Amazon rainforests sequester

120 billion tons of carbon.

It turns out these

mangroves contain even more.

Amazon mangroves hold

three to four times more carbon

than the same area in the

Amazon upland forests.

We can use this natural

function of mangroves

in the Amazon River mouth

towards mitigation

of climate change.

They are sustaining life

by just being there,

by just being preserved.

The Amazon's global

impact doesn't stop here,

and neither does the Amazon.

The plume of fresh water and

sediment that pours from the

Amazon into the ocean

reaches as far as the

Caribbean Islands.

So you can actually detect the

freshwater of the Amazon

as far north as Puerto Rico.

All that freshwater

carries an infusion

of nutrients,

whose impact on the

marine ecosystem

is yet to be fully understood.

We are now in Tobago,

in the eastern Caribbean Sea.

Tom and Angelo

team up to see it first-hand.

Are we all ready?

A lot of the marine

life that we see here may be

directly dependent on the

food that is delivered by

the Amazon River plume.

And that

translates into a completely

different marine ecosystem.

Here, you have reefs that

are dominated by sponges.

Even like blue sponges.

I've never seen blue

sponges in my life.

The sponge is

actually uniquely responsible

for taking the riches

the Amazon River bestows on

the Caribbean and

transforming it into

compounds that all the other

species in the food web

can actually access as well.

We are only scratching

the surface in terms of

understanding the far reaches

of the Amazon River plume.

When it comes to the Amazon,

one thing is clear.

Everything is connected,

from sponges in the Caribbean,

all the way back to its

icy origin in the Andes.

We're good.

Okay, we've powered it up.

The battery's charging.

Awesome job.

This weather station is the, the

highest in Peru and the highest

in the tropical Andes.

And ultimately will

improve climate projections

into the future.

We're in a

position that we know that the

decisions we take in the next

decade or so will determine

what the face of

the Earth looks like

for thousands of years to come.

What we do in the next

few years really matters.

So everybody can

keep enjoying this beautiful,

amazing place that is

our home, no? Our planet.

Entonces estamos

Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia,

Colombia, Ecuador, India,

Nepal, y Venezuela.

Perfecto.

1, 2, 3.

River dolphins!

The answers about how to

conserve the Amazon,

how to best use natural

resources are here,

with these people,

in these places.

We're not going

to bring it here,

we're going to build it here.

Raise your arm

and says "it's so-and-so."

It's not only about science.

It's also about solutions.

Also about working with

local communities,

and also about hope.