Kind: captions
Language: en
We're standing there. Everyone is
waiting cuz at any moment an arrow could
just fly through your neck. And there's
people holding shotguns. And the
anthropologist, this little guy is
standing there in the front and he's
going, "No mole." He's going,
"Brothers." And then then it happened.
Then you start hearing people screaming,
"Mos, Mosko." And people are screaming
and women are lifting children and
running into the huts and the dogs and
chickens are going nuts. And I mean,
>> fear, fear,
>> fear. He's going, "Look there. He has a
bow. He has a bow." And we're looking up
the beach and there's just this clan
walking down the beach with these seven
foot bows and they're hunched over and
they're pointing at us. They're going,
"Look at that one." They're going,
"Look, there's a gun there." And you can
see them communicating to each other.
And the butterflies are swirling off the
beach and they can hit a spider monkey
out of the treetops at 40 m. They can
sneak up and you will never know they're
there. And so when that arrow passes
through your body, you'll only have a
moment to realize it before you fall
over. In order for any of this to make
sense, I have to show you this footage.
And this has not been shown ever before.
This is a world first.
The following is a conversation with
Paul Rosley, his third time on the
podcast. Paul is a naturalist, explorer,
writer, and is someone who has dedicated
his life to protecting the Amazon
rainforest and celebrating the beauty of
the natural world. He has a new book
coming out in a few days titled Jungle
Keeper that you should definitely go
pre-order now. It tells some intense
stories about his time in the jungle
over the past several years, building up
to a few epic recent events, including a
new full-on extended encounter with an
unconted tribe that we discuss in this
podcast. Both the book and audio book
are great. I highly recommend it. If you
would like to support Paul and his
incredible team in their mission to
protect the jungle, go to
junglekeepers.org.
You can help with donations or by
spreading the word or checking out the
gala that Paul is hosting in New York on
January 22nd in a few days. They are
doing all they can to help raise funds
for the mission of safeguarding as much
of the rainforest as possible and I
think it's a mission worth fighting for.
The Amazon jungle is one of the most
special and beautiful places on Earth.
As an aside, allow me to look back
briefly and mention something that I've
been struggling with a bit. For context,
I traveled to the Amazon rainforest with
Paul a while back. It was an adventure
of a lifetime with lots of crazy twists
and turns. We did record a podcast out
there, literally in the jungle, episode
429, if you want to go check it out. It
was awesome. And we also recorded a
bunch of disperate footage of the
journey just for fun. And I would still
love to somehow put all that together
into a cohesive video in case it's
interesting to someone, but I've learned
just how difficult it is to organize and
edit a pile of chaotically recorded
footage like that. So, let's see if I
can pull it off. But in any case, this
kind of raw vlog style video is
something that I would love to be able
to do more of as a way to celebrate
amazing human beings like Paul and
others, including everyday people who I
meet on my travels. So, I'll keep
trying, tinkering, learning, and I ask
for your patience and support along the
way. Now, back to our regular scheduled
programming.
This is the Lex Freedman podcast. To
support it, please check out our
sponsors in the description where you
can also find links to contact me, ask
questions, give feedback, and so on. And
now, dear friends, here's Paul Rosley.
We've survived a challenging time out in
the jungle about a year and a half ago.
And since then, your life has
increasingly gotten more intense. So,
you've achieved the incredible feat of
saving now more than 130,000 acres of
rainforest. And the goal is that you're
working towards is protecting 200,000
acres more.
>> Yeah.
>> And doing so while facing extreme danger
from narcos, narcot traffickers,
so-called cocaine mafia in an escalating
drug war. This is insane. These are new
developments. illegal loggers, as we've
talked about before, gold miners, and
the incredible recent encounter with uh
a non-conted tribe, and we'll talk about
all of this. So, your new book, Jungle
Keeper, opens with the killing of two
loggers by the warriors of a non-conted
tribe, the Mashkapiro, in August 2024.
Mhm. And then you reveal that you had
your own dramatic encounter with the
tribe 2 months later in October 2024. So
uh if I may, let me read uh the opening
of the book. Far out on the western edge
of the Amazon rainforest, deep in the
Peruvian jungle, a pair of loggers
plunged their chainsaws into the
buttressed roots of an ancient ironwood.
An ironwood or shiua wako of this size
is a giant among giants, an emergence
sentinel that reaches heights of 160 ft
towering over the rest of the canopy. Uh
I've read that many are over a thousand
years old by the way as an aside. And
you've found ones that are 1200 years
old.
>> Incredibly old.
>> Anyway, you continue. This particular
tree has started its life as a tiny
sapling in the great jungle. A story
that began before the Spanish reached
Peru, long before the United States was
even a dream. At a time when uh Leonardo
da Vinci was still honing his talents in
a far away part of the world through the
Renaissance, the First and Second World
Wars, and the birth of our grandparents,
this tree was out there slowly charging
upward, anonymous, just one pillar among
the billions of others. But on this day
in August 2024, when the two loggers
worked, this witness of the centuries
came crashing down through the canopy
with such cataclysmic power that it
shook the earth. And then you go on to
talk about how the shaking of the earth
was was felt and heard by the unconted
tribe. So uh you go on to describe how
these particular loggers were murdered
by the unconted uh tribe of Mshapiro.
What do we know about these warriors of
the unconted tribe?
>> We know that across the Amazon basin,
there's still perhaps thousands of clans
of quote unquote uncontacted peoples,
people that are living in nomadic
isolation in what remains of the intact
Amazon basin and want to remain that
way. And so what happened with these
loggers was that local people told them,
don't don't go out there. don't don't go
into these territories. And what happens
is that people that aren't from there's
this thing with the jungle. People don't
believe
that it's as wild as as the legends say.
And so when they say there's there's
kalattos out there, there's there's
there's wild people out there, these
loggers from another region go, "Yeah,
that's you know, some some story. We're
we're fine. We'll go. We have shotguns."
They don't realize you're dealing with a
civilization of people that is still
nomadic, still uses bamboo tipped
arrows, still lives naked in the Amazon
rainforest, has knowledge of medicines
that we've we have yet to to encounter
or may never discover, and that they can
hit a spider monkey out of the treetops
at 40 m. And so, while you're using a
chainsaw, they can sneak up and you will
never know they're there. And so when
that arrow passes through your body,
you'll only have a moment to realize it
before you fall over.
>> And we're looking at uh something you
posted on your Instagram,
>> which are the arrows that they use,
which are bigger than you. So they're
like six, seven feet.
>> Six, seven feet, more like 7 ft.
>> And that's incredibly sharp. They cure
it over the fire and they have a way of
sharpening it. That edge of bamboo
becomes incredibly like knife sharp. You
can cut meat with it easily. I've done
it. These arrows, look, look at that. I
mean, I'm 5'9. That that that's easily a
7 foot arrow.
>> Yeah. So, for people who are just
listening, this quotequote arrow is
really a spear. Some people would think
it was a spear, but they're shooting
this thing with a gigantic bow. That's
crazy.
Yeah. And so to be holding that, look at
that. They even they even twist the
fletching so the arrow spins in the air.
They have incredible craftsmanship. And
then you see all the all the little
string on there is plant fibers that
they've woven. And then this is them.
Yeah. The warriors of the tribe. The
warriors of the tribe. And And so the
fact that we're sitting here talking on
microphones and that we have airplanes
and cell phones and all the things that
we have in the modern world and there's
still we still live in this age where
there's right now at this moment people
living out in the jungle who have been
there since before history is an
incredible thing. Let me look this up on
perplexity. What are the technologies
we modern humans have that the
Mashkapira do not? It's just interesting
to think about the kind of technologies
we take for granted.
energy and power. Obviously, all the
electricity generation and grids and
batteries and solar panels and electric
motors, metals and materials,
mass-produced steel, aluminum,
>> advanced alloys, plastics, composits,
glass, concrete, all of those things,
tools, of course, and the machinery, the
infrastructure of roads and bridges and
buildings and the weapons of war,
everything but the spears and the arrows
that they have and the medicine and
biology. Of course, they probably have
complicated medicines
that they've developed for their own
>> uh that are available within the jungle.
>> That entire list is no.
>> No, I mean metal think you have to be
able to excavate into the earth and and
forge metal. These people don't even as
a one of the anth local anthropologist
said to me, a Peruvian anthropologist,
he said, you know, people think of them
as stone age tribes and he was like,
they don't have stones. He's like, they
don't So, they don't know that water,
they see water that they drink. They
don't know that water freezes cuz
they've never seen it. They don't know
what that water boils cuz they don't
have they don't even make clay pots.
They just have their bamboo and their
string. And so, they're living an
incredibly simple life. So, all all of
that, I mean, even, you know, a camera
is a miracle to them. Like, it's like,
yeah, it's it you have to bend your mind
to even understand how how far back they
are. It's like looking into thousands of
years ago, like stone age. Well, they
hear the sounds of the chainsaws, the
sounds of machinery in the distance. I
wonder how they can possibly comprehend
what that is. I think they view it as
like a demonic destructive force.
And um when I show you the encounter
that we had, the we got a few takeaways.
We we left with more questions than
answers, but one of the things that they
were able to communicate across the
language barrier was, "Why are you
cutting down the trees? They don't like
it.
>> Yeah. That represents to them the danger
that the outside world brings, the
destruction that the outside world
brings. They see us as the destroyers of
worlds.
>> So tell me about this encounter in
October of uh 2024.
>> So in order to tell you about that
encounter, I think we need to orient
people into where we're talking about.
We're talking about this river that runs
through the western edge of the Amazon
rainforest that you know you know well
now after spending time there with me.
It's a high tributary of the Amazon
rainforest where you know you have the
main river channel and then smaller and
smaller and smaller and smaller
tributaries.
And the smaller you get, the less
trafficked they are. And so this river
has remained wild through the centuries.
And even during the '9s when there was a
mahogany boom where people went out for
mahogany trees, there was very few
people going up this river. And so 20
years ago when I first got to the region
and people were telling me that there's
uncontacted tribes out there. It was it
was always in the realm of something um
you know it's like people say there's
there's there's Bigfoot or don't go
there, it's haunted or something. You
know, it's like it was like a a tall
tale almost. And even the Peruvian
government at the time that I went to
Peru first, which was 2006,
their official position was that the
tribes are a myth. There's no such thing
as the tribes. That that was the
official position. And you just you
would hear these stories of people that
got shot. You'd meet someone high up a
river 4 days up river deep in the Amazon
that had an arrow and you'd look at this
thing and it had this, you know, mega
gravity.
And so as we've created Jungle Keepers
and now we're protecting 130,000 acres
of this river, we're protecting the
plants and the animals and the ancient
trees and trying to preserve the
ecosystem and counting the butterflies
and conducting ecological surveys. And
what we've inadvertently found ourselves
the caretakers of is the fact that these
people in order to continue living have
to remain isolated, want to remain
isolated. That's their one mandate as a
as a civilization. the tribes of the of
these of the of the Mashkapiro. And so
in October, we were, you know, as jungle
keepers now, we're working with the
indigenous people. What we do is we take
loggers and gold miners and make them
into rangers and give them better jobs
and we try to protect the forest. And
those people who live up in the remote
indigenous community, they called us on
a satellite phone and they said,
"Directors,
you've been working with us and telling
us you want to help us The tribes are
coming out. What do we do?
>> So, even they don't really know when the
tribes emerge from the deep jungle what
to do.
>> They were terrified.
>> What was your thinking when you got the
phone call?
>> When we got the phone call, it was a mix
of, you know, we should keep cuz we're
over here like trying to get land
concessions and doing all this important
work. And part of me was like, that's
that can't be real. So, we're going to
keep keep our heads down.
>> Bigfoot is emerging from the forest.
>> Yeah. Sure. Sure. And then cuz we got
the call, we hung up and we said, "Okay,
maybe tomorrow if they're like still
there or something." And then it was
crazy cuz it was it it was probably
about noon and we had an important day
of meetings. We had a meeting with the
police. We had a meeting with the land
owner. We were trying to do all this
stuff for the conservation work. And
then I got together with the core team
of directors, JJ, Mos, and Stefan. And
we and we said, "Wait, if this is real,
we have to get there like now, like now
now." And so we dropped what we were
doing, canceled the meetings, we put
other people on the meetings, we got a
boat, we called Ignasio, we called our
most hardcore ranger who has been shot
who in 2019 was shot in the head by an
arrow um and still bears the scar and he
barely survived. And we said, "Look,
this is going down." He said, "I already
know cuz the whole river already knows."
And he said, we said, "Can you get us
there by tomorrow morning?" And he said,
"Look, it's a two-day journey by boat,
so no." And we said, "Is there any way
you can get us there?" And he went,
"I'll get you there." And so we got a
couple sacks of rice, a couple cans of
tuna, our dry bags, our tents. We got on
a boat by 6:00 p.m. And we started
riding up the river
>> through the night through the night. And
so two-day boat journey that we're
trying to flex in one night. And so I
was at the front with the with the
headlamp with the torch.
>> And so the first few hours it was clear.
And that comet, remember that comet that
was going? There was that comet in the
sky. I remember looking at the comet and
going somehow I was like, "This is it."
>> I knew this was it. And the first few
hours was clear and the stars was out
and it was beautiful. And then it
clouded over and the lightning started
and then it just apocalypse downpoured.
And from midnight until 8 am, it was
just the front of the boat with the
light. And it was just Star Wars vision
of just, you know, um, raindrops and
galaxies and and and moths flying in my
eye. And and you people don't realize
you can get hypothermia in the tropics.
But it's like as you're going at night,
even if it's 80° outside in the rain, in
the wind at night in a lightning storm,
you're freezing. And so by, you know,
2:00 a.m., I'm convulsively shivering.
And we're using the crocodile eyes, the
Cayman eyes on the side of the river as
cuz we it was so dark we couldn't see
where we were going. So those shine back
at you. So I'm I was finding the Cayman
eyes and then motioning with the light
to Ignasio where to go and he knew how
to find the channel. We had to jump the
waterfalls.
We did the two-day boat ride in one
night.
>> Nice. And [clears throat] we got there
and we arrive at this community where
and it's morning now and the howler
monkeys are calling over the jungle and
you know the little naked children are
all by the side and everyone's scared
and we get a hug from this guy Bacho who
we know and they're like come in come in
come in and they're like the tribe came
out yesterday that we saw a few of them
on the beach and they're gone now.
And so we collapsed. We fell asleep.
Rained the whole day. That night we went
out and we looked for them and there was
this crazy moment where we're standing
on this beach and there were their
footprints were there and the the local
indigenous anthropologists was standing
there and we're standing at the edge of
this beach looking out into the into the
Amazon beyond and there's just all this
wreckage. It looked like something very
Cor McCarthy, just dark sky, iron
clouds, and and we're standing there,
everyone is waiting cuz at any moment an
arrow could just fly through your neck.
And there's people holding shotguns. And
the anthropologist, this little guy is
standing there in the front and he's
going, "No mole." He's going, "Brothers,
there's only a few words that inter
intersect between the the languages."
And he's going, "Brothers, we're here.
We don't want to hurt you." He's
speaking in in the Yin language and he's
saying, "Come out." And you can tell by
their footprints. The trackers explained
this to us. You could see it was just
the balls of their feet. So right as we
pulled up to the beach, they had run. So
they were there listening to us. And
he's going, "No mole, come out. It's
okay. Lay down your arms. We'll lay down
ours. No mole." Just keep kept saying,
"No mole." And nothing happened. And we
went back to the village. We went to
sleep. We wake up the next morning and
it's 5:00 a.m.
And
again, we're trying to save the jungle.
We're in a race against time to get
these land concessions. And so my team
like Mosen and Stfan, uh JJ couldn't
come cuz he was in town actually signing
paperwork and interviewing loggers and
land owners. And also he didn't think
that there was any chance this was going
to be real cuz in his entire 50s
something years in the Amazon, he's
never seen them. And so we're getting
ready to leave in the morning. We had
tents on the boat and Agnosio comes up
to me and he goes, "You're my director,
right? You're my boss." And I went,
"Yeah." He goes, "I need to talk to you
like a friend." I said, "Yeah, shoot,
shoot, go." And he goes, "You'd be an
idiot to leave right now." He goes,
"They're coming." And so he convinced us
to stay. We pull our tents off the boat.
Stefan and Mosen go off with their
cameras. They start shooting, you know,
people. These are these are monkey
eaters and fishermen, the the the the
community that we're in. And
everything's quiet. And I opened my
laptop and I was working just writing
writing my book. And then then it
happened. Then you start hearing people
screaming mash go mash go and people are
screaming and women are lifting children
and running into the huts and the dogs
and chickens are going nuts and
>> so fear fear
>> fear because we should say kind of the
obvious thing is as far as anyone
remembers any encounters any minimal
small encounters with these tribes have
been violent
>> extremely violent these tribes have
remained alive because of their violence
almost like the Spartans or the
Comanches they've seem to have adopted
violence as a first response to contact.
>> Uh maybe you can correct me on this, but
I read that uh in the late 19th century,
early 20th century, there was
documentation of encounters
with these tribes by the private armies
of the rubber barons.
>> And those encounters were from the
rubber barons army's perspective
violent. Yeah.
>> And so maybe the lesson they learned the
unconted tribes is that any interaction
with the outside world is going to have
to be violent because they have to
defend themselves.
>> Yeah. You had colonial missionaries in
the 16 1700s. Then you had the rubber
barons late 1800s into the 1900s just
periods of extraction and domination and
cruelty. And these tribes their
grandparents must have told them when
the outside world comes you shoot first.
That's the only thing that's going to
keep you alive. Do you think the memory
of that those violent encounters is
defining to how they think about the
world? Yeah, because even in my lifetime
there in the 20 years I've spent in the
Amazon, Ignasio was shot in the head. My
friend Victor survived a violent
encounter where they murdered somebody
on a beach. I mean, they've shot
numerous people. They've even shot
people who were trying to help them.
People who are trying to give them
clothing and bananas. they've just where
they they call it porcupining them where
they find a body on the beach with so
many arrows that when they fall over all
the arrows are sticking up and so they
think and they'll do it out of curiosity
too where it's like hey you're wearing a
suit that's weird we've never seen
anybody in a black and white suit and
then get a you know the way Teddy
Roosevelt would shoot a bird for science
they're like they'll just what they just
want to look at you and so they they're
operating on a different they don't have
a moral system that we have or
understand they're just they're truly
wild.
>> How does Ignasio think about them?
Because they almost killed him.
>> Yes, it depends on the mood you get him
in because if you ask him, one day I
asked him, I said, "If you could see the
people that shot you in the head, what
would you say to them?" And he looked at
me with that Agnosio look. And he said,
"I wouldn't say anything. I would kill
as many of them as I could." I said,
"Okay." He also had a time where he was
in a really remote guard station working
for the Ministry of Culture and they
showed up and he knew that they were
going to kill him. And so he climbed up
into the the peak of the of the little
structure there and just like, you know,
like a dog in a car, that greenhouse
effect in the top at midday with the sun
beating down, he was huddled over a
mattress while they were walking on the
deck, moving pots and pans and looking
at our items and artifacts. And he knew
that if he was found, they'd kill him.
But if he stayed up there, he was
literally frying to death. He said he
was soaking the mattress. He was he
could feel himself dying for 2 hours. He
had to stay there. And he is constantly
making this decision of if I come out, I
die. If I stay here, I probably die.
He's like, "Probably die is better than
definitely die." So he was terrified.
And so as they're screaming, "Mosh, go!"
And everybody's running and women are
lifting children. Ignasio comes and
finds me. And you can see in his eyes,
you can see when somebody has that PTSD
response where he's breathing heavy.
He's he's he's moving behind trees. He's
not He's keeping me close to him and
he's going, "Look there. He has a bow.
He has a bow." And we're looking up the
beach and there's just this clan of
naked men walking down the beach with
these 7ft bows and they're hunched over
and they're pointing at us. They're
going, "Look at that one." They're
going, "Look, there's a gun there." And
you can see them communicating to each
other. And the butterflies are swirling
off the beach. And you know, in these
moments, you go, am I am I entering a
moment that I is this is this a one-way
door? Is this is this not something that
is this an irreversible situation?
Because there's an unfolding situation
where they're coming at towards us. Are
they going to attack? What do they want?
Is there going to be I mean, I'm I'm I
am soaked in chills right now just
talking about it because I remember
standing there and going, there's no way
this is real life. I I it's burned into
my memory them walking down the beach
and seeing them with the bows and of
course you know Stefan is up there just
firing off pictures and and and Mosen is
down getting video and the the community
that we're with people had you know you
hear shotgun shells loading home and
them and them loading it but they're
also they're getting ready and there's
this one guy this anthropologist named
Raml who has been the only person who
has communicated with them peacefully
he did it in 2013 where He stood on the
beach and he spoke to them. He knows
enough of the local dialect that
overlaps with theirs that he can speak
to them. And so as they're coming down
the beach, the butterflies are flying up
and we're all waiting. And again,
shotgun, you're talking, you know, how
many meters? 30, 40 m, I don't know,
accurate for an arrow. You loose a 7ft
arrow that weighs nothing. You're
talking about 300 m easy. They can shoot
you from across the river. So Ignasio
was like pulling me and he was like
down. He's like, you go down. And he was
like, "You stay behind this tree." And
he's like, "You watch them from there."
He's like, "Watch out. That guy has an
arrow." He's like, "He's watching
everyone cuz you could see." He's like,
"This is how it happens."
>> Did you think you might This might be
the last day you have on this earth.
Were you afraid?
>> I was. Yeah. Yeah. Of course I was
afraid. Um, it's you're with you're with
I'm with my two best friends and a bunch
of people that I work very closely with
and you're in the middle of nowhere and
there's no help coming and you're with
like, you know, 26 people and there's 50
of the tribe that you can see and you
know that they're surrounding us.
There's all men on the other side of the
river and then we had we had guns
looking back towards the jungle cuz we
knew we were being surrounded. And so
again, this is always this is always the
story of of of someone's uncle, brother,
cousin tells a story that happened and
now it's happening. And it's not
happening in the shadows. It's not
happening in the middle of the night.
It's happening in broad daylight.
They're they're walking out onto the
beach, you know? It's like it's like the
first time they saw the dinosaurs in
Jurassic Park. You're going, "Uh-uh,
there's no way." And you're you are kind
of walking on the knife edge of uh and
it's funny you say Stefan was taking
pictures because there's two ways to
think of the situation. This is
fascinating or this is extremely
dangerous and it's both. It is a nice
edge. So you could approach it one of
the two ways like if I die I die. I'm
going to take some good pictures. But
also we're there that was also our
mission. You know as as the directors of
Jungle Keepers we're working with this
community to ensure that their lifestyle
can continue. and they're saying, "Hey,
that's great, but as an indigenous
community, we're dealing with these
people that come out and raid our stuff,
try and steal our women, that kill our
hunters, and now they're coming out. We
want you to see it." And so documenting
it is part of our job. We have to show
what happened that day. And so those
guys were shooting um and then yes, very
seriously. It's actually so Mosen's wife
and I, we we always joked about like,
"Oh, if the tribe ever comes out, like
you stand in front of him, like you take
the arrow. He has kids. And it was, you
know, that day it was like we were
strategically positioning ourselves
being like, you know, you down. You
cannot get killed. And it was, you start
in those moments to go, okay, where can
where will I be safe from arrows? Where
can I run to the river if they if they
come over? And you start planning, okay,
if I jump into the river, I was going,
okay, I got my bag. I have a can of
tuna. I have a flashlight. I was like,
if I jump into the river and float down
and I live, I'm still days up river. And
so you you start going through all these
things. But
>> and of course the the Moska Piro people
are thinking exactly the same thing
probably.
>> Well well the the interesting thing is
that they're initiating the contact,
right? They're they are the ones coming
out of the jungle and confronting us.
And fundamentally that contact is
they're at least giving peace a chance.
Is this they're trying the peaceful
contact first? Correct. Or was there a
violent element? Like what did you sense
in the caution of them emerging to the
beach? Fear.
>> Fear.
>> As they came out, you could see fear on
them because the way they were hunched
over, the way they had their bows ready,
they were worried. And so they came and
you know, Raml is standing there as
closer than any of us at the edge of on
one side of the river. And it was like,
you know, shirts versus skins. It was
two tribes looking at each other with a
thousand years of civilization between
them. And Raml's going, "Put down your
bows. Put down your bows and we can
talk." And he's nom. He kept saying no.
He kept saying, "Brothers, brothers,
please put down your
>> So Noly means brother in a language that
they might be able to understand."
>> Nomole means brother in a language that
they do understand. And it's and it
seems like they refer to themselves as
the Nomalies. the brothers.
>> So potentially that's what they call
themselves as the tribes in the moles.
>> Exactly. And actually the
anthropologists that we've been speaking
to post this event have been explaining
to us that mashkopro, you know, piro is
the is the the the group that they're
from these these various nomadic tribes
and mashko basically means like wild
piro. And so the one thing we know they
call themselves is nom.
>> So at the end of this we might converge
towards the name of this tribe being
Namo versus Mashkapi. the Namo. Yeah.
Seems like the most current or at least
their self-appointed identity is the
brothers Namo.
>> Anyway, there's these shredded warriors
on the beach.
>> Yeah. [laughter]
>> With 7 foot arrows.
>> And we're all standing there. And so the
the the first thing again, you just
think of like, you know, the peace pipe
in the the old stories.
>> And the first thing is let's make them
an offering of peace. And so they got a
canoe with no motor and we piled it with
plantains, like just full of plantains,
16 ft of of endless green bananas. And
then I mean the balls on this guy, the
the anthropologist. He gets into the
river, takes the canoe, and it's the dry
season, so the river is only about 3 4
feet deep at it at the channel. And so
he walks this thing out. There's one man
walking in the face of all these
warriors and he takes the boat and he
pushes it towards them and they rush out
and they start grabbing the bananas and
they're not going, "Okay, we will unload
these bananas and use them later."
They're my bananas and you're grabbing
your bananas and they're fighting and
they're yelling and they're all grabbing
and they're they're grabbing them and
then they push the boat back and he
talks to them a little bit and again
it's not a perfect translation. So he's
you know he's saying where have you come
from? What do you want? Who's your
leader? He's trying to establish these
things and they're saying things and
they all sort of talk at the same time
like a flock of birds. They're not they
don't have it wasn't like one man speaks
and there was no women. The women were
the women were nowhere to be seen.
And actually at one point as we were
preparing I think it was while we were
preparing the second canoe of bananas
there was a moment of absolute panic and
and it happened when there was a noise
behind us and you just hear a bunch of
shotguns swing behind us and you know
Mosen goes down. I go running away from
the river now cuz again I want to see it
coming if there's an attack coming. And
I'm standing, me and this guy were
sharing a tree as cover and he's got a
shotgun and he's looking back into the
forest and peering through. And what was
happening was the women of the tribe had
come silent foot and they were just
pulling the yuca out of the ground and
taking the banana plants and ruining the
farm completely. But they were raiding
the farm behind us while the men were
talking up here. So again, were they
were they peacefully contacting us or
were they like, "Hey, we need some food,
so go make a diversion and and and take
the take the food out back."
>> I mean, you really were surrounded.
>> We were completely surrounded.
>> So they they could
have murdered all of you probably
>> easily. We were we were out outnumbered
five to one at the least.
>> Yeah. And it's probably fair to say that
part of the reason they did maybe they
wanted peace, but part of the reason is
they didn't know how deep this goes.
They didn't know if you have backup.
They don't know if we have backup. They
also they had questions. They were
asking
the some of their questions were
incredible. How do we tell the
difference between
how do we know who the good guys and the
bad guys are? Cuz to them, all you
outsiders are the same. So why who are
the ones cutting down the trees?
>> And those are the ones they know are the
bad guys.
>> Well, the big trees seem to have
incredible significance to them. They're
they're significant to us in a different
way, but to them it's it's it's a it's
offensive on a on an almost religious
level to cut a big tree as if you're as
if you're killing their gods.
>> So there's a spirituality to the trees
that
>> it seems like that.
>> And so the whoever's cutting them down
is a source of destruction on spiritual
existential
level.
>> Yeah. Well, how why would you destroy
our home? I think they're right.
>> Yeah. In in a deep sense, the unconted
tribes represent the deep jungle. And so
if they're threatened, that means the
jungle. The deep jungle is threatened.
Yeah. I mean, they are the human voice
of the jungle. And they they're asking
questions. They're also demanding, you
know, they're clapping at us and they're
waving and they're saying, "Send more.
Send send more bananas." And so they
loaded up another boat and they pushed
another boat out and this time they gave
them some rope. They all had rope tied
around their waists, penises tied up,
but they love rope. And some of them
were wearing rope that they had made,
which is brown or or reddish. And then
some of them were wearing rope that they
had clearly pillaged from logging camps
or the communities cuz it was modern
nylon paracord. And they had this wound
around their waists like a thick belt.
And they took the second boat and that
they had some some rope and they had
some plantains on there. So, some of
these guys might have been the ones that
murdered the loggers. Could be
>> from a couple months before that.
Absolutely. Could be. But what Raml said
as he was talking to them, he turned to
us and he said, you know, this group, he
said, the other groups call me the
grandfather. He said, this group, he
said, I don't know any of these. He
said, this is first contact. He said,
this is the first time this group is
talking to us. And you saw people from
maybe 12 years old to what looks like 40
something like a like a banged up 40
>> and and no really old people and no
women.
>> So this is a particular clanic
tribe and never contacted.
[clears throat]
>> Yeah. Is there just from your memory
interesting aspects about the way they
were trying to communicate like you said
clapping? I I think it's a from an
anthropology perspective from a human
perspective. Fascinating. How do you
talk to people from an unconted tribe
like this? So clapping, yelling.
>> It's interesting to know that there's
not a hierarchy where there's a leader
that represents or is that we know for
sure. Before even coming to talk to you
about this, we passed this through
anthropologists and ethicists and people
and we, you know, we said, "Look, is it
even can we talk about this?" Because if
you talk about this and you tell people
there's these unconted tribes, people
have misconceptions. They go, "They're
the last free people on Earth. They're
living the real life. We need to go join
them. We want to see them. We want to
photograph. There's all this bad stuff
that happens. And all these people want
us to be left alone. So, the last thing
we want to do is is kill the thing we're
trying to protect and tell the world.
But at the same time, they're speaking
out. They're saying, "Stop cutting our
trees. Leave us alone." And so, if we're
not successful in in the greater jungle
keepers mission of protecting this
river, they cease to exist. And so
advocating for these people requires us
to have this conversation. It requires
us to have this footage and to show the
world and then leave them alone.
In order for any of this to make sense,
I have to show you this footage. And
this has not been shown ever before.
This is a world first. I mean, up until
now, that's the other thing. You know,
we're sitting there this day and and you
know, the only thing you've ever seen
are these blurry images of from
someone's cell phone from 100 meters
away of the unconted tribes and we're
sitting there with, you know, 800 mm
with a 2x teleconverter and, you know,
R5s.
And so this is as we're looking through
the farms
anticipating the tribe coming. I'll put
a little bit of volume so you can hear
it.
And then you can see this is the moment.
This is us running when they're like
they're out. They're coming down the
beach.
>> Yeah,
>> we're just Oh, wow.
Oh, wow.
>> You see how many thousands of
butterflies?
But look at the way they move. Look at
the way they point. Look at him with his
bow. Wow.
There it is.
They're trying to figure out
>> what they're looking at.
>> Uhhuh.
>> And they didn't know what the cameras
are. They So, this was the guy is
looking out the back. So, he's he's
going there's something back here. He
could hear the women in the farm.
And I'm looking in every direction cuz
I'm going which way is the arrow coming
from? But see, he has his shotgun. This
is just like a farm shotgun. Even if he
shot it, you have to use a stick to bang
out the shell. But see, as they come
closer, they start laying down their
See, he's laying down his bow and arrow.
>> They understand. No, no more.
>> So, these are these are warriors. And
the way they were at first moving, it
really look like they're ready for
violence. And now they're all standing
in a relaxed
>> Yeah.
>> And smiling. Are they smiling?
>> Smiles come at some point.
>> I would say that one of these guys
seemed like uh in a leadership position.
and he did most of the talking.
>> What What's with the different hand
gestures? This the holding your hand up
to the face. All of this means
something.
>> All of this means something. Some had
red smeared on their faces, some had
yellow.
>> Did you have a sense of hierarchy at
all? Like the boss?
>> Again, there was just these two dominant
guys and like this guy and one other guy
who looked almost like him, like his
brother.
>> Yeah.
>> Gesturing.
>> Wow. Wow,
>> this is incredible, Paul.
>> Yeah,
>> you see the rope.
>> Yeah,
>> some of that rope is
>> Yeah, I can kind of tell who the who the
bosses are,
>> right?
>> All right, so a few of the
But see, even that as he's pointing,
we're going. What are you What are you
What are you pointing at?
You guys are nuts. You [laughter] guys
are nuts.
Oh,
>> you see as though they're rushing in,
there's this desperation. They're
hungry.
>> They also
>> Is that in the water? Is that Raml in
the water?
>> The in this particular video, it's a guy
named Liner.
>> But like, see these guys, they're
fighting over. It's not that we're all
going to share it later. It's [music]
>> I get mine, you get yours. And so, what
does that what does that mean?
>> Yeah.
>> But here, they're in peaceful mode. Now,
after we'd given them
after we'd given them several boatloads
of bananas, things did calm down. Raml
said to them, you know, look, we've
given you what we can give you. We gave
you sugarcane. We gave you boatloads of
plantains.
And so then there came a time where
things were a little more relaxed. They
were walking around. We were at one
point we we we had a we had a great
moment where we we'd given them the the
the plantains. We' given them the
bananas. and and he said, "Look, this is
that's it." He said, "We we've given you
what what you asked for. You asked for
bananas. We we don't cut the trees here.
All of us here are not tree cutters.
We're indigenous people." And and he he
couldn't explain who the hell we were,
but they were like, "We don't cut the
trees. We're not the loggers." And
they're like, "Okay." So then at some
point, you know, Agnasio went out and
like sort of like started, you know,
he'd go like this and they'd go like
this and, you know, he like danced a
little bit, they dance a little bit, and
then there was this very human moment of
just sort of joking.
>> So even Agnosio warmed up.
>> Even Agnosio warmed up once he realized
it didn't seem like anyone was going to
die that day. Uh things did calm down.
It was a false sense of security. Um
here, I'll show you. There's a couple
more things that are relevant here,
though.
Yeah, this is just them interacting with
the boat.
>> This is truly incredible, man.
>> But then they don't have boats. They
don't have stone tools. They don't
>> Imagine if you showed them ice,
>> you know? They wouldn't.
This is historic.
>> I mean, it's the I mean, you hear Percy
Faucet encountering the tribes. We've
heard of anecdotal accounts of the
tribes. This is the first time that the
tribes have been filmed. that we can
hear their voices that there's a
documented interaction happening.
>> I mean this now look how comfortable
he's getting. He's so close. They asked
him for his shirt. He gave his shirt.
>> Incredible.
>> They asked him for his pants. He gave
his pants. He was in his underwear.
>> You see this
the shirt that's over his shoulder?
Ignasio took off his jungle keeper shirt
and threw it to the anthropologist. And
then the anthropologist walked it off
and threw it to them. So over the
shoulder of that uncontacted naked
warrior is a jungle keeper shirt with
the logo showing. [laughter] So they're
like their second shirt. He just
upgraded that guy's status in the tribe.
He's going to be the new boss with that
shirt. He's got a he's got a dope ass
polo. He didn't even have to order it.
But yeah, this is in like the aftermath
when things were calm. And then my sort
of moment with this that really stuck
with me was when Raml said to me, he
said, you know, they he said, "They're
asking about you." And I said, "What are
they asking?" I said, "You know, me." He
goes, "Yeah, they're asking about you."
And you know, again, I'm not tall, but
I'm I compared to the people in the
village, I was a little bit taller and
big shoulders. And he said, "They said,
you look like a warrior." He said,
"Could you come forward?" He said, "Show
them that you don't mean any harm." He
said, "Show them your palms." And so he
pulled me up onto the beach. And this
was right before they left. But see, I
hold up my hands. Listen.
And they sang back.
>> They're singing.
>> They raise their hands. I raise my
hands. Wow.
And then
and then we were left with watching them
walk off the beach into the jungle with
everything that we'd given them
and they were gone. And so we went down
river the next day and the community
said to us, "Okay, now you understand
this is real. This is terrifying. and
you felt that fear. You have a duty if
you're going to protect this river to
protect us from them and to help us
figure out what future they want. If
they want to come to us, if they want to
learn farming, if they whatever it is,
um you know, that's that's fine, but
they were like, "We need protection from
you guys." And then in this video in the
beginning, I'm sort of narrating to the
camera and walking around right as
they're coming up the beach, but you see
this guy
right there in the blue shirt.
>> Mhm.
>> That's George. And he was very friendly,
very confident with this. He said,
"Don't be scared. They're not going to
hurt us." And the next day, we went back
to town. You know, long journey back to
town. Go to sleep. We wake up in the
morning and we find out that the
following early morning our friends in
the community had said, "Okay, the tribe
is gone." We gave them all the things
they wanted. We gave them sugarcane,
bananas. We said, "Please come back.
You're welcome here anytime." And George
was driving a boat and there was people
on the boat. And as they were going up
river, the tribe, 200 of the tribe ran
out, surrounded the boat, and they
started firing arrows, and everybody
else could hit the deck and get under
the under the the benches and hide
behind bags of rice. George was driving
and he was leaning back as he's driving
and he's driving as fast as he can and
one arrow came in just above his scapula
and came out by his belly button and so
he had that 7ft arrow tip through him
and so they pulled him out and I saw the
boat afterward and there was just you
know horrific amounts of blood all over
the boat and he had to be medevaced out
and somehow he lived and we were able to
help getting him a helicopter getting
him evaced all this but again You just
go,
you know, these these these people came
out of the jungle and they asked for
bananas. We gave them bananas and we in
every way possible said, "We mean peace.
We we want friendship with you." And and
then the next day uh they attacked. What
do you think happened? Why do you think
their mind turned? [snorts] Or
maybe this has to do with the role of
violence in their society. Maybe they
it's so
uh integrated into how they interact
with the world that they don't even see
that as a fundamental shift in the
interaction.
I don't know. I don't know what to make
of it. And the only thing I can think is
that the way they hid the women from us,
you don't know. for them maybe were not
allowed to see their women, you know, or
or cuz the one thing that we got was
that as George's boat and southern boat
were going up river the which is how
they live these it's not like they were
doing anything wrong. These people live
in a community days into the Amazon.
They were going fishing and so they came
around a bend and I think they spooked
the tribe. The tribe might have just
acted defensively and said, "I we don't
know who this is." The motors could have
set them off. We don't know. Um they but
they they shot him. And then the other
thing is the the thing with the
necklace. I've asked anthropologists
about this and their answer was that at
this point they said you know more than
we do but that
Yeah. Cuz two of them had the exact same
item around their necks and it seems to
be uh a Brazil nut and then some sort of
casing around the side and it looked
like animal teeth. Mhm.
>> positioned in there. It's like what are
you carry? Are you carrying medicine?
Are you carrying some sort of a totem?
Are you
>> But both of them and it's not a
comfortable thing to wear around your
neck. You know, a grapefruit sized
bigger.
>> Do you have a sense that that's a
container or is it just like a totem?
>> It seems like a container. They didn't
let it get wet. They cared for it. The
guy in this picture. So he's got this
this is a piece of tree fiber that he
has it on and then and then he's gotten
his hands on Brazil nut sacks, plastic
sacks from one of the farms across the
river. And so they just they just take
they take and one of them got a machete
and he was walking as they were leaving
again during that period where it got
friendly. He was leaving and he had the
machete and he was playing with the
machete and like swinging it at
butterflies and one of my friends this
guy Bacho, he goes, "Oh," he goes
machete. He was like, you know, dropped
the machete and the guy just looked at
him and was like, "Yeah, come and get
it." Uh, [snorts]
>> you know, I was like, "Yeah, you cross
the river and see what happens."
[laughter]
>> Do you think he figured out or they
later figured out how to use a machete?
>> Oh, they know machete.
>> They understand machet.
>> Yeah. Yeah. They do raids for machetes.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> They understand the power of a sharpened
metal.
>> It's I mean, it's a it's a Excalibur
sword to them, you know.
>> Um, but yeah, that that one that one has
stuck with me because I go, "What were
they carrying in there?"
>> So, what are some of the questions? like
if you can know everything you'd want to
know about them.
>> So maybe in the space of communication
and language that's really interesting.
You mentioned that there's all kinds of
calls, animal calls.
>> So they obviously know how to fake
animal calls.
>> Yeah, they speak in they can use animal
calls with enough complexity that they
can do basic commands. So they can speak
in capachin, they use tinamu calls. Um
some of our rangers were up river a few
months ago. This is long after this.
This is recently. Uh just just recently
they were up river and they found a a
trail, let's say no trail, a Mashkapiro
trail and it was Ignasio of course and
he made the there's like a secret
whistle. They do this mouth and he
whistled out into the jungle and he was
listening and they whistled back and so
him and everybody on the team just ran
back to the boat and got got out of
there. But it was like at least they
answered. They didn't just shoot. They
He whistled, they whistled, and they
said out, and he got out. But it's like,
we don't know where are the old people.
Do they not survive? What is the what
are the the marriage rituals? How is
reproduction handled? Um there there's
one or two children in the Amazon that I
know of who have, you know, washed down
river on a log and been rescued by
communities and then raised and they
either learn the native dialect or
Spanish. And then of course at some
point somebody will go and say,
"What was it like when you lived with
them?" And the answer is always the
same. I forget.
They don't talk about it.
So maybe we know that they value
secrecy. I mean, when you're afraid of
the outside world, you don't. Part of
that is confidentiality. They all sign
NDAs. [laughter]
>> They have some really good NDAs.
>> It's understood. It's an NDA. You can't
there's there's no lawyers. There's only
one way to execute the law. Yeah. It's
either a really strong NDA or or or that
it's it is savage that they're living
out there in the jungle and that you're
eating monkeys and turtles and you're
hungry for days on end and you know your
wife might get stolen by another tribe,
your baby might get stolen. You know, I
mean, imagine the bot flies and the and
the things that they must put up with.
It's it's just I mean what we
experienced in what 3 days of living out
with modern camping gear and headlamps
and a sense of direction and they're
doing none of that. You could put us out
there naked a very different story. So
yeah, the brutality of nature. Yeah.
>> Warner Herszog comes to mind that they
have to live in that
>> but then there must be there's something
about the jungle
that serves as a catalyst for
spirituality. So they must also have a
religious component, a spiritual
component that probably unifies them.
There must be an ideology they operate
under.
>> Oh, there must be. And there they there
must there's many things they must have.
They must have a belief system. They
probably have amazing origin stories. Um
it would be amazing to know what things
they have accurately and inaccurately
guessed about us, about the outside
world. I mean, they've never they've
never heard of the country they live in.
>> Mhm.
>> Or of World War II or any of it. And so
seeing them coming across the the beach
was surreal because it's like this
aperture into history.
By the way, I mean, you do have a
certain look. So you realize like them
singing to you. Your face is carved in
some wood somewhere
>> and there's a few of them gathering
around [laughter]
>> and like still singing about the the
gray gringo the
>> full beard with a big nose. They
probably drew this like he's got hair
all over his face and a huge nose and
they tell their children
>> and it could be anything. They you could
be like
>> to the children they say this is the
monster you should be afraid of or this
could be the the most beautiful
encapsulation of the outside world and
it could be every everything in between.
You don't get to control the the myths.
>> You don't get to control the myths. Um
yeah, God only knows. But I mean it's so
interesting.
So now now in that 130,000 acres that we
have, we know and this is what we're
we're sort of we sort of have to come
out of the closet with this like we are
now protecting these people. And the
only way to do that is to make sure that
they're not contacted, let alone that
they don't get machine guns shot at them
by the Norcos or that crazy, you know,
hippie gringo don't go down there
thinking they're going to, you know,
join join the the coolest commune on
Earth. So, how much of the land that
they move about is within the 130,000
acres of rainforest you've been able to
save? And how much of it is not?
>> How much of it is in the extra 200,000
acres that you're trying to save?
>> Most of the rest, most of that 200,000
that we're still trying to protect is
territory that is theirs. And in order
and in order, people always ask me,
they're like, first, a lot of people
ask, "How could you buy the Amazon?"
They're like, "That doesn't make sense."
And it's like, well, I have bad news for
you. Somebody already owns it and we
have to buy it from them so that they
don't log it. And so these land owners
are going to sell their forest to the
logging companies because owning 10,000
acres of the Amazon doesn't help you if
you're a third generation jungle man.
And now it's just something that's up
there and you live in the city. And so
they're going to contract either the
narcos or the loggers or the miners to
go out there and use it and they'll get
a little money. And those people when
they see these people will kill them.
That's for sure. And shotguns and
machine guns in the end will win. Not to
mention the germs. So all the money
you're trying to raise and all the land
that you're trying to save, it's all
towards that. Protecting the deep
jungle. So when you buy up the jungle,
you just want to let it be. let the
natural ecosystem come back to life in
the cases when it was logged or just
flourish
>> if it hasn't.
>> Again, we're talking about the last
great jungle. I always called it the
last endless forest because this place
is so incredibly remote. And then the
other question I always get is people
say, "Well, why is this river so so
important?" And for my whole career, my
whole time, 20 years in the Amazon, it's
been that it's massively intact forest.
Places like the ancient forest where the
trees have never been cut. So, it's
forest that's been growing since the
dawn of time. And thousands of species
can be on a single Shiuako tree. And
it's it's Avatar on Earth. It's it's you
can see the sweat come off your skin and
rain down and then drink it out of the
river and you're part of the chemical
physical reality there. And so it's the
one of the last places that's untouched.
This changed everything because we
realized that along with the butterflies
and the monkeys and the jaguars and the
trees and the ecosystem,
there's also a human culture that will
in the next few years cease to exist,
that will be exterminated if we don't
protect them. And when you look back at
what happened to indigenous cultures all
over the world over the past few
centuries that they've been wiped out,
we collectively now because we know this
have a chance to undo all of the
injustices that happened in the past by
by at least doing one right by saying
these people want one thing to just be
left alone. Imagine if we just protected
the river and then it's not that they're
this thing that's that's that's
vanishing from reality, but they get to
continue living that way. And then if
they want to come out and contact us,
great. And if they want to continue
living like this for the next 10,000
years, they can. And that's and that's
that's what we're working with now. It's
become so much more important than just,
you know, we're trying to protect the
environment. It's like, no, we're trying
to protect, you know, things like
Yellowstone and Yuseite and and and the
sequoas occur nowhere else on Earth. You
protect the things that are unique and
special, the crown jewels. And
in both a biological way and as well as
a anthropocentric way, this has now
become a river with global historic
significance because
this story is going to play out in the
next 18 months.
you're you're further and further and
further trying to save more and more
rainforest and the mission is clear
because there's just this [snorts] deep
jungle
>> that's full of this incredible life and
now we know with uncontacted tribes.
There's a lot of interests that don't
care about the jungle they're pushing
>> and want to cut it down, want to destroy
it. And the mission is pretty clear. You
just want this whole territory to be
preserved.
>> Yeah. And that's what makes it so
beautiful is that this is one of those
crown jewels. This is one of those
special places on earth where it's like
a time capsule for nature, for human
culture, for biodiversity, for climate
services, for everything. And then, you
know, I think people get overwhelmed
with where you say, okay, we we have to
save the environment. We have to save
the ocean.
>> This is one watershed.
>> It's 300,000 acres and we're already at
130,000. We've shown we can do it. The
loggers are happy to turn into rangers.
People all over the world have become
Jungle Keeper supporters. We have
several thousand people that every month
give us between $5 and $1,000 every
single month. And that keeps the rangers
going. That employs the local people. So
it's not just making a, you know,
drawing a line and making a park and
saying everybody stay out. It's like no,
you have the nom, you have the
indigenous people, you have you have a
future for the indigenous people where
their their kids don't have to worry
about like eating monkeys. They can they
can be park rangers and I get blowback
from people right away where I say like
and people can even come see it through
the treehouse or something and people go
oh you're going to bring tourists into
the wildest place on earth and it's like
man look at that jungle and it's like
that 300,000 acres of that and you're
talking about on a football field we're
talking about two blades of grass that
we access so people can see it which
makes a huge difference and so like the
fact that we can share it with people
that people I mean the amount of people
that listened who look like since since
the first time I came here and spoke to
you, the amount to which you've made it
possible for us to protect this place,
the amount of spider monkeys and jaguars
and giant anteaters and and those
ancient millennium trees that you've
made it possible to protect is
monstrous. And so,
>> thank you, brother.
>> It's been an honor of a lifetime to be
able to watch you. I I tell to a lot of
people, there's certain people I'm glad
exist in this world because you've
educated me and and uh millions of
people about the beauty of the jungle
and then how important the fight to save
the jungle is. Uh so if you're listening
to this, you absolutely must go. Please
donate or post about it, share it with
friends. Uh junglekeepers.org.
You're also doing a gala in New York at
the end of January.
>> So, if you can, please go and donate to
help save the jungle. Yes, please do.
And because our first conversation led
to the first surge where people realized
what Jungle Keepers was and then because
we got this surge of support, then we
were able to expand our work, protect
more acres. A lot of our major donors, a
lot of our smallcale donors came in
because of that. And so these are people
that went, "Wait, if Lex thinks it's a
good idea, then we'll do it." And that
based on your trust, they came in. And
so I I guess also I should say it's not
enough to speak and communicate the
importance of saving the rainforest. You
actually have to have incredible people
that are making it happen. And we have
talked and we'll talk more about the
dangers and the complexities involved
and how to navigate everything. And one
of the things and the reason I'm really
excited about what you're doing is I
just gotten to meet the team and uh just
brings a smile to my face. Several of
the people I know who are extremely
competent. Stefan, somebody we've talked
about, yes, he likes to take pictures of
stuff, but primarily the the thing he
does incredibly well is um run
everything, organize everything to make
sure that stuff happens and happens
quickly and efficiently, all the kind of
things that are required to make stuff
like this happen in the in the complex
environment that the jungle operates in.
the sometimes lawless environments the
jungle operates in.
>> So the team is incredible which is why
when you sort of connect the money
uh how does the money lead to the
solution of the problem? It's the team
and the team makes it happen.
>> I didn't know that uh people like Stfan
existed.
>> Yeah, me neither.
>> You know when I met him
>> I I just like I
>> beautiful wonderful human being. I just
I'm I'm you know again I can I can use a
machete to catch a fish.
>> Yeah.
>> But like his systems knowledge and his
ability I mean his bandwidth is the size
of a country. It has its own area code.
It's um he's you know just like JJ
opened the door of the Amazon and gave
us that local indigenous perspective. I
mean yeah okay I told some stories about
it but like Stefan came in and went okay
you guys have good ideas but you're both
jungle guys. You're not helping each
other. and running those systems and
making the website and making it
possible to connect the people that care
with the indigenous ranger program and
make sure the rangers have shirts and
cans of tuna and that there's a person
running the ranger. I mean, and these
are things that I couldn't dream of of
organizing. I can't even organ organize
my I can't even make my bed, you know.
[laughter] I can't even get that far.
>> I mean, caveman want fish.
>> Caveman want fish. Watching you uh fish
or hunt for fish with a machete
[laughter]
>> is one of one of the most awesome things
I've ever seen. You're literally able to
catch a fish with a machete.
>> Yeah.
>> So, that's what you're good at. And then
Stefan is good at everything else.
>> Everything else his you know that you
remember the most interesting man in the
world and they're like, you know, he
once had an awkward moment just to see
how it felt. It's like Stefan's to-do
list doesn't exist because it's already
done.
>> You know, he just is just incredible.
>> Quick pause. Bath break.
>> Oh, 100%. I'm so happy [laughter] about
that. Yes, sir.
>> And we're back. One thing I forgot to
ask you is about the diet of the
unconted tribes. You mentioned
potentially um monkeys and turtle eggs.
>> Yeah.
>> So, like what do we know about what they
eat? What's the source of protein?
>> Do they eat monkeys?
>> Oh, yeah. Their primary sources of food,
I would say, would be monkeys, turtles,
turtle eggs, and small game like like
Pekka, the large rodent that's like the
size of a beagle,
>> cappy bear, stuff they can shoot. They
don't really fish. And we know these
things because
our indigenous trackers and our rangers
find their camps. And so they'll find
some of those little thatched structures
they make on the beaches. And we see the
bones. There'll be taper bones. There'll
be turtle shells, which seems like it's
their closest thing to a bowl.
The day that we interacted with them,
they did find a bowl in the We saw them
walking away with it in one of the
farms. And then days later, we found it
destroyed. So, they didn't seem like
they saw much utility in the bowl.
>> It's temporary.
>> It's temporary. So, they, you know, they
kill it. They make a fire. They must be
amazing at making fire. I don't know how
they do it out there. It's very
difficult because of everything is wet.
>> I don't know how they do it and I'm a
really good fire starter
>> and it's tough in the jungle.
>> It is almost impossible most of the year
because everything is wet to its core.
>> So you think they they cook the meat?
>> I mean they have they have to be cooking
their meat from a parasite standpoint
from everything. We know that they're
cooking their meat that we see it that
they've cooked it. you know, there's not
a lot of excess berries, things like
berries and nuts and fruits. The the
monkeys and the birds are and the bats
are getting to those first as soon as I
mean that's what fruit does, right? A
tomato is green until its seeds are
mature and then it turns red to
advertise eat me so that you eat it and
then your gut transports that to
somewhere else and it gets free
transportation.
>> In the jungle that happens so quick that
you we're never getting produce. In the
book you have a picture of a native girl
on the lepad address uh having monkey
>> for lunch.
>> Yes.
>> Um
it it it looks really strange when you
have a monkey kind of looks
just a it looks a little bit like
cannibalism cuz it looks like a small
human.
>> Mhm.
>> I don't know what it is about Well, I
guess I do about monkeys. There's a
human
>> Yeah. element to them in their eyes,
in their in the form factor, but even in
the warmth they bring to the
interaction. Yeah. I was babysitting her
and she was six at that time, Dyra, and
uh her parents went out and we were left
at camp and they just said, you know,
keep an eye on her, make sure nothing
eats her. And I said, sure. And she was
like, hey, I I want lunch. And I said,
great. Well, what is there? And she
pulls out this monkey head and she was
like, it's ready. and she starts pulling
at the ear and she's like, "I can't get
the ear." She's like, "Can you help me?"
So, I pulled off the ear with my teeth
and then I gave it to her and then we
just shared this monkey head back and
forth
>> and we're sitting there and I, you know,
I took a few pictures of her as she's
eating and I have this video where I go,
"What's your favorite food?" And she was
like, "Monkey." And I said, "Not
>> cake." [laughter] And she was like,
"Monkey." And she was like pulling its
lips off. And like you said, you see the
teeth and the eyes and it's like sort of
grilled in static agony.
>> Yeah. And it looks like a tortured human
and she was just enjoying.
>> Let me look it up on Perplexi. How many
uh people in the world eat monkey?
Does it taste good?
>> If it was prepared right, it would taste
good, but they just throw it over the
fire and then eat it.
And so, I mean, even if you took a
perfectly good chicken and did that
wouldn't taste great. There's no
reliable global count of how many people
eat monkey meat, but available data
suggests many millions of people
regularly or occasionally consume uh
primate bush meat, especially in parts
of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. I
mean, she looks like that is her
favorite meal.
>> Yeah.
>> Is monkey.
>> Yeah. Yeah. We had a great time. Who are
we to judge?
>> Who are we to judge? I mean, have a tuna
sandwich or a monkey face or whatever.
[laughter]
[clears throat]
She's loving it. That's awesome. It's a
good picture.
>> Adorable.
>> Yeah.
>> Now that some time has passed, when you
look back at that encounter,
>> which I really do think is historic with
the unconted tribe, what do you think
about what lingers with you? Honestly,
I'm still processing it. I'll still find
myself just staring off sort of
remembering it or looking at the
footage. But
it felt like
the voice of the jungle was speaking.
You know, these these people are
there's that separation between humans
and nature where we go, we have to
protect nature. You know, it's like the
fish that you know, explaining what
water is to a fish. We're part of it. We
depend on it. And these are people that
depend on it 100%. And as we sit here
surrounded by technology and concrete
and civilization,
they're still out there right now.
And the fact that we've been trying to
protect their home without even really
knowing that they were in it because
they're so elusive.
It gives you perspective on where we
came from and how far we've come.
You know, I look at simple things. you
know, you you board an airplane or you
take a picture and you go, "This is a
miracle." And and I think having that
perspective of having interacted with
them where you go, you know,
[sighs]
how much work does it take to make this?
If me and you were standing in the
jungle and somebody said, "You have to
make this." How many years before we
came up with this? how many rubber trees
and where would we get the metal and
what would we use as die and how do we
make the the the spring mechanism and
figure out how to make it rotate. I
don't know and it's like they are
working with the bare essentials and so
it's an interesting reference point to
start at in terms of how incredibly
privileged we are. You know, the the
other thing is we we have written we
have so many different types of text and
we have code and we have language and we
have music and and we can communicate in
all these different ways and they have
they have spoken word they have oral
tradition and that's it. And so they're
they're operating the way our our great
great great great time you know to the
power of what operated and and and
persisting in modern times. And so I
think for me I come back to the world
and it and I think it moves very fast
when I see it because I I'm still stuck
on, you know, whether or not me and you
can drink out of that puddle.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, and and thinking
>> questions of life,
>> the big questions of life.
>> Yeah. I mean, you're you're right.
You're right. From the perspective of
the unconted tribe,
think going from the technological world
to to the jungle, you realize the
majesty, the magic of the biological
system that is the jungle, that is
nature. But from their perspective also
there is a majesty and magic to the
technological world. The the the human
created
technological world of the pen and the
computer.
>> Mhm. and the light bulb that too is
magical. So sometimes we don't give
enough credit to both
the the magic of the technological
world, all the incredible things humans
have been able to build and uh the magic
of the natural world. I mean, what we've
been able to achieve, I think you and I
and people that spend large amounts of
time in the wilderness, especially
somewhere as remote and fundamental as
as the Western Amazon, have a different
perspective on it. Cuz I think that when
you're born in it, you don't you don't
necessarily
have the the the framework to appreciate
how far we've come. [clears throat] You
go, "Yeah, I got on the train today.
>> You know, I checked my phone. I
FaceTimed my mom." And I and you're
like, "This is all normal." And it's
like we found a way to take things out
of the ground and mix them together into
magic devices that can do anything. And
it's mindblowing. There's a deep
optimism to that. And you actually write
in the book, which I really like. I
think somewhere in the beginning, quote,
given all the death and destruction I've
witnessed, it would be easy to slip into
the popular antihuman narrative that we
are a plague on the planet and there's
nothing that can be done. But my career
in conservation has given me a glimpse
into an alternate narrative. I've met
people who are proving more and more
that something can be done. I'm talking
about real heroes. People have dedicated
their lives to redeeming the evil that
is capable of being waged by the human
soul. People who are guarding the flame
amidst the storm, proving every day what
so many have forgotten. There is still
hope. And that speaks against sort of
the cynicism and maybe apathy
uh and the view that humans are a
destructive force in the world. Uh that
speaks to the fact that humans with all
the technological
elements that we have created can
actually do a lot of good.
I wrote in my notes here a quote from uh
the great Jane Goodall. The greatest
danger to our future is apathy. So
caring about the world, having an
optimism for the world, having a hope
for the world is the way to uh
help have an impact, help save it. Uh
but on that, I have to ask you about
Jane. She passed away on October 1st. Uh
some humans in this human civilization
of ours can open our eyes to to the
beauty of the world, and she is one of
the best of them, and she's had an
impact on your life.
Um maybe can you speak to uh the impact
that she's had?
>> I mean when I grew up,
you know, my parents being dyslexic, I
couldn't read for a very long time. And
so my parents read to us every night,
which was amazing considering how hard
they were working. But they'd find the
time to give us, you know, an hour of
reading every night, whether it was Lord
of the Rings or Sherlock Holmes or Jane
Goodall. And so I grew up with Jane
being this figurehead of conservation
and of adventure and sort of a living
historical figure, this legendary
person. And so then one time right
around the time that I've been going to
the jungle for a few years, I got to go
see Jane speak. I think it was at NYU
and you know sitting in the crowd
watched her completely amazed. And I had
at the time my cousins had been telling
me that I should write down my stories
of stories of taking care of an anteater
and stories of catching anacondas and
they're like right you know this these
are such good stories and so I've been
writing them down and I just remember
after the talk
you know she she did it you know at
least an hour on stage and then
thousands of people lined up at least
hundreds of people lined up and she sat
there and each of those p people wants a
moment with this legend. And so she has
to take a picture, shake their hand,
they say, "You mean so much to me." She
says, "Thank you." And and then they
move on and they say, "We'll send you
the picture." Okay, great. And so I got
my moment and we waited in line for a
long time. And I gave her this manila
envelope with two chapters in it. And
one chapter was Lulu, the giant anteater
from Mother of God. And the other
chapter was me, JJ, and Pico out on the
river catching anacondas and just
talking about how amazing the jungle
was. And I said, "I'd love it if you
could endorse my book that doesn't exist
yet." And I felt like such a loser doing
that. And I felt so stupid cuz I feel
like everyone was probably asking
something of her. And I, you know, it's
it's incredibly draining to to talk to
that many people, even if it is for a
good reason. And and 48 hours later, she
got back and she said, "Do you you know,
this is incredible. I would love to
write a recommendation for your book as
soon as you find a publisher." And what
happened with that is that
Jane, the way I I I think of it is, you
know, she she waved her very powerful
magical wand in my direction and she had
the incredible
compassion and presence to actually I
mean, you know, after talking to that
many people and being on the road 300
days a year and being Jane Goodall, this
living legend scientist to actually do
something so mundane as look at some
kid's writing and And and of course when
I went to publishers they said Jane who
who said that they would endorse your
book because everyone had said no. Every
publisher in New York had already said
no. And then after that Harper Collins
took me on and they said well if Jane
Goodall thinks it's a good idea then we
think it's a good idea and it became
Mother of God and then because of that
you know Jungle Keepers Dax everything
else was stemmed from that. So had Jane
not been the legend that she is truly in
every moment, my whole career would
never have happened, which also means
that those thousands of heartbeats and
thousands of acres in the Amazon
wouldn't be protected cuz we never would
have started Jungle Keepers. And she did
that not because you're special. She did
that to everybody.
>> Yeah.
>> And that just imagine the scale of the
impact she's had because of that.
>> Yeah.
>> And guess what? that you have a bit of
that responsibility now as well. There's
young people that walk up to you that
way and you have that responsibility of
seeing them, of giving them a chance,
seeing the the potential in every single
human being that walks up to you. It
definitely there's I would say that
Jane's we could do four hours on just
Jane, what she did for humanity, what
she did for science, what she did for
women, what she did for wildlife, the
amount of other people that she inspired
and gave careers to everything she did
for me. to me that that that presence of
mind when you reach that level to not be
like worried about your own travel and
your own schedule and busy with you know
getting some rest and that she actually
she actually looked at it has has
informed how I operate and indeed like
you say at this point as strange as it
is people will stop me on the street and
say hey I watch your videos every night
with my kids and I you know or or
someone will say you know how do I get
your job I I've been watching you for
years and I'd love to to helper ation.
And so it's it's made it so that, you
know, I follow her example where it's
like you stop what you're doing and you
and you you pay attention because you
don't know that might be the next kid
that's out there saving a river or the
next person that makes an innovation
that makes it possible to clean rivers
or or whatever it is, whatever whatever
their dream is. But but we're, you know,
Jane was in the hope business. She
always said it, you know, that that not
losing hope was key to staying in the
fight and that we live at a time when,
you know,
that apathy is is a poisoned pedal
pedled by the darkness. It's they're
they're trying to make you feel
disoriented and and apathetic and scared
and and fighting back against that and
having conviction and passion and fire
and hope are the only way that we're
going to fight that. And she understood
that and she spent her whole life
spreading it, guarding the flame against
the storm and and tipping her candle to
others to light them. I mean, she just
that was her whole thing.
>> What advice would you give to young
people how to do that?
>> Those young Pauls sitting there.
>> I mean, your life story is just
incredible in that way.
>> You've taken the leap into adventure,
>> into the unknown. What would you
recommend they do? I think the thing
that that I try to communicate to them
and again my inboxes are filled with
people, you know, I'm from Finland, I'm
from Spain, I'm from, you know, Georgia.
People saying, "How do I get your job?
How do I get out there and do it?" And
it's it really is just that. It's that
you throw yourself head first into
adventure. And it's you just do it. And
and and I I remember hearing people say
that thing like, you know, if I can do
it, you can do it. And it's like I
remember thinking how hollow that sounds
cuz I'm like yeah you're on a talk show
or you just wrote a book and you're
going you know these these these titans
of of their industries and and and
innovators saying like you know oh if I
could do it anybody could do it. But now
that we're protecting all this
rainforest
and that I've you know lived with the
animals and met the tribes and that it's
becoming this global movement.
You know I didn't have a PhD. You know,
there's that quote that someone less
qualified than you is is living your
dream life and has your dream job right
now. And I am the poster child for that
because I went there with, you know, I
failed out of high school and started
taking co unmetriculated college classes
and going to the jungle with my friend
JJ and just doing it for the sheer love
of it for years almost a decade before
anything um surfaced. And the other
thing is there was there's there's not
even a path.
>> There was there was no path ahead of us.
There's no, you know, okay, you go to
school, you get trained in this, and
you're going to become a this. I went
there, and it was like, you're never
going to be a conservation biologist cuz
you don't have the grades. You're not,
you don't have a PhD, you don't have
family money. You're not going to you're
not going to be able to protect
rainforest. So, I said, "All right,
well, then selfishly, I just want to see
it." And then I ended up getting trained
by the indigenous people. And like what
happens so many times and you could use
you know like a I think a restaurant
example is the best one you could use
where you might start washing dishes but
at least you're in the restaurant you
know and then at some point that the
manager is going to need you to help
with you know restocking and then at
some point after a few years you're
going to be helping the new guy and at
some point after a few years you might
end up being the manager and at some
point you might end up being in a
position where you're starting your own
restaurant. It's the only way to do
that. You can't just search it on a
computer. have to go sweat and bleed and
do it. And that said, especially if you
fall in love with uh the journey that
you take on, it's full of um difficult
periods. I think you said somewhere this
just seems to be the nature of it that
there's going to be pain, there's going
to be suffering along the way. you have
a really nice post that I recommend
people watch
about just this when people ask for
advice
that the hardship the suffering and I've
seen how much you care you when I've
seen you
>> just on your face
when you see a tree being cut down or
you see the fires
there's real pain there in your heart
and you have to carry that. And so the
post is, "How honest can I be? What do I
tell these kids who message me asking
how they can do what I do?" It's not
David versus Goliath. There's no sword
or sling that can hold back a dragon
this big. You're going against the
current of global economic entropy and
human apathy. Swimming against the
current is tiring. A great way to drown.
Every day we don't win, we lose. And
when we do, worlds burn. The more you
know, the more it bleeds. The heartbeats
all stop when the flames come through.
Constellations of species turn to
ghosts. And we're the only ones saving
them. Cuped our hands around a candle in
the howling darkness.
And people want to be inspired. Keep
that social media going. Keep it up.
You're doing great. They want to know
we're winning. And we're done a lot of
winning, but not right now. We're
getting slaughtered. We're at that part
of the story. We're almost at the end
game. We can think positively as
positively as we want.
Thoughts and prayers won't stop a
chainsaw and the motor that's carrying
us against the current towards the
miraculous goal. Only when there's
gasoline in it. As soon as that stops,
we drown. We drown.
We can take the warm light from all of
those who help and not let it bother us
that there are people who could buy
planets claim to care. At some point,
you realize what's really happening.
>> Mhm.
>> As a kid, you'd rather be arrogorn.
You don't want to actually carry the
ring. Not when you learn what it's going
to cost. Even if you make it, how can
you? Explain to Sam why you can't get on
the boats. Whatever it takes. Whatever
it takes. It's that time of year again.
Here come the flames. Whatever it takes,
it's coming. And people should watch the
video that goes along with this. But
that speaks to the pain, the difficulty,
the challenge, the suffering involved
when you're faced with a possibility of
destruction.
That's the other side of the sword of
caring for something deeply. Yeah. We've
watched a lot of forest burn. We've
pulled a lot of animals out of the
flames. Yeah, that I wrote that at a
time where we were just getting
hammered, man. We funding wasn't coming
in. There was miners. It was just months
and months out in the jungle alone. And
uh yeah, that that it's a Tom York track
that we had just been listening to again
and again. And it was just so low. Um
there was then you know the there was a
huge new invasion where they just they
just burned the whole side of the river
and just you know it's it's it's never
going to come back and it's part of the
forest that I loved and I knew the
animals there and it's um it's gone and
so we have to live through that on a
not a weekly basis at least a dayto-day
basis and when you take on
responsibility for something like this
you
you go to sleep thinking,
"Yeah, if we don't do it, then worlds
burn." You know, if we don't save it,
then every time you said the the the
sadness that surrounds a happy moment,
well, it's like, "How am I supposed to
go to a party and talk with people about
anything?" Or, "How am I supposed to
even go to sleep when if I don't if we
don't
succeed at what we're trying to do? But
if we don't outrace the chainsaws and
the roads, then those trees die, those
millennium trees, and we're the only
ones out there protecting them. And and
when you see that black scorched earth
with with nothing left, it's just ashes
on on the ground and all the, you know,
the cacophony of life is silenced and
it's just it's just this horrible
violent silence. It's it makes you sick.
And so, yeah, there's a lot of weight
that comes with that where
We're not we're not we're not
theoretically doing something. We're
we're we're black and white practically
doing it.
>> So that's the other side of the advice
to young people.
>> Oh yeah. Well,
>> it's not going to be easy.
>> No. The I mean when they say they say,
"How do I get your job?" It's like,
"Well, you don't want my job and you
don't want the bot flies and you don't
want the deni and you don't want, you
know, don't don't even inquire what a
normal life looks like." like like you
know I lived out of a backpack for 20
years. Um you know how many monkey faces
I had to eat because there was no other
food. Like seriously
um you know that just that shot just
being alone on the boat in the river and
how many days the motor didn't work and
you sleep out there and you get rained
on cuz you don't have any protection and
you have some leaves over your face and
and then you go home and everyone's got
a job and everyone's got kids and
everyone's happy and they're like what
are you doing down there
>> trying to save the rainforest?
like sure. And now we're at this point
where, you know, I cared a whole lot for
a whole long time. We've had rises and
then we've had falls and we've had wins
and then we've had failures. And the
last few years we've had this this
rolling success of of people finding out
about our work and coming in and we
start to go, "Wow, we've protected
130,000 acres. We might actually be able
to do this." And so, you know, there's
that there's that moment in 300 where
they they show Leonitis and they say,
"Even the king allows himself a a moment
of hope that this might be okay right
before they get slaughtered."
>> Um,
>> and someone very dear to me recently
said, you know, in celebration of where
we've gotten to, that if it happened in
any harder of a way, it would have
actually killed you. And if it had
happened in an easier way, it wouldn't
have been so divine.
And that slapped me in the face cuz it
was like, man, it has been so hard,
but look where we are. We might actually
do this. It just has to be that way. Uh
speaking of which, another complexity in
all of this you write about in the
afterward of the book
uh about the narcot traffickers that
have moved into the the river basin.
They're not the loggers that we've
spoken about anymore. They're growing
cocoa for cocaine and they're building
uh air strips. So tell me how this came
to be. Like you said, the loggers, our
whole life on this river, when loggers
come in, JJ and I would walk up to them
and say, "Hey, what's up?" and sit down
with them and have a beer or share share
a meal and talk to them and ask who
their father was and if we know them and
then hire them and they're friendly
and they are in a way brothers, the JJ,
they're the same. They come
>> They come from the same people. They're
simple local people. They're not evil.
They're just people who usually have a
kid and a wife and they're they're
looking for work. And so they work with
a chainsaw cuz that's what they know.
And they work for, you know, $30 a day.
Um, if that in very challenging, harsh
environments. And so when we see
clearings, I would always go with the
drone and fly it over clearings. We'd
get some intel and then we'd go bring
that to the police. And the police, you
know, Jungle Keepers supports the police
at this point because the Peruvian
government has a hard time with
resources trying to manage Amazonia and
there's, you know, when you're 3 days
from civilization, getting cops out
there is not the easiest thing. So,
sometimes we'll lend boats or gasoline
or logistical support.
And uh there was a moment in March,
several hours up river from, you know,
home base and I'm with JJ on the boat
and I fly the drone and there's this big
new clearing and I flew the drone over
and we lower the drone and a few times
I've had people come out and wave at the
drone or say like get away and
we're out in the middle of the river
just sort of idling, staying in one
place and I lower the drone and I see
the these little huts and we're saying,
"Okay, this is a big clearing. I'm
snapping images, snapping images. These
people are on the boat with us, these
visitors who had flown in and I have my
local team and all of a sudden people
come running out of the houses and they
run straight to their boats and we're
already above where their boat is. So
home is in down river direction.
>> They get in their boats and start
chasing us and we start driving and
we're going at full speed. We have a 60
horsepower. They they had a 40 and we're
driving up these. We're just doing this
chase now and our guests who are going
to be potential funders, you know, at
one point the father looked at me and he
goes, "Hey, this whole, you know,
running from the Pirates of the
Caribbean thing," he's like, "It's
getting scary. You're scaring you're
scaring us." He was like, "Can we can we
like what are we doing?" He goes, "What
when are you going to put the drone
down?" And I I'm flying the drone at
full speed to keep up with the boat. And
I I just crash landed the drone on the
side of the river near a big tree. I
just said, "Fuck it. We'll get it
later."
>> And I was like, "This has fine. This
happens all the time. They get mad. They
they chase us. It's no big deal. And I
smiled at him. And JJ's smiling. Goes,
"It's so bad." And he's smiling. And JJ
looked at me and the smile fell off him
like a mask. And he looked at me and he
was like, "This is not good."
And we kept going up river. And luckily,
there was a camp of of police that we've
worked with quite a bit. And I went to
uh a friend of mine and I remember we
got off the boat. I shook his hand. He
said, "What's going on?" I said, "Look
down river." There's a boat tearing up
river towards us. And he did three
things. He got the rest of the guys.
They armed up. They got on the boat with
guns. They put ski masks on. They got
like ready for combat. They told us to
get down. He also said, "Hey, turn on
the sat link. Call for support back
home. We turned our boat around." And as
soon as the narcos, which we didn't even
realize that this was these were narcos
chasing us. We thought we were looking
at loggers. when they saw the guns and
they saw us face them, they turned their
boat around and they went back down
river. So, we got escorted down river
and I remember shaking his hand, my
friend, and saying, "Thank you for
saving us today."
And telling the other guys they did a
good job. I said, "Get back up river.
We'd been brought home safe. This is
hours later." I said, "Good job. Thank
you so much."
And they went back up river. And then
that night I'm sitting at the station
that you know
and I get a phone call from Stefan and
he goes, "Pick up the phone." And I go,
"I'm the camp in the middle of a
conversation." He goes, "Pick up the
phone." [gasps]
And my friend who I had just shook his
hand a few hours ago, they went back up
river and as they were unloading their
boat and washing off in the stream, the
narcos did a driveby and shotgun
straight to the chest, shot him in the
chest. And so all of that enthusiasm and
we're protecting the biodiversity and
this is so great. There's people from
around the world. It's like that scene
in the movie where there's just a
montage of success and hope and acres
and winning. Gunshot
and I could still feel his hand in my
hand. I just shook his hand. I said I
said, "No, you can't. You're not. He's I
said is he okay?" And he said, "Is he
okay?" He said, "He took a shotgun
straight to the chest." And they're
like, "He's dead." So, okay. And so I
had to go out to dinner and not show the
guests anything and just smile and laugh
and talk to them about, you know,
whatever. Um, and keep that and keep
that in which which felt very very
difficult to do. Um, and so what
happened as as you said, the the threat
level escalated and we didn't know it.
>> The narcos had come in and started
realizing that there's so much
wilderness here that they can operate
and there's no police. And then when we
flew the drone, they got mad.
So we realized this um we communicated
with our with the police and they said,
"Oh yeah, these are these are narcos
now. We realize this is part of the
serious like drug mafia." [gasps]
And then I had gone back what the the
incident that you're referring to at the
end of the book. I had gone back to New
York
again to speak to donors to try and get
this work to continue. And you you know
how it works. So, we're at the station
and then you go to that little logging
town and then there's a road and so our
our pickup truck had come in on the road
and JJ was supposed to come down, get in
the truck and drive back to to the city.
JJ was on the river and went, I forgot I
was supposed to get more stuff at the
city. He goes, you know, I'll go I'll go
tomorrow. He went back up and he sent
the boat driver down and told our
driver, Percy, who was waiting with the
pickup truck, said, "Jay's not coming
today. go back and come back tomorrow.
Percy starts driving down the road and
he sees a tree across the road and this
is a single lane road through the
jungle. There's nowhere else you can go
and men with guns come and stick the
pistols in through the open windows. Gun
against his head. They pull him out and
they go, "Where's JJ and the Miraa
Gringo Bola drone?" They said, "Where's
the where's that shithead gringo for
that flew the drone?" And if either of
us had been in the car that day, they
would have killed us. And we know that
because they took his wallet, they took
his phone. Our driver Percy, they thank
God they didn't hurt him, but they sent
a message to us. They said, "Let him
know." They said, "We missed you this
time, but we'll get you next time." They
said, "We're going to get you." And so
when JJ called me, he called me and he
was howling. he just had the
um you know that that
adrenaline and that emotion of of that
it almost happened. [gasps]
And so that was that that changed
everything. And so since then we've
been, you know, it's not counting
butterflies and taking ecological
surveys. It's it's that there's a drug
war being fought on our river. And now
when these roads come in, we can't just
go out and meet these people anymore and
go talk to them because they are
actively looking to shoot us. They know
our names. And then on if as if all
these other things weren't enough
indication, the police intercepted a
phone from someone they arrested. And on
the phone in the WhatsApp chat, it said,
"If you see JJ or the Gringo, anyone in
our network, please kill them. You'll be
rewarded." So we both have a hit out on
us. and life on the river has changed at
the moment. We don't we can't you know I
can't just go out walking around and
swimming and driving my boat and it's
like you have to be looking over your
shoulder at all times and you know you
can get as trained as you want with a
pistol and sleep with it under your
pillow and but the way these people work
they'll catch you when you're least
expecting it. They'll wait till you're
at a cafe in town. They'll wait till
your motor doesn't work on the side of
the river. It'll just be a quick one and
they'll go. And so that that feeling on
top of the weight of of protecting the
ecosystem and the animals and the race
to to tell people about it and do all
this, it's like now we're actively being
hunted when we're there. So, and this is
very directed at you and JJ. Yeah. So,
they really don't care about the others.
This is they understand.
>> Mhm.
Are you afraid?
What's it been like living with this
with a real fear of
being murdered at any moment? I wish I
could say I handled it better than I've
been handling it. Like I wonder how
people in war zones do it. I wonder how
some of my soldier friends that I have
immense respect for have did it when
they were deployed. Cuz for me once this
happened it was, you know, every phone
call now I I think did something happen
to JJ?
>> Yeah.
>> You know, every time I go to sleep, my
dreams are that I'm being shot and it
I just it just it just it it really
threw me. It really really affected me
when JJ called me. The the the way he
was just he was just shouting. I don't
even remember what he was saying. He was
just he he was just shouting, "They
almost got us. They almost got us." He
was so, you know, uh, terrified and and
angry and and and so, yeah, it's it's I
there was a day not that long ago that I
was swimming in the river and I was just
in the river, you know, right in front
of the stairs at the station and a boat
came around the bend and I remember
thinking, do I run? Do I go underwater?
Do I hide? Do I what? What the hell do I
do? I didn't have a gun near me. I
didn't have the security people were up
the stairs. It's like you go, holy shit.
And it's not the danger of, you know, if
I jump on an anaconda, it might kill me
or if I climb this, I might fall. These
are people who want to kill you. And on
top of it, you have the,
you know, the when you see your when you
see what your friend looks like after 3
days of floating in a river, what a body
looks like of a person you used to know.
That's very viscerally terrifying
because there's the the tragedy of that.
that person lost his life who was
younger than I was, you know, he's he
was a kid. He was in his 20s. Um,
and then yeah, it's just it's very hard.
It's very hard to do anything cuz you're
you're I mean like right now my hands
are sweating. It just it affects me. And
even in the daylight, if I can go, you
know, it's fine. This is part of the
thing. You know, it's this is the
adventure. People deal with this all
over the world. You can talk yourself
tough and then and then in those quiet
moments, you know, that that 4 am thing,
you wake up and you go, "Fuck, you know,
why am I sweating? Why why did I just
have those dreams? Why is my heart
racing?" It's like you just have um it
sinks its way into your subconscious and
and it's just not what we signed up for,
you know? It's like we we we wanted to
just protect this beautiful place and
this is this whole new threat. We're not
trained for this. We're not we're not a
uh you know we're not police or military
and it's and it's like we've we've now
seen violence on a scale that
we were very unprepared for. And so I
mean just 2 days ago I was, you know, on
my way to you and my phone rang at 9:00
at night and it was JJ and it was like I
had a my heart was jackhammering. I had
to pull over because I was going what
what what news now? You know, did did we
lose another bunch of acres? Is it a new
road? Did somebody die? What? It just,
you know, it it really scatters you.
>> And in some sense, it's a twist that you
didn't ask for. And it doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with the
fight you're fighting, which is
protecting the rainforest. But because
of it being pristine and quiet and away
from civilization, it also becomes a
place where uh you can have air strips.
It becomes lawless in a certain way
because it's so far away from
civilization.
>> Yeah. It's the only place that they can
operate with impunity. They there's no
police out there. And so they saw us
helping the police and they went cut the
head off the snake.
>> Yeah.
>> And that, you know, uh Chico Mendes,
Dorothy Stang, the list of people that
environmental defenders that are
assassinated in the Amazon every year is
huge. There's there's endless examples
of it. It's staggering. I forget the the
I forget the exact numbers, but it's
like every year we we lose. There'll be
local leaders who are trying to stop an
oil company or a drug cartel, and they
just shoot them because they know that
that one person that's able to rally
that support who has that voice, if you
just shoot them, usually it'll end the
thing, and then they can go back to
doing whatever the hell they want. And
so, right now, we're
working very closely with the Peruvian
government. People assume that, you
know, a Latin American government is
automatically corrupt, but what we found
is that these are really good people
that want to
help their citizens. And the police have
been working very hard to stop the
narcos, to protect the local indigenous
people, because, you know, with the
narcos comes human trafficking. With a
team of male narcos that are out in the
woods making drugs, they want
prostitutes. And how do they get
prostitutes? They go steal girls from
indigenous communities that don't know
any better. And then there's reports
that the Norcos have made contact with
the unconted tribes. And of course,
they're going to shoot machine guns at
them. They're not going to have a little
shotgun where it's a fair fight. They're
going to mow down. And that the unconted
tribes are going to have no idea. That's
why I posted a video of me in the rain
saying this is endgame because there's a
there was a new road that was coming off
the north of our territory above the
ancient forest. They had jumped over
because we stopped it at the ancient
forest. They've gone above the ancient
forest. Now they're trying to cut down
to a new area.
>> And so
>> it looks like this
>> like that. So there's the transmazon.
Stfan made this map of course.
>> Um, but you see the area that we're
trying to protect loosely so that we
don't give away anything. The loosely
the area that we are protecting. So the
light green is the 130,000 acres and
then this metastasizing network of roads
just reaching out and trying to get in.
And so they're trying to come in from
the north where that arrow is.
>> They're trying to come down.
>> And so the police are fighting them
along this. And it's a full-on drug war
right now. and and so so stopping that
securing this northern boundary. And so
when I I mean again just the power of
what we have when I posted this I asked
Stefan to make show people the road and
where it's going to go.
>> Mhm.
>> We posted this video and said we have to
protect this 100,000 acres right now and
all up here is uncontacted tribe
territory.
>> And just from that one post we got
$150,000 in like 48 hours. And we bought
this concession. we stopped that road,
but now they're up here and they're
trying to come down. So, it's like, and
this is the thing again, you said, you
know, it's it's great. Yes, you get to
be an adventurer and you get to live in
in the jungle. Sure. But it's like
there's this this mission impossible
thing where it's like you might get
lucky enough to pull off your psychotic
mission. You know, jump your motorcycle
off the train and parachute down and
stop the bomb before it goes off. Great.
How many of those do you get?
And we're having to do it every month.
And if we,
that's the thing, these amazing people
that are supporting the rangers allow us
to patrol and protect this because once
we have this land protected, the
interesting thing is that the the police
can go into any of the light green
areas. If anybody's there, just arrest
them.
>> They're on jungle keepers land. They're
out. And eventually that land will
become national park if we're
successful. The problem with the land
that's not is it's a gray area. It's the
middle of the Amazon. Are they allowed
to be here? Do they really have cocaine?
because they'll they'll plant papaya for
acres and a little bit of cocaine behind
it. You know, they'll they'll they'll
put the sacks. They're sneaky and so
they have to build a case and it takes
time and then the road comes in and they
you know, and in that time then they'll
knock off a police officer and it's like
if we were just able to get this
tomorrow,
the whole problem gets solved. We can we
could we could give the police two more
boats, you know, and then they could do
all the patrolling they need.
>> So the mission is clear. The mission is
very clear and the problem is that right
now we've been playing defense and
sustaining losses and and either we need
to inspire enough people that the donor
program goes through the roof and
instead of having several thousand
donors we have you know 50,000 donors
and we again we'll raise what is it? We
need $20 million to save the rest of the
corridor. we'd raise $20 million
overnight with enough people. or we need
one of these people that has the
resources to come in like Batman and
just go, I want the park named after me
and I'm just going to come in and give
you the 20 million and then we do it
tomorrow and then we make a documentary
about how we saved a river and the tribe
and the monkeys and the but right now
we're you right now we're we're you know
begging on the side of the road for for
enough change to buy bullets so that we
can stay alive.
So these narcos, they're uh there's a
kind of distributed network where a
bunch of them are pretending to be
farmers. So they're holding on to the
land
and then maybe they start planting
cocaine on the land
>> slowly and they build air strips. Are
they trying to stay under the canopy?
Yeah.
>> With the air strip.
>> It's brilliant. First, what they do is
they they um they subsidize the poorest
people and they say, "Go up this river,
turn left at the tree, and just start
there." And they're like, "Here's a few
grand." And these people are like, "I
never had a few grand before." They're
like, "Buy gasoline. Here's a chainsaw.
Go clear some land." They send these
people up there, and then when they show
up a year later, and these people have
made an illegal farm out in the jungle,
they go, "Hey, we we need a safe house.
Remember that time we gave you the
gasoline and now you live here? you're
going to work for us now. And so they
they're kind of a friend of the people
like that. And they have safe houses all
over the jungle. And then when the
bosses come to collect what they're
growing out there, I mean, the the
police busted a narco operation that was
in the middle in the middle of the
jungle. I mean, you know, hiking to the
ancient forest, like just days into the
jungle. These people are going on foot
with sacks and stuff. And the way they
do their airirst strips is you think the
the canopy of the rainforest is 150 ft
tall, 160 ft tall. And if you [snorts]
clear the interior of the landing strip,
the trees are still meeting overhead.
And so you can't fly over and see down
>> which is the same reason we didn't know
about the road that was going to the
ancient forest cuz overhead the trees
are meeting. So you're not going to see
it on satellite. You're not going to see
it from a plane. And these pilots, these
bush pilots, fly in, and they'll just
duck in under the canopy, land their
plane, load up, and then they fly out. I
mean, expert pilots. So, it's impossible
to detect. It's almost impossible to
detect. Uh, we're working with people
now, you know, there it's it's this arms
race, you know, that we're going, okay,
there are drone programs. I talked to
someone that has a different type of
drone, you know, a 16 ft drone that that
like uses the thermals to climb up and
has solar panels on the wings and flies
for two weeks at a time. It's like a
glider
>> that recharges itself
>> and it'll keep constant imagery. So,
we'll get up to the almost up to the
moment data on disturbances in the
canopy. And it's like, well, that'll be
a firstirhand alert system, but then we
got to get the the police out there,
which as you know, a two-day expedition
by boat and it's the only way. And so
the local police force there may be
dedicated, but putting people on a
multi-day expedition to go get shot at
in the jungle is nobody's idea of a good
time. You understand? Have you
researched into this whole other world
of uh drug trafficking, cocaine
trafficking? How big is the operation
here? Looking at Perplexity,
>> multi,000 ton, multi-billion dollar
global industry.
>> I mean, globally, it's it's a monster.
>> Colombia, Peru, Bolivia.
>> Yeah. and they move north and east
through the Americas, the Caribbean, and
the Atlantic to reach major consumer
markets. Yeah, this is a machine
fueled by a lot of money and a lot of
brutality.
Number of cocaine users worldwide is
about 25 million people
>> users.
>> Users. So, there's a market. And when
there's a market, you're going to find
the way. Quick pause. Bathroom break.
All right. And we're back.
And
me as somebody who
is afraid of heights and I've got a
chance to interact with you a bunch. Uh
you're in some sense fearless.
Uh and I've watched you climb a lot of
trees. You've helped me climb a tree.
And there's this wonderful part of the
book where you talk about finding the
tallest tree in the forest you knew at
the time and that was something that you
passed and thought was impossible to
climb. And you talk about climbing it.
You uh take us through the experience of
that and that leads you to seeing the
mist river in the rainforest as the sun
rises. I I was wondering if you could
talk to the story of that
both for at least for me but even for
you at that time the terrifying
uh process of climbing a tree like that
uh for the first time with JJ at the
bottom cheering you on and uh what it
felt like to see the Mist River. That
tree, you've met that tree. She's a
she's a good one. Her base is at least
as big as this room. And um she's
probably about 160ome feet tall. And so
when you're looking at these giant
buttress roots going up, which I'd been
doing for 18 years at that point, and
I'd always said, man, if I could you
just climb it. And I never had the rope
skills, you know, and I developed as a
rock climber. I was working on strength.
And I trained for it, you know, it
wasn't it's like most things, it's not
you can't just do it, you know. I'd gone
and climbed up, you know, 30 feet and
gone, "No way." you know, the the the
trunk of the tree goes vertical for
about 70 ft before branches even come
out. So, there's just this one big vine,
and JJ and I did it at I want to say
like 4 in the morning, like really
early. The howler monkeys had just
started
and you start climbing with the rope up
this one vine and you have to, it's not
a technical climb, it's a strength
climb. you have to gorilla up this vine
and it's all back strength and and so I
did it no shirt, no shoes, straight up
and JJ had the blade device and so every
like 30 ft I would put in uh a piece of
webbing and a carabiner. So then you go
up another 30 ft and you put a piece of
webbing and a carabiner and you don't
know what you're going to find and
you're going up in the dark.
>> And so when you say it's a lot of
strength is involved. So there's very
few places to rest. You're essentially
just lifting the whole time. So it's
extremely exhausting.
>> Extremely exhausting. Like I really
trained for a long time and there is no
rest. You have the only rest you get uh
hurts. You have to you'll have to cling
to the tree and your your your feet are
are smeared against the bark and you're
holding on with your toes if if
anything. And if you fall, you know, if
I put a if you're climbing up and it's
basically tad climbing. If you're
climbing up and you put a safety, which
is, you know, piece of piece of rope
with a carabiner and you put my rope
through that. Again, as you're doing
that, it's dangerous cuz if you fall,
you fall. Then I do that and then you
climb up. Right before you put the next
one, you're going to fall double. So if
you climb 30 feet, you fall 60 feet. And
so your your head's going to smack
against the side of the tree. As you're
climbing, you don't know if you're going
to reach into a wasp nest or if there's
going to be a venomous snake. And
there's, by the way, in those trees, a
lot of those.
>> A lot of those. And it took me over an
hour just to get to the branches the
first time. And it's just again full
exertion, everything I had. And then you
get to the branches or above you. And
each of the branches is the size of a
mature oak tree. They're just, you know,
these huge branches, big big branches,
the side thick as a minivan. And you're
you're climbing up this straight tree
that's like the World Trade Center. It's
just huge. And then I had to traverse
around the tree on vines. And then
finally, I get up into the crown of this
tree.
And then from there, I called down to JJ
and I just see this little speck of
light, you know, 85 ft below me. And
then I climbed up to about 120 ft, which
is up here. And I sat there.
>> And you're doing all this still in
darkness.
>> We're doing all this in the the pre-dawn
light. And so when I got up there now,
the howler monkeys are going and the
jungle starting to vibrate. And you can
hear the first macaw starting to chirp
and everything's starting to turn on.
And in the east, the sun is coming over
the jungle. And so the sun, the first
rays get line of sight to the canopy of
the jungle, it starts lifting the mist
off the canopy. All of that moisture
starts coming up. And I'm sitting on
this branch at 100 something feet above
the ground with dark jungle below me and
all of a sudden I see the the river. I
see the mist river I'd always heard
about. They say that there's a a river
above the Amazon, an invisible river
that has more moisture in it. More water
is flowing above the Amazon than is
flowing in the Amazon. And I'd heard
this my whole life and you think like,
okay, the fact that there's a molten
core of the earth or that black holes
theoretically exist, it's just like one
of those things. you're never going to
see it. And in this moment on this tree
as sweating and just ripped apart and
bleeding, I was sitting up there and I
saw the mist river and it was flowing
over the canopy in the the golden rays
of the morning and the macaw start
taking flight and there was monkeys
below me that were looking up and you
could tell they were confused. They're
looking at me going, "What is that?" And
I just had this absolutely incredible
moment. I wanted to, you know, it felt
like it felt like you're seeing God. I
wanted to I wanted to share it with
everyone. You know, I felt I felt I felt
guilty afterwards for having had a
moment like that, but it felt like I had
done this insane risk and and um you
know, risked falling out of the tree or
or or getting strung up on the ropes.
And of course, it's just me and JJ, so
something goes wrong. No one no one's
going to help you. Um and being out
there on that branch felt suicidal cuz
even then, if you fall, it's it's a
giant swing back to the tree. But the
beauty that I saw up there
was so intense that it, you know, it
sucked the it sucked the air right out
of my lungs. It, you know, I had tears
in my eyes and and I'm just watching
this incredible process flow over the
earth. This this legendary thing that
I'd heard about that scientists
described and now I'm seeing it with my
own eyes. It was um it felt like the
gift of the tree.
>> And you're right. Now in the branches of
the greatest tree in the jungle, I
watched as the mist river caught the
morning rays, illuminating golden
currents, swirling as it rushed over the
canopy like a stream from heaven. In the
troughs and basins and lower areas, the
river was deep blue. But then, as it
flowed up and over the tall trees, slow
rapids washing over the canopy, the Mist
River became ignited, electrified in the
gold magnificence of the sunlight.
Scores of birds flew up in and out of
the churning currents. The life and
breath of the Amazon was flowing from
north to south along the basins of the
lepadress over the jungle. My god. My
god. I thought of everyone I loved of
every creature contained in the leafy
distance. The jungle itself was like a
great being, a monstrous leviathan of
warm green might. I wanted to call down
to JJ and tell him to find a way up. I
wanted my mother to see it. I wanted the
world to see it. The light filled my
eyes and I found myself wiping away
tears.
You know, I should take the small
tangent
of saying the obvious, but the thing
that needs to be said is you're a
fucking great writer.
>> Thank you. I mean, come on. That's I'm
just describing what happened, but All
right. You mentioned Mac cause as part
of the process of the jungle waking up.
>> I read that you know when you first
start in the jungle that's kind of your
job is to studying those and me as a fan
of monogamy and birds.
>> So macaw are are beautiful but they're
also monogous creatures. They scream at
each other quite loudly. What are some
interesting things about them? among
which, by the way, you write how
important the Ironwoods are to
>> their well-being, to their life.
>> Yeah. I mean, when I went down there,
that's like I said, you know, for young
people, if you want to get out there, go
do it. I agreed to stay at the station
and and do like 6 hours of Macau
research every morning. So, you'd wake
up before dawn and go sit and just stare
at the side of the river. And the macaw
would show up.
>> Mhm.
>> And like you said, they all scream and
bicker at each other. That's just how
they talk. It's very It's very very loud
and very very harsh. But they do love
each other. Um they always you can
actually hear when you walk through the
forest. I know what the sound of macaw
giving affection is. They make a certain
kind of sound when they're just printing
each other's feathers and and and taking
care of each other and and just
nuzzling. And then there's a different
call altogether when they're yelling at
other macaw or saying let's go and you
start to learn macall language. What
have you learned about relationship and
successful marriage from um listening to
Macau scream at each other in nuance
different ways that you're talking
about?
>> Well, I guess [laughter] never mind. You
can skip that question. Um, it's
interesting to see two animals sticking
by each other's side and they're both
raising a chick. And at the bottom of
the stairs at the station, there is a
macaw nest in an ironwood. And the
relationship that you mentioned is that
in the jungle, there's a limited amount
of macaw real estate. And those are all
ancient ironwood trees, at least 500
years or more. So they have to be, you
know, thick. Thus, again, car thickness
or bigger. And when a branch falls off,
it creates a hollow. And the macaw use
that to reproduce. And because there's
only so many nest sites in the forest,
only about 17% 17 to 20% of the macaw
population reproduces in a given year.
So they have a slow replacement rate.
And macaw are one of the things that
people come to the jungle to see. And so
along with gold mining and logging and
all these extractive things in our
region, ecoourism has been great. It's
given the local people jobs as guides
and cooks and chefs and and and
carpenters. And so macaw are a huge part
of that because it's one of the last
places where you can see these flying
rainbows over the canopy, you know, or
when you're on a branch from one of
these trees and the macaw fly under you
and again that that they'll fly by.
[snorts] You just hear the you hear the
wind in their in their feathers and they
just they'll look at you over their
shoulder. What? and just keep going just
loud and they'll just keep going and
they'll join up with other macaw and
they fly across the horizon and it it
gives you this sense like you're seeing
something from from the dinosaur times.
It's just it just looks like wild jungle
and there's nothing human in sight and
there's just this savage canopy to the
to the horizon and just these beautiful
birds flying over. It's just it's just
they're just they're just magical.
You have this uh Instagram post with an
anaconda around your neck. So, I mean
there's a million questions. Maybe we
can talk about that experience, but also
how did you not die? So, as you know,
we've been studying the
habits of unknus for quite a while. Um,
the lowland green anaconda is the
largest, heaviest snake on Earth. And
I've been practicing a lot for a long
time. And this is the biggest one we've
ever physically caught. This was just
under 20 ft. who was 19 feet something.
And you can see she's in the middle of
shedding.
And the other interesting thing with her
is that she had blue eyes because she
was in the middle of shedding. And
they're the scale over their eyes turns
blue right before it comes off of their
head. And so I've never caught a
blue-eyed anaconda before. But if you
look at the size of my head and the size
of my hands, you start to imagine
>> that thing's head is bigger than a Great
Dane. It's huge.
And so the power on that when we tried
to lift her to measure her, we wanted to
bring her up out of the stream and get
her over to the side so we can
straighten her out, measure her. And
again, we're just trying to take some
simple data points and then release her.
And she at one point she just decided to
flex her body. And you just see 10
people fly this way. And then she
flexing the other way and 10 people fly
this way. And every time that mouth
would open, she would just open the
mouth and try to she just reach back and
she'd just be like, "Just let me do it."
And you know that if she gets purchase,
>> once they get purchased, they just they
wrap you so quick and they'll just
they'll crush the life out of you like
you're a bag of chips.
>> And if you ever seen a mouse in a mouse
trap, when the mouse trap goes down and
the eyes come out and when snakes,
anybody that's owned snakes and fed them
mice knows this, sometimes if they catch
it right, they'll the guts will either
come out the back end or the front end.
So I'd imagine that the same thing will
happen with a snake, you know, that's
that big that's bigger than bigger than
I am around.
>> So they have a process when they say
purchase it. They want to bite just to
hold and then they So
>> but again, she she all she wants is to
be let go in her to her defense this
massive snake. Uh her we named her
Millie for for the for the data entry.
Um she just wanted to go on her way down
the down the down the stream. The the
the comments on this are hysterical.
people, you know, this is
>> this is the worst example of white
people shit I've ever seen. I mean,
Snoop Dogg shared it. Some one guy one
guy goes he goes he goes,
"Congratulations, you've touched enough
grass. Go back inside." [laughter]
>> Yeah. Somebody said, "Uh, interesting
use of free will."
Yeah. And I I I saw Kill Popper 007
commented,
>> uh, and maybe you can tell me if this is
correct. Anacondas are ambushed
predators. If you approach them, they
will usually try to flee. It will not
register you as food. There's other
reasons, too. This is in response of why
how did Paul possibly not die from this?
>> Uh there's other reasons, too, but this
is the main reason. They're pretty much
apex at that size, so their fear isn't
as prominent. He was calm, so the snake
was calm. It's insane to do and still
risky, but he might actually be the most
qualified anaconda handler on planet
Earth. Paul is one interesting cat
hugging emoji. Is that accurate?
>> Yes. At that size, their apex, so
they're really not thinking about
defense. They're just like, "Get off
me."
>> Yeah.
>> If I was to hurt her, like just like if
I was to like touch you in the arm with
a needle, you'd react. If I was to do
anything that hurt her, which I'm not
doing, she would turn around and bite me
to say, "Go away." But they also they
don't want to bite because their
recurved teeth make it very difficult to
detach. And also, they're putting their
head then at the source of the danger.
It's not a good calculation. And so
these the giants and I've had the
privilege of interacting with four or
five anacondas in the 20 to 26 foot
range. And all of them have been very
Leviathan like and they just they don't
want to move. They don't want you to
they just want to keep going. And he's a
he's 100% right on all of that stuff. Um
I don't know. I've caught 90 90
something anacondas at this point. Many
of them have been massive. Then there's
the one that me and JJ didn't get at the
floating forest cuz it was bigger than
bigger than we could tackle, bigger than
my hands. I couldn't touch fingers. But
every single one of them has chosen
flight over fight. Only the little
babies and the the smaller males get
snappy. They'll come back at you like a
normal snake and just if you grab their
tail, they'll try and just bite you and
then go. But these big females, you
know, they're like dragons. They're like
these big legendary things that live in
swamps. And the only reason they've
gotten that big is because they have a
reliable prey source in a secluded place
away from humans and they've been there
for decades just pulling things down to
hell and eating them and you know Oh,
and the other thing I mean look I have a
team with me.
>> Mhm.
>> You know so
>> so there's people holding the
>> Yeah. I mean let's be real here. I would
never do this if I was out in the jungle
by myself at night. doing this would be
suicide 100% because for every second
like there that I'm going I'm in this
the water and she's over my neck. Yeah.
Okay. And if JJ wasn't there to jump in
and unwrap her
>> Yeah.
>> then I die 100%.
>> So she's continuously wrapping.
>> She's continuously on her back saying,
"Come come in [laughter] here
>> and let me let me arm bar you. Let me
squeeze the guts out of you." She's just
going, "Let it happen."
>> And moving slowly. moving really slow
with that assurance of of power where
she doesn't need to try and tap you
quick. She's going to get you
eventually.
>> Although to push back on something you
just said, having known you long enough,
let's be honest, you're saying I
wouldn't be insane enough to do it. I
think you would be um I mean there's
there's a line of insanity and you, my
friend, walked that line
masterfully so far. So I think there's
um when you're able to sense the animal
whether it's crocodiles uh cayman or
anacondas and and maybe radiate a sense
of calm.
I've seen you be able to go into some
dangerous from my perspective situations
and make it seem like it's not dangerous
at all. And maybe when you become one
with the the ecosystem, maybe that maybe
you're not a threat to it and maybe
that's why you can survive. I haven't
been able to make sense of it really.
Um, look, I would say this in the in the
case of elephants, I if you if we ever
end up in Africa together, I can get
incredibly close to elephants because
I've spent enough time with them where
so far every time I've been able, you
know, it's always been a mock charge and
and you can you you can be one with the
elephant and learn their language enough
that that you you respect their
boundaries and you also show them that
they're not like if this better be
serious cuz you're either going to have
to kill me or you're going to have to
just turn around and go back to eating.
And you can have that exchange with
them. And and with smaller snakes, I'll
be careful and whatever else. I can tell
you with this that when you have both
your hands around the anaconda's neck, I
truly I mean, I've have been known to
surprise myself with the decisions I
make, but this alone would lead to death
100%.
You It's like It's like laying down in
front of an 18-wheeler with it in
neutral. It's like it's going to roll
over you. This is going to turn into
anaconda handcuffs with this thickness
and then that is going to wrap you with
this thickness and then six more of
those are going to go around your body
and you will get squeezed and you will
turn into goop and she will not and like
just like that guy said, she probably is
in defense mode and not food mode. So,
she'll probably just neutralize the
threat and then go back to sleep.
Um, I have to ask you about the the
floating forest and you write about
Santiago
once again beautifully in the book of
the time when he told you the stories
and when your mind and eyes were still
fresh and maybe skeptical and more
leaning towards the western world point
of view versus the jungle point of view.
Santiago's eyes were glowing in the
darkness. He watched the orange embers
spark upward to join the celestial river
of stars that arched across the night
sky as if the memories were written
there. He squinted, his face as wrinkled
and weathered as an old map of the
world. Vast experience whispered in the
fire light, as ephemeral as the breath
that spoke the words, but powerful
enough to latch on and sink down into
some deep part of me.
This is Pico saying, "Papa, tell me
about the anaconda on the Blackwater
stream."
>> And uh he tells the story of that. He he
he talks about it big and having horns.
And you write uh once again masterfully
about you at that time having doubts.
>> It sounds like bullshit, but now more
and more of the things you've seen of
the jungle and the things you sense you
have not seen yet. Uh all all of those
stories
uh seem to be true. The one he was
referring to maybe uh 36 ft long, this
big he shows it. He says that the
floating forest is the place you need to
go. Gringo, if you want to be liberated
of your doubts and skepticism.
Uh so tell me about the anacondas you've
encountered in the floating forest.
Well, the thing he's describing there is
that he's saying they found an anaconda
that had horns.
>> Yeah.
>> And in that moment, we were all hanging
out by the side of the river and I I
said, "That's enough." I stood up. I was
like, "Come on." I was like, "There's no
anaconda that has horns." And if I've
learned anything in 20 years of living
with the indigenous people in the
Amazon, is that they're not wrong. You
know, if they say there's a tribe of
naked people with arrows out there,
they're right. They're right. and and
they know what an anaconda looks like.
So if he says he saw an anaconda with
horns, he saw something that ain't a
normal anaconda.
And uh a smaller version of this played
out recently where one of my one of the
people that works at the at the
treehouse. He came and he said, "I I
found a snake and it was in the in the
water tank." And he goes, "And it had
green spikes on it." I said, "There's no
snake that has green spikes." I said,
"Congratulations, you're an idiot."
>> [laughter]
>> you know, and I made fun of him and I
said, "I know all the snake species that
are here." He said, "None of them have
spikes. There's no snake that has spikes
coming off of it." And he said, "No, it
had long spikes." He said, "The snake is
this big. It had spikes this long on
it." I said, "There's no snake with
spikes."
Until finally he came and he got me in
the night and he goes, "The snake with
spikes is there." And I said, "Well,
I'll get out of bed for that. Let's go."
And I said, "And I guarantee it's not
going to be there when we get there."
And we got to the water tank and I
shined my flight flashlight down and
sure as shit there's a snake in there
and it's got thousands of green spikes
coming off of it and I could see the
snake head
and then all and the spikes are coming
completely perpendicular out from its
body and for a second I really was
having this out-of- body experience and
then the snake saw us got scared and
swam and all of the all of the spikes
collapsed onto its body and became
smoothed
>> and then I realized snake had been
living in the stagnant water for a while
and developed algae that was growing off
of it. And so when it was sitting still,
all the algae would settle out.
>> Mhm.
>> And so if you look straight down on it,
it's a it's a water snake that has algae
growing on it. And so it does look like
a snake with spikes. He's not wrong.
>> Yeah.
>> It was it was a water snake. It was some
sort of helicops.
>> Yeah.
>> Um but there's always an answer like
that where it's it's it's they're not
wrong. So when they tell you something
like there's an anaconda with horns and
multiple people have seen it
>> you you make an expedition there. You
know like if somebody said there's giant
ground sloths in this one valley I
wouldn't be like they're extinct. I'd be
like where
>> you know you start to listen. Um I mean
after after the after the tribe walked
out of the forest there's you could tell
me. I mean that day if a Tyrannosaurus
Rex walked out behind them I would have
been like makes sense. Let's go to the
floating forest. Do you ever think about
what creatures are in there? I just had
a conversation uh with Michael Leaven at
Tus University. He's this biologist
>> who creates biological life forms in the
lab, but also studies all kinds of weird
what he calls unconventional
intelligences on Earth. And he speaks
about that from a perspective of just
understanding
the incredible intricacies and
weirdnesses of biological systems.
So, you know, the soup of organisms
that's there in the floating forest is
probably incredible. You ever you ever
think about like what kind of weirdness
is there?
>> I mean, along with giant snakes is
animals that are existing in an
ecosystem that's isolated, right? And so
the tapouis, you know, like in the movie
Up, those Venezuelan cliff jungles where
it's like those straight like like Angel
Falls and up there you have this
alopatric speciation occurring where
these isolated communities are departing
from whatever is down there. And so on
the floating forest you have this very
unique ecosystem where there's animals
living on grassy islands, there's
animals living in the tops of palm
trees. And so in that nightmare soup
that exists beneath the rafts, there's
probably insects and I mean I've seen
lizards there that we have been unable
to identify. There's there's things
there in that. I mean I can't imagine
the the I don't think the decay is going
to happen. There's not probably not a
lot of oxygen in that water. And so I
mean I I brought a few scientists there
and they've all just been like this is
this is you know
>> Yeah. How do you even think
>> how did this form? We've brought
hydraologists there and they're like,
"How the hell did this thing form?" And
then, you know, trying to study what
what what creatures live under that is
is is amazing.
>> But the the big anacondas,
it's interesting cuz they truly are the
apex, so they're unbothered. They're not
really using their power for anything.
>> No. And I'm sure if I bit her, she'd
turn around, kill me.
>> Yeah, but in a bored kind of way. Like
it wouldn't even
>> Yeah.
>> It would just slowly kill you. But I
wonder if once she killed you though, if
she'd be like,
>> you know, just like
>> take a bite.
>> I mean, if she I mean, the bite they
swallow, right? So like once she
collapsed your your shoulders, it's
like,
>> you know, if you killed a perfectly good
hamburger and it was like in your hands
dead, you'd be like,
>> you know, maybe I'll maybe I'll try it.
>> I mean, they need the calories.
>> Yeah. And then take a six-month nap.
[gasps]
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's truly incredible.
Majestic creatures, though. Yo, this is
Look, I love this picture. Just like
again, not just the just the fucking
just the size
just the I I I want you one day to feel
the because they're And again, the wild
ones are not like the cap. The captain
ones are soft from sitting in a cage
their whole lives. These guys have been
flexing every day.
>> Yeah.
>> So that it's like it's like you're
hitting steel cables.
>> Yeah.
>> And even if it's just being chill, you
can probably get a hint of the power
it's capable of. Right. The one good
thing about those really big ones is
that when they do strike, it's like a
it's like being in a fight with like a a
big fat guy. It's like it's like that
that hay maker comes from way back here
and you're like, "Oh, good." You're
like, "I'm going to duck." And you get
down cuz like they're like they open
their mouth and they're like [groaning]
they start they start accelerating.
>> Yeah.
>> And it's pretty easy to either get out
of the way or like
>> you know get it right before it hits you
in the face. Uh-huh.
>> Usually again, the if you ever mess that
up, just like the hay maker from the big
guy, it's over.
>> Your level of knowledge and comfort with
snakes is incredible. I think they sense
that. I mean, I've just seen you with
snakes. They they must cuz they must
sense in you the camaraderie.
I don't you have a way of speaking to
animals and about animals like there's
zero danger when from my outsider
perspective it seems like a lot of them
are full of danger if you're not
communicating to them correctly with
snakes I think it's it's more of a
the highway is dangerous you can drive
safely
I know what I'm doing so I'm working
with a a snake that can't invenimate me
and is small and so I can allow it to
freak out and then if I can get it into
my hands and warm it up and it goes,
"Oh, it's nice in here." And of course,
like you said, I'm not scared. And so
the snake is going, they are very
sensitive to that. And so he's going,
"Okay, this isn't so bad. You can chill
them out." But I don't think snakes have
any camaraderie. I think that I think
that whales, monkeys, elephants, I think
that they can sense, they can say,
"Okay, this person's trying to help me
get out of this net. I'm going to relax
and not kill them." I think that then
very much so you have that dynamic.
Speaking of somebody that does have
camaraderie,
there's this incredible video on your
Instagram that people should go watch
where this spider monkey was drowning
and you jumped in to rescue. Sure. So,
we're coming down river. It's 7:00 in
the morning. So, I'm cold. I'm always
cold. I'm sitting on the boat and I'm
wearing my warm, you know, wearing
whatever. I'm sitting on the boat and
JJ's like, "Look, spider monkey." And I
go, "Great. Spider monkey in the river."
Like, that's normal. And JJ's like, "No,
she's having trouble." And I was like, I
was like, "Why is she having trouble?
They swim all the time. And he goes,
"No." He goes, "You should help." And so
the boat the boat comes around. Then
sure enough, what you can't see in the
video is that the river was so full that
there's these little whirlpools and
currents. And she was trying to get to
the side. And again, all the animal
righteous people uh are very quick to be
like, "Let n let nature take its course,
you know, let the monkey drown or she
doesn't need help. You're interfering."
Sure, sure, sure. If you were actually
there, you would know something. And
that is that she did need help. And she
was drowning. Her head kept going under.
And so I saw that JJ was right.
And so we pull around. I took off
whatever I could in the moment. Jumped
in with the p with the paddle because
now here again, I trust monkeys, but I
don't want her to bite me. She is going
to be scared. So I thought instead of
there's two ways I can do this. I can
grab her by the neck, right? And like
animal control her. Grab her by the neck
and the tail and take her out of the
river, which is going to be scary for
her. And instead, I thought, I know
spider monkeys so well. I've raised so
many of them. And when you raise them,
they they curl up to your neck and
they'll like if you have an orphan
spider monkey whose mother got shot by
poachers and you're taking care of her
before we bring them to the animal
rehabilitation experts, they'll curl up
on your neck and they go
and they'll just they're just they'll
just talk to you in your ear. And so I
feel like I I know a little bit of
spider monkey, a broken spider monkey.
So, I I pull up next to her and I give
her the paddle and we're in this rushing
river and we're moving at 10 mph
downstream
>> and I try to give her the paddle and she
she smacks it away. She was like, "No,
get away from me. I don't know what you
are." And then she keeps swimming. She
goes under again. I give her the paddle.
No. And then I she puts a hand around
the paddle and that moment that you had
paused on, she looked back at me and she
looked at me like, "Yeah, right there."
She looked back and she registered like,
"Oh, this is this is another animal with
a face. Bub was just listening or you
need to go watch the video. You guys are
just looking at each other and she's
looking at you.
>> It's so cool.
>> She looked right at me, but then she
went she went no. She was like,
"Whatever you are, no." And she went to
go back in the she was like, "I'd rather
die in the river." She was like, "I'm so
scared and I'm drowning." And she looked
at me. She got scared and she jumped
back in. And then I lifted her up and I
went and I started talking in spider
monkey and she just there's then like
the next moment you see it, she just
goes,
"Sure.
>> [laughter]
>> And she just she wraps her tail. You see
her tail is around the edge of the
paddle and she puts her hand around it.
Then I lifted her and cuz I'm taller
than she is, I lifted her out of the
river. And so now instead of manhandling
her like you know a raccoon you're
catching by the neck, she's holding on
in her spider monkey way to the paddle
and she looks back over her shoulder.
She looks at me and I'm sitting there.
I'm over there talking to her in spider
monkey and she looks at me and you hear
her. She goes, I can't do this sound she
makes but she does this this Whoa. She
makes this spider monkey sound like and
she goes fine. And then she she she's
looking off the front end of the paddle
as she's looking at the jungle and she
looks back at me and she's like you
could just tell she's like I have no
idea what's happening.
>> But she accepted the help and the
difference is is that be it's because I
spoke her language in this case. And I
know that that would sound that would be
one of those stories that people would
nail me on every time if it wasn't on
camera. You can see [laughter] you can
see the moment that she makes direct eye
contact with me and goes, "Okay." And
then as soon as we get to shore, she
jumps off and runs off into the forest.
>> It's so I mean to me just watching the
video is so amazing because she's
looking at you like real
>> you can you can see that there's an
actual connection.
>> Oh yeah.
>> That there's like communication type
like a social you know the the way
humans when you when you're maybe saving
a human being that's drowning or
something like this. There's that that
that connection is beautiful to see,
man. And then I read a little bit that
spider monkeys have u they're very
intelligent, but they're especially
socially intelligent. So they have they
have social connections with each other.
So they they understand what that means.
They understand what another entity
means. So you speaking it it's it lang
in a broken language [laughter]
probably
is really important and a powerful way
to indicate that wow you're in network
like a foreigner but like
>> in like [laughter]
>> it's like you're in a foreign country
and someone goes helping helping like
helping
>> and you go okay sure like you know
you're not you're not robbing me you're
helping right
>> but no they're they're incredibly I'm
telling you I've had orphan spider
monkeys so many times
And um they wrap their tail around your
neck and they hug you
>> and you realize that that connection
that they have with their mothers when
they hold on to them in the canopy. You
shoot when the loggers shoot the mother
and then I'm taking care of this baby.
>> They hold on to you and it's they need
that love and that connection more than
they need food.
>> They if you put food or you put warmth
of a of a body, they'll they'll choose
the connection over the sustenance.
>> Yeah. They really value the the touching
the that connection.
>> Very tactile. They're very loving. They
wrap their long spider spider monkey
arms around each other. They they're
very much like us. They hold their
babies. When it rains, all the spider
monkeys will get together and they'll
they'll kind of huddle up and they'll
pull they'll pull leaves down and
they'll all huddle up together. They're
when it's cold out, they they they get
close. It's very cute.
>> Yeah, that's true for a lot of I mean,
they're distant relatives, but that's
true for a lot of our relatives. Uh the
apes, chimps, all of them. They have
this intricate. They're different.
Sometimes more violent, sometimes more
loving,
>> but social interactions. It's cool. It's
cool that way.
>> Yeah. I mean, them you expect it from
them. They're practically us,
>> you know? It's it's to me it's when
other animals show, you know, the times
that I've been on a trail and a jaguar's
walked by and just been like, "Uh,
>> keep [clears throat] walking." And it's
like, it's kind of cool of you not to
eat me. Like, I appreciate it.
>> Has that happened to you?
>> Yeah. Yeah. I thought somebody was
walking on the trail behind me and I was
doing a camera trap and I put my finger
up and I was going to go, "Could you
walk any louder
>> and I had my finger up and I'm crouched
cuz I was doing a camera trap. Jag
walked by and he literally was just like
just kicking leaves. just like having
fun, mouth open with and he just walked
by and he looked at me just went so
never broke stride but like dead ass eye
contact with the the bottom teeth out
and that Jaguar look of just like hey
>> I was like okay [laughter]
>> now I'm going to have a like full
meltdown your system you start sweating
you're like whoa because they're also so
beautiful when you actually see a jaguar
it's like bright yellow and the teeth
and the all the muscles and it's you
know what do you think you comm
communicated to the jaguar that it
didn't kill you?
>> No, nothing. The jaguar was making the
decisions. I didn't do anything that
that like saved my life. He was just
going somewhere.
>> And because he's the king there, he just
went, "Yeah,
probably also not threatened."
>> I don't know. But I think there is
something to you. See, you're just
taking for granted the things that
you're putting out into the world.
You're probably radiating calm
>> or not not calm, but non threat. not
certainly non- threat. I also smell like
an animal when I'm in the jungle, right?
I'm not I shower in the river. I don't
use deodorant or shampoo or any of that
stuff. So, I I don't smell, you know,
you can just imagine to animals that
have a smell that's like four times as
good as ours. That, you know, just your
deodorant, just your conditioner, just
whatever other products, the the the
detergent on your clothes smell
>> that we we smell like Time Square. We
smell like a fire alarm to them. you
know, they're like, "What is this thing?
It smells very foreign. It's scary.
Everything's scary." Um, speaking of
scary, the the jaguar was kind of
friendly. He was like, "Sup." It's
almost like he'd seen me before on the
trails, so he was like, "Oh, it's just
you."
The one time I stood on on uh on the
forest floor in India with a wild tiger
and nobody else was there. The the thing
that the tiger did that was so
unnerving, and again, a tiger's back is,
you know, they're so much bigger than
you think. It's like four jaggers.
They're so big. Um, she wouldn't look at
me and it was terrifying because now I'm
going to do this to you. She'd look over
there and she'd look like this. She look
like that and never eye contact. But it
was like, you're as important to me as a
stick.
And you know when you see two fighters
square up and it's all about the eye
contact and everything, trust me, you
look through a person.
You pretend they're not even there. that
that tiger insulted me on such a
profound and and and disarming level
that I never forgot it. It just it was
just like you you matter as much as a
sparrow.
There's just you're just not one of the
things that I care about. She just was
looking around and and carried on doing
and she was like, I'm going to walk this
way. And I was just like, holy shit, I'm
going to run.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, it was just just profound
insignificance from this god of an
animal with paws the size of dinner
plates. And it was like, man, if she
does, I don't want her to look at me
because if she looks at me, I'm going to
probably
>> That's [laughter] the end.
>> That's the end.
>> Uh, yeah. It just shows how much more
powerful she is. That's probably the the
most um terrifying animal on Earth.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. The rocks, paper, scissors of land
predators. I don't I think like polar
bear and tiger got to be the most scary.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Polar bear.
>> Polar bear is pretty scary.
>> Fuck with a polar bear. I don't think
they're as fast as tigers, but I don't
think you're going to go fast on the
ice. And
>> yeah, but I mean like a tiger, it's like
you you can't outrun it. If you climb a
tree, they climb better than you. If you
get in a car, they could smash through
the door. It's like no, if a tiger
decides it wants you, pretty much
nothing. But even if you had a gun, even
if you had like a 9 mm, ain't going to
stop a tiger wants you. In the jungle,
have you ever felt in danger? So,
putting the humans aside, was there
animals? You you've talked about that
humans are really and we've talked about
how the humans are the source of danger.
>> Yeah.
>> Is there you often speak about animals
as
a you know a source of beauty and wonder
and elegance and grace and all these
things which they are.
>> Uh but I'm sure you felt
danger.
>> Yeah. I mean I'm very aware that a
hornets's nest can kill you. They'll
kill you. Oh, so the little guys,
>> well, the little guys suck. You know,
you you I always think like when we were
going through the jungle, one machete
whack and again, people don't realize
how dense it is. You try to run, you get
hung up on vines, you trip, you you fall
onto one of those trees with the black
spikes, and then while you're laying
there dealing with all that, they're
just stinging you and your body goes
into anaphylactic shock and you die
instantly. It's like you just that can
very quickly just take you out.
>> You're right. I mean, the biggest, you
know, speaking of spikes, the biggest
danger is not even the spikes. I mean
the spikes just because it creates open
wounds and then that can lead slowly to
infection. So it's really that is the
biggest danger.
>> Yeah. In the Amazon I mean again I've
never heard of a a human directed
violent jaguar in our region. They just
don't attack people. I'd say mosquitoes
are the thing that come after you.
>> Yeah.
>> The snakes just want to be left alone.
Even the venomous snakes. They again the
bushmaster I grabbed a bush grabbed an
11 foot bushmaster by the tail and he
turned around. He lifted up to about
this high off the ground and like if you
could translate what he said it was just
don't make me do it. It just said, you
know, make my day.
>> See, but that's the thing. You speak
snake language.
>> And then I put the tail down. I Okay. I
was like, I'm scared sufficiently
scared.
>> Um, so the the problem happens when you
don't know what you're doing. So I'll
give you an example. You want to
dangerous animal story? I'll give you
one. I was walking one time and I was
trying to be responsible. What always
happens when I'm trying to be
responsible, I get into trouble.
>> Um, trying to be safe and you you fall
down.
>> I'm trying to be safe and I'm on the
side of the stream and there's elephants
on the other side. I'm in India.
>> There's a there's a deep like a 12t
thing and then a stream and then on the
other side there's elephants and I'm
walking and I'm like I'm going to sit in
a tree and I'm going to enjoy these
elephants. I'm going to make notes in my
book like Jane Goodall.
>> Yeah.
And then I came up against a cement wall
and it was the back of a male elephant.
And in India it's a male elephant that's
been harassed and had fire thrown at it
and God knows what else. And he and if I
translate what he said he turned around
and he just went, "What the fuck?" Like
he just looked at me like, "How dare
you?"
>> Mhm. And then just went just smacks
apart the tree, turns around and then
that elephant was trying to kill me.
That was not a mock charge. I threw off
my backpack, zigzagged through the
woods. He broke apart trees. If I had a
GoPro on my back to show you what I saw
of just the the shrapnel and devastation
of this thing just bashing through
trees. And again, every bush that I
encounter is a possible trip. Every vine
is a possible hangup. And then if they
get to you, he'll step on you and crush
you.
>> And so I like threw myself off the edge
of this cliff, rolled down into the
stream, and the elephant got to the edge
of the cliff and
almost fell on me. got to the edge of
the cliff and did did one of these
and then came back down on his hind
feet,
>> picked [clears throat] up a stick, threw
it at me, and the stick just smacked
down next to me in the stream. And I
remember I gave him the finger cuz like
I'm alive,
>> YOU just stormed off into the jungle.
>> There's nothing like an elephant.
>> There's nothing like an elephant
anywhere. There's a
>> I loved I loved the guy. I loved
listening. I was so excited when I put
on your podcast with the dinosaur guy
cuz he was like when a baby is born he
was like it learns you know elephant
giraffe
>> T-Rex and I was like holy shit you know
along with like banana water sky is blue
>> and somehow you're like in these initial
things in your first few months on earth
these are the characters [clears throat]
you're introduced to like how the hell
did T-Rex get there they don't even
exist anymore and it's like
>> it's it was so it was just such a fun
and I could hear your I could hear you
smiling through the mic as I'm listening
to And I was like, "Oh, this is going to
be a good one."
>> Yeah. I mean, the dinosaur world is is
is incredible, but like the fact that
you have such a predator evolve with
such a gigantic jaw.
>> Yeah.
>> So much destructive power is weird.
>> And then and then he broke my heart cuz
he was talking about how the T-Rex and
Stegosaurus, he's like all the books has
them together and he's like they're
nowhere near each other. They did not
exist anywhere. And I was like,
>> I want them to battle with each other.
>> Yes.
Uh, speaking of elephants, I feel like
we'll be up to an adventure at some
point after all this chaos is over. You
think back in the jungle,
Africa,
India? I think I would love to show you
a herd of truly wild elephants in the
African jungle. I think that us going on
I think going on a boat trip through the
Amazon, not a hiking one where we're
going through some really there's areas
where you can get permits to go through
areas where no one's allowed to go.
They're completely protected areas
>> and you can just go for a week through
areas where the animals have no idea
what a human is. And so you can move
through it and so it' be a little bit
more of a
>> an enjoyable experience, not a survival
situation. like go with JJ in a boat and
just travel through the Amazon. Hey,
maybe we protect this river and then the
river's
knocked from from north to south and we
just, you know, raft down with boat
support like, you know, it's really
incredible to see how it's all
connected. I mean, the river, it's the
thread that connects the whole story and
so it's nice to see how it all is
connected and that's why us starting in
the mountains is also really nice to see
where it begins. But it keeps going. The
story keeps going.
>> It keeps going. We we did start in the
mountains. An epic first day together
[laughter]
>> and uh hopefully people get a chance to
see uh that video. So, I got to ask you
about the writing. I I mentioned you're
incredible writer. What's your writing
process like for this book, Jungle
Keeper,
for the Mother God for future books
you're writing? Would you like a Stephen
King? Do you have a drinking thing that
you go to some dark places in the
basement? Do you uh write every single
day? Do you wake up? Do you take little
notes here and there?
>> Like your notebook is a bunch of
doodles, bunch of writing. Like what's
your process like?
>> I try to journal every day for a for a
number of reasons. It's accountability.
It helps me keep track of. It's fun to
see your hopes and dreams. It's fun to
record the mundane moments that we all
forget about. And that might be like
cooking in the kitchen with your mother.
That might be a fun walk you had with
your dog. Like little things that you
just you think you're going to remember
everything. You just don't. And so I
have piles of notebooks. I have just
piles of piles and piles of notebooks in
my in my room. And uh when something
happens, I write it down. And I I if a
cool story happens, I will write down or
if I find a leaf from an extinct tree,
um I will make a etching of it. But I
just as anything that happens that I
find remarkable in any way, um
either for my own personal memory or for
writing, I'll write it down and then
and then when I go back to it later, a I
have a very good memory and then b the
facts are there. And so when something
happens like you rescue a spider monkey
or or you you know something something
happens that's remarkable in life, you
you get to spend time with someone that
you haven't in a long time and you get
that feeling of like oh that's why I'm
such good friends with them. Like you
know you write these things down
and then it's always there. And so I I
feel like whenever I don't journal that
I'm missing out on keeping my life and
my memories. Um, so yeah, I don't I
don't do that that Stephen King quote
about like, you know, um, amateurs wait
for inspiration and and the
professionals we go to work every day
and he's like 10 pages a day, whatever
it is. Um, I don't do that.
I write when I feel like it. And I like
to, you know, I'll start thinking of
like, oh, this is a perfect way to, you
know, start this scene because cuz like
the moment this happened, I felt so
intensely. And if we bring people in and
I I'll just be in a car or a boat or
something and I'll start thinking about
it and I'll go this is just the thing is
you got a carpey DM [snorts]
>> and I'll go okay and then I'll go okay
where where did that happen again? I go
okay I'll go to that page and I'll go
okay so what exactly that happened then
you get the laptop and so it's brain to
paper to laptop always paper in between
>> but how do you go desperate notes to the
the final thing cuz you have I mean it's
it's difficult to convey through words
the experience and you do that well so
is this like um do you edit a lot do you
iterate that's where Stephen King was
right cuz I look at writing like
sculpting you you have to have something
to sculpt. And so when you're you're
thinking of a story, again, a lot of I
mean, I love I love I love listening to
great storytellers and I actually love
listening to bad stories, just like I
like watching bad movies to see what
they did wrong. When you listen to
someone that starts a story and they
have you hooked from the second they
start and then you like, wait, but how
did that happen? If why was that
happening? What happened next? And they
keep you going and they drop the
information perfectly. And so every now
and then you figure that out in that
moment of inspiration. And so then I
have my facts written down here.
>> Mhm.
>> And then I'll, you know, I'll I'll do an
outline on a page or something, but then
I have to get it all out of me with a
pen.
>> Mhm.
>> Then I can move to and I I'll almost
close my eyes. I'll almost just close my
eyes and write the story out. I just
need to you're making the you're you're
literally making your clay. And so it's
like you're you make the shape of the
thing before you and then editing is is
the giving it details.
>> So you do take passes like God. Yes. I
mean, dozens and doz That's the That's
where writing sucks.
>> When you're finishing a book and that
I'll never do that again. So, what I'm
doing now is this last book, there's so
much that it covered and I was in the
jungle and it would be like hiking for
10 hours a day, you know, dealing with
narcot traffickers, all this stuff. And
then I'd have to edit at night and it
was like
>> this is no way to live. So now what I'm
doing is
I'm writing chapters as I feel like
writing chapters. When something amazing
happens or something remarkable, I go,
"This is going to be its own chapter." I
write it, edit it, and then I send it to
my sister who's an expert editor and and
and has lived more in literature than
most people live in real life. And
she'll let me know if it's good or bad
or needs to be tweaked or moved along,
whatever it else I get. When I get it
back from Hertz, it's marked up. And
then what I'm going to do is I'm just
going to put those aside. And then the
next time I want to write a book, it's
not starting from scratch on 300,000
words. It's just it's just here. It's
ready. [gasps]
Much easier.
>> What kind of books do you think you
might write in the future?
>> Well, there's Mother of God and now
there's Jungle Keeper and then I'm
already working on Endgame.
>> Mhm.
>> Because this I mean there's so much that
has happened. I mean, I think I told you
when you were there, but like there's a
whole chap right before you came, me and
JJ went to the back end behind our river
>> to this horrible part of the Amazon
that's 10 times more lawless than where
we are. And instead of having no people,
there are people.
>> And you want to talk about Amazonian no
country for old men. It's the oil
companies and the missionaries and the
newly contacted tribe. There's something
called the there's a people called the
Nawa people and they they're recently
contacted and they've been ripped out of
the forest and they're standing there
with their little bows and arrows.
They're tiny people. They're standing
there at the then the the nomales are
tall. The Nawa are small and we just we
saw brutality and this horrific horrible
it's like it's like sakario. It's like
just absolute lawlessness. I remember
the moment JJ looked at me and he said,
you know, we're both we both think of
ourselves as tough. I think until we get
in these certain situations and he
looked at me and he went, "We're not
safe." And we looked at the people
around us and we're at this like side of
the river port 8 days up this river and
you could tell that everyone that was
looking at us was making a calculation
about how inconvenient it would be to
kill us at this moment and how much
money. They're like, "Camera, watch,
clothing,
backpack." And they're like, "That's a
nice backpack." And like but you could
tell they were just shopping and and JJ
and me were like where we're gonna you
know where are we putting the tent
tonight? I was like we're not staying
here. And then I was like we maybe we
should stay here. I was like I don't
know what to do. And then and then one
of the little one of the little Nawa
people came over to JJ and was asking
for food and he made the mistake of
explaining money to them. They'd never
had money before
>> and so he gave them a piece of money and
was like or you know a couple coins and
he was like oh if you just go over there
there's like a man that'll sell you
something and then you can eat it. And
the guy was like bow and arrow. And JJ's
like, "No, no, no, no, no. Give him this
and he'll give you food." And it worked.
And then JJ got sworn by like 60 of
these little tribals came in and they
all bows and arrows hands out and JJ was
running with all these like half- naked
people behind and just that that whole
saga right there is like I was that
chapter is going to be called River of
the Dolphin fuckers
cuz everyone we met on the river kept
telling us I'd say I'd have my
[laughter]
I'd have my camera with me and I'd go
are there dolphins here and they'd go
yeah there's dolphins and if you fuck
one be careful cuz they'll pull you
under. I went, "Okay, weirdo."
[laughter] to the first guy.
>> And then we got like, you know, 8 hours
further up river. Met the next guy and I
had my camera out and I'm like, "Hey,
are there any dolphins here?" And he
goes, "Yeah." He goes, "If you fuck any,
be careful." He's like, "Cuz they'll
grab on and pull you under." And I was
like, "What?" And then like four more
people told me the same things. I was
like, "Okay."
>> Yeah. The lesson we learned in the
jungle, you know, horned anacondas.
Believe them.
>> Believe them. So [laughter] apparently
on that river they they were all trying
to be good Samaritans and warn me about
the clear and present dangers involved
with amorous dolphin encounters.
>> So stylistically I mean that is a bit
Cor McCarthy.
>> He would have loved it.
>> There are people you draw like writers
you draw inspiration from like that. I
mean you you're very close to him in
terms of like you like plug in every
once in a while. You you jump around
stylistically actually.
>> I do. I do. It depends because because
sometimes I want to sink in and flex a
little bit which I don't think people
really enjoy but I enjoy it you know
like talk about the you know the just
use all those flowery words and and make
these beautiful metaphors.
>> Um but what I'm finding more and more is
that
uh it's modern readers aren't really
looking for that. they want easy read
and that for my style of storytelling
people really enjoy and tend to thank me
for more of an Anthony Bourdain style
where you're like so we found ourselves
on the side of this river and we knew we
were in danger the reason we were in
danger and you just start telling the
story and you know what forget the
forget that maybe once every two pages
you can throw in one of those beautiful
little zingers but it's like no one
wants to watch you flex
>> but also sometimes you go even more than
I don't think Anthony Bourdain did like
Hemingway like minimal like
like word period word like that. That's
another way to flex that I really like
that you do sometimes is just like
>> less and just power and the the spacing
the silences the unsaid is what does the
driving. I mean that that's what's so
arresting about you read like for whom
the bell tolls and you know the air was
crisp and the water was sweet and the
the wine was good and the afternoon was
warm and you're like I know what that's
like and these are not complicated
sentences but when he puts them together
into a paragraph you go oh yeah I want
to drink wine out of leather you know
and lay by the side of that stream it
sounds so beautiful and so sometimes
>> you know
>> I mean just look at that look at that
fire cracking on this on the horizon
there and it's like sometimes the only
way is just these simple statements you
know
>> um writing's beautiful I love writing I
love reading it have you interacted with
LLMs much doesn't you know AI systems
chat GPT there's a bit of a scary and a
sad aspect to the fact that they can
generate language extremely well
>> but
something is missing and it's very hard
to put your finger on it
>> my question to you is
I can pick out with stunning accuracy
when someone sends me a message and
they've passed it through chat GBT.
I know
somehow I could tell and I don't know
how I could tell, but I could tell. I
don't know if that'll one of those
things like like the images like we're
at the point where we can't tell anymore
almost.
>> I don't know if that's going to go away
or if or if like you said there's
something like one of the things that F.
Scott Fitzgerald does so much is he
describes
the moment of you know like he describes
these incredibly human moments with such
crystalline ac accuracy that you go it
must have taken you a month. You must
have studied life so much to be able to
to to to put those string those words
together. I think in a book he writes
about someone screaming with such
abandonment that at the highest register
her voice like wobbled and cracked and
you're like oh my god I know what that
sounds like and I wonder if if cuz you
can you can say you can say like
you know write write me the jungle book
but make it sound like Court McCarthy
wrote it and it's like it'll be like the
jungle was dark and stern and the boy
was you know it's like it'll do it and
it's amazing. My question to you is at
least right now what are we picking up
on on something as simple as a text
message
>> is uh very difficult to define. Um but
it's important to keep thinking about
because
>> yeah it's like what makes us human.
>> You reassured me recently cuz I called
you and I said you know I said I said I
come out of the jungle and all anybody
wants to talk about is AI and I was like
and like everyone's like it's like
people are walking themselves into the
matrix and asking to be hooked at you
know it's like everyone's just obsessed
with this topic, you know. And you were
like, man, you know, human art and human
literature is going to actually become
so valuable as this other thing happens.
And like I I I expected the opposite
answer. I thought you were going to be
like, yeah, man. This really is we're
we're taking off and everything's going
to change. And you were like, man, like
real artists
are going to become more appreciated. As
more and more compelling and effective
bots appear on the internet, we're going
to [clears throat] value that less and
less, I think. Okay. We're going to
value in human interaction more and
more. And so, you know, artists showing
art at galleries versus on the internet.
Yeah.
>> Meeting in person. And and actually,
it's going to force people to
[clears throat] be more authentic and
real and raw with each other. That's
going to be the the valuable resource. I
mean, I think already AI aside, I think
that in today's world, I think that
everyone's so I mean, like movies have
become so polished. Like there's no like
weird quirky stuff. There's no risky
stuff anymore. It's all very very
curated.
I've almost stopped watching movies
>> and I I used to love movies, but it's
like it's fun when they take risks, when
they're messy, when they're real.
>> Yeah. I think Hollywood, Hollywood
stars, Hollywood movie making process
has become less and less and less
popular because of that. So, I can't
wait for movies to be reinvented.
Independent film, just raw, edgy,
dangerous, all that kind of stuff.
>> And like all the actors we like are in
TV shows on various streaming platforms.
It's like they've all just gone home.
>> Like they're not there. Like I was like
I literally was like man I was like I
miss movies. What happened to movie? I'm
w re-watching all the old movies that I
like and I was um and I was like where
where is everybody?
>> What are they doing? It's like they all
have a TV series on blue or something,
you know?
>> It's like fuck.
>> Yeah, I think we'll call them the the
raw, the dangerous, the edgy.
>> What we just described is almost perfect
for there's a scene in Dead Poet Society
where Robin Williams makes them open
their books and the first page of the
poetry book is like, "How do you
identify a good poem?" He's like a good
poem can be and he makes a graph and
he's like by the the subject of the poem
and then the accuracy with which which
is described and you can tell whether or
not it's a good poem and he reads this
and the whole class is sitting there
bored and he's like now rip that page
out of your book and they rip the page
out of the book and then he's like now
stand up and he's like now describe
something and he makes him bleed it and
like scream it and and it's it's it's
almost exactly what we're describing
right now. It's like yeah you can turn
it into a graph if you need to but it's
something way messier than that. Yeah.
And Robin Williams, the person is a
perfect example of the complicated,
beautiful human.
>> I miss him often whenever whenever I see
clips of him come up. It's just
>> Yeah.
>> I can't I I I still to this day can't
make sense that a person like that can
take their own life.
Somebody who's brought so much joy to
the world.
It scares me, man. It scares me. I'm
scared of my own mind in that way, you
know,
that he could be at the top of the
world.
>> But he had an illness.
>> Yeah, that's what I understand.
>> Yeah, dude. Life is a roller coaster
telling you.
>> And you're living through it.
>> As scary as that, Robin, like you can go
down the Robin Williams hole. I'll give
you this. My very close friend, my
friend Gleb, he he has a story. He was
he was in New York City as a kid and he
saw Robin Williams walking down the
street and he went up to Robin Williams
and he went, "Oh my god, it's Robin
Williams." And Rob Williams was like,
"Yeah." And he goes, "Can I have an
autograph?" And he goes, "Do you have
any paper?" My friend was like, "No."
He's like, "I'm 11." Like, "I'm 11." And
Robin Williams was like, "Go get some
paper." And Robin Williams is manager or
somebody was with him and he was like,
"Robin, we don't got time. We got to get
up there." D. And he was like, "Hold
on." He's like, "I told the kid I'd give
him a thing. He'll be back." And my
friend like heard this as he's like,
"Please stay. Please stay." like like
you know his whole life depended on this
thing that he ran into like a diner,
grabbed a napkin, ran back out onto the
street. It took him a few minutes. He
said Robin Williams was sitting there
and he said his I rateate manager was
there just being like come on let's go
let's Rob Williams waited there and
signed the napkin for him and like
actually actually did it with a smile
and a wink and you know
>> yeah man this you could bring a lot of
joy to the world never forget that all
those little interactions
>> I love it I love it
>> that was one another one of the Jane's
amazing quotes that I don't I couldn't
reproduce but it's you know just that
you you don't realize the degree to
which the things you do each day matter.
>> Mhm.
>> Even [clears throat] if it's just to the
people around you and it's like you are
to the people around you their entire
life experience if they're your kids,
your parents, your partner.
>> So yeah, the things you do
and if you can manage to put that extra
energy where to the point where you do
put a little magic on it where it is
fun, you show up home with something
that you got, you know, play with the
kids in a way that surprises them. I had
a friend, a good friend of mine, this
guy Vinnie, he told me, I called him. I
said, "What are you what are you doing?"
He said, "Um," he said, "Oh, I have I
have a whole plan set up." He goes,
"It's supposed to be really good stars
tonight." He goes, "I'm putting my kids
to bed." He goes, "I'm putting my my
girl my daughter to bed." He goes, "I'm
going to wake her up in the middle of
the night." He goes, "And I'm going to
have a candle." He goes, "She's never
seen." He goes, "And I'm going to take
her up to the roof to go stargazing."
He's like, "But I want her to sleep."
And he's like, "You know, remember when
you were a kid and you like wake up?"
And it's like he was curating a magical
experience for her to see the stars and
like you know like making making warm
tea and like all it's like man you can
just you can make it so great.
>> Jane Goodall is the reason you met this
guy.
>> That's right.
>> You've continuously spoken really highly
of him and he gave me this book that he
has recently written. Echoes from Eden
signed it.
>> Yeah. Dax a saved my life and b is the
example of what everybody wishes. You
know, Dax made an amazing company,
amassed an amazing fortune, and then
said, "I'm going to use it for good."
He's uh he's given a lot a lot of uh
resources, a lot of love, a lot of
effort uh to helping the Amazon
rainforest and the environment in
general. And um he's one of the only
guys I know who has a sexier beard than
you. [snorts]
>> He's got me beat time, I think. Uh,
Hero, thank you, brother, for your love
of the wild. This book is about the
heroes fighting in the front line for
nature. Together, we can protect Earth's
last wild places.
Speak soon, Dax. He supported all these
initiatives and he I mean, he was he was
working he went to the Amazon with Jane.
He supported jungle keepers. He's
supported the sea sheeperd. And so, he
really went out and said, "Okay, what
are the environmental projects that are
doing the most good and where do I want
to put my resources?" And it's like
everyone always whines about that like
you like how come the these guys don't
and it's like he did and he got a lot
done and that's and then he went and
visited all those projects sea turtles
and and and and Indonesian orangutans
and and working with Jane and so then
that book is is like sort of a state of
the union on where conservation's at.
And there's a lot of knowledge about
what different how all the different
strategies. It's so different protecting
sea turtle eggs versus trying to save a
river in the Amazon versus Jane's sort
of global message of hope. And then he
has a guy in there who's trying to save
a specific part of I think Sumatra. And
it's like just amazing stuff.
>> The Congo.
>> The Congo. And and then he actually took
the time to go to these places and see
the operations on the ground.
>> And uh you still working with them?
>> Yeah. Well, that's sort of the,
you know, it the way it happened in my
life was the one time I quit
conservation was right around the time
COVID hit and I was going through a
divorce and I'm like 30 some or 32 years
old and I had no job, no nothing. JJ was
JJ's mom had COVID. Donagnasio, the
shaman had co Pico's leg was coming off.
It was like nothing was working. Nobody
could go anywhere. And I called Mosen
and I was like I was like I quit. I was
like we we're never going to go back to
the jungle. The the loggers just went
out and were tearing down everything. I
just I just said there's nothing I got
nothing. And I in like this in absolute
black depression I called him and I said
I quit. I'm going to go get a job. I
said I guess I'm just you know I guess
I've been like jungle Peter Pan and I
it's time to grow up.
And I was like really embarrassed at the
time that I did that. And then I spent
like 4 days just laying in bed just with
no idea what to do. The only thing I can
do is this. And I had talked to Dax
months earlier. Told him my plan for
protecting the river, for making a
ranger team. And he'd been looking over
the budgets and spreadsheets and
everything and saying seeing if this was
real. He was still forming Age of Union.
And then
4 days after I quit, the phone rings in
his DAX and he goes, "Hey, I looked over
the budget, by the way." He goes, "I'd
like to make a 10-year commitment to
Jungle Keepers." He goes, "Let's go."
And of course he was he had no idea what
I was going through and he was just like
let's go.
I was like going from that depressed to
that inspired and that single convers
like you could get the bends from that
like
>> yeah and it's not it's not just the
money is that somebody believes in you.
Oh, it's that he believes it's that we
can
money's, you know, that money means tuna
cans and gasoline and and being able to
like buy shoes, you know, it's like we,
you know, we never had those things
before. We're just living in the jungle
watching our bodies decay. And he was
like, "No, I know how to run a company."
And so I I can tell what you guys need
to run an organization. And he
did that and then and then has stuck by
us. And he he came weeks ago. He came
not that long ago to the Amazon and we
and he and we took him around and he
just he looked around. He went, "I've
never seen people cuz when when he
started he said, "You guys remind me of
a startup." He said, "You're a mess."
>> And that was really right before Stfan
had come in.
>> And so now he's seeing ranger teams and
boats going up and down and we have
complex systems and a donor program and
all these things are working well and
we're actually making progress and we
have annual reports and all this data.
And he's like, "Yo, you can, you know,
he says this people have donor fatigue
where they they donate money and they
don't know where it's going." And he
goes here, he's like, "They can see
what's happening." And so having someone
like Dax in your corner is a good it's a
miracle really.
In the book, it's going to sound it's
again, it's going to a lot of the things
that happen to me in my life sound like
bad writing. You know, in the movie when
they're like they got the gun against
their head and they're on the ground and
you go, "They're not getting out of this
one." and then like someone bursts
through the door and saves him and it's
like that's just happened too many times
to me and it sounds like bad writing but
it's it's it's really good life. Since
uh you mentioned Stefan one more time,
one of the things I forgot to mention,
one one of my happiest moments uh in
life, I had many of them in the jungle
uh with you is uh just talking late at
night after I funny enough.
>> Uh chatting with Stefan and Dan and you
and giggling and just talking about life
and everything. And Dan is a guy I have
to give a shout out to. You should go
follow him on Instagram, Life with Dan.
He's an incredible wildlife
photographer. I've seen him. He's worked
quite a lot with you. He has a love of
nature, a love of the wilderness,
>> a love of uh beauty, and is extremely
good at taking pictures, but just goes
to the edges with you. He's the only guy
I've seen with the with the two giant
cameras be able to follow you into
[clears throat] the darkness. Well, Dan,
first of all, that picture I showed you
where I'm in the tree because I told you
the story about with JJ where I climbed
the giant tree. Well, this this is years
later I climbed it with Dan Dan was
there and so he flew the drone up and so
got me in the tree. But what Dan's a
really good example of is like you were
saying, what would you say to the the
kids? It's like Dan listened to our
talk, our first podcast, was living in
Singapore and he's like a young
filmmaker,
>> signed himself, again, just get out
there. He signed himself up to come on a
TAM and do expeditions with my company
and he showed up on the thing and sure
enough, their boat broke down and I was
off doing Jungle Keeper stuff and
someone was like, "Yo, their boat broke
down." So, we show up and I I I haul
their boat and he comes up to me. He
goes, he goes, "I'm such a big fan." And
he goes, "I just wanted to say hi." I
said, "Oh." I said, "Well, great." I
said, "Hello." I said, "Well, let's get
you back on the river." And then um you
know, someone came up to me and they
said, "You know, he's a really good
photographer." Yeah. I said,
"Everybody's a good photographer today."
I said, "That's great. Amazing. We have
Stefan Mosa." I said, "What else do we
need?"
And then someone I trust was like, "Hey,
listen. Look at his stuff. It's not
normal." And then I I watched a few of
his videos and I went, "Holy shit." And
I went, "Would you ever think of coming
down for a few weeks to film?" And at
the time he was like, "No way." He was
like, "No way." And like he was like so
amazed. And then like now we're bros and
we fil we film together all the time.
But he put himself in the position where
he has the skill, the insane skill. I
mean, some of his things where he's
tracking shots of a of a of a white-wing
sparrow over the over the water where
he's in the boat with an 800 mm lens
getting these insane shots. I mean, he's
just abs I've never seen a talent like
him with a with video.
>> But wildlife photography and documentary
film making in general, it's not just
about the competence of being able to
pull off a a difficult shot. It's like
the patience required and like the
discipline to just sit there and wait. I
mean, when we went out into the jungle,
he waited.
>> Yeah. No, I mean like even I'm looking
on this page that shot of the of the
emerald treeboa there, he got up before
dawn to wait for the sideways light cuz
he wanted to light he had a vision of
lighting the snake from the side and and
then the macaw coming off the clay. How
many days at the clay lake till he got
the explosion of macaw? And I mean, I'm
up in the tree and he's on the
walkie-talkie. And then it's also your
lenses are going to fog. You have to be
able to hike and do everything the
everybody else is doing and your job. I
mean, the dude is you attract a lot of
incredible people cuz you're uh cuz the
mission is clear and there's just like
there's a vibrancy and energy to the
whole thing. It's exciting. That's why
that's why it's the best people come to
work with you, come to hang out with
you.
>> It's become an amazing team. I I look
around at the people and I go, "How did
this how did this happen?"
>> But it is getting more intense and
dangerous and so on. I have to ask you
the the thing we've talked about. Uh
what do you think you'll do when you're
getting older? This is pretty intense.
This is pretty insane. Where do you see
yourself years from now?
>> I want to protect this river. We have to
protect this river in the next year and
a half or else we'll lose the chance.
And so either I'm going to have first
book I got to the Amazon and it was
wild. Second book we went we built this
amazing organization and we got so
close. It'll be like those movies like
like blow where it's like for a time it
was amazing and then at the end
>> it's not so great. great movie, but
yeah,
>> great movie, but you know, and that's
what so you know, and I'm I'm writing
this story as it happens and and you
know, Endgame might be written by
somebody else. Um or we just got really
close and then it all fell apart. But
but we're 130,000 acres of the way. If
we make it to 300,000, I think, I'm
calling it now. I think what's going to
happen is enough people are going to
learn about this. It's going to tidal
wave. We're gonna make an amazing
documentary about how we protected the
wildest place on Earth. And then I would
love to have a few kids, get a PhD,
teach teach other conservationists
around the world how to do this to save
really wild places, keep inspiring
people, keep writing books, keep going
on expeditions. I don't have any
problems with that. I can tell you I I
can't I can't do this much longer
because the pressure of
wondering if it's going to be okay. I've
used all of it that I can. My Lord of
the Rings analogy of like carrying the
ring. It's like you can only do that for
so long. And so I'm actually very
excited to I need to know that it's
safe. I want to know that I mean those I
mean that monkey that I rescued out of
the river now you know the the toucan
Lucas that who comes back to visit us.
Lulu's grand. We just saw a giant
anteater not that long ago with Dax in
the jungle and like like I know these
animals and I'm responsible for
protecting their home and it would be so
amazing to bring people to the treehouse
and show them this amazing place and put
out documentaries. So I have no problem
imagining a transition period. I would
like to not be I'd like to transition
out of Blood Diamond and go to more of
the you know the the sort of the
professor role after this. Um, you mean
like Indiana Jones type of professor?
[laughter]
>> Running from the running from the
tribes. Um, as long as it doesn't go
supernatural at the end, I'll be very
happy. That always kind of let me down.
>> Well, thank you for uh giving basically
everything you got towards this mission
that you're doing and um
thank you for being who you are. It's
been an honor of a lifetime to be able
to call you a friend and to have this
conversation, brother.
Uh this is the third time we've spoken.
I think we'll talk at least 10 more
times and I think I speak for everybody
in saying thank you and please don't die
in uh trying to save the rainforest.
I have to say thank you to you because
our first conversation
changed everything. It really did. in
this in the story, it it brought so many
more people onto the mission and I think
also lifted me up because as as as we
often acknowledge this, this can weigh
you down and I often do get weighed down
and I lose hope myself and then I get
lifted up by moments like that where
someone I'm a huge fan of and who I
respect so much reaches out and goes,
"Do you want to come to Austin and do
this podcast I do?" and I respond to Lex
fucking Freriedman podcast, but you
know, you've you've really really
changed the narrative and allowed this
to be a reality. So, and everybody go
pre-order Jungle Keeper the book
available everywhere and if you can
donate on uh junglekeepers.org.
Now this is an important mission and
ultra competent team and this is such a
beautiful part of the world that uh I
really really really hope we uh protect.
So thank you for talking today and now
let's go eat.
>> Thank you brother.
>> Thanks for listening to this
conversation with Paul Rosley. To
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And once more, let me say thank you for
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Thank you for the love. And thank you
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