John Hemming: the rainforest man

Explorer John Hemming talks to Chris Moss about the Amazon River.

On his first visit to the Amazon, in 1961, the explorer John Hemming lost a close friend and fell in love with the world’s largest river. Since then, he has travelled extensively in the region and accompanied Brazilian teams on expeditions to remote settlements. In a new book, Tree of Rivers, he chronicles the exploration of the river and argues passionately for its preservation.

How did you fall in love with the river?

It was during that 1961 expedition, when myself, Kit Lambert and Richard Mason wanted to explore the Iriri, which Mason believed was the world’s longest unexplored river. There was no satellite imagery or even aerial photography. Our Indian guides made long dugout canoes for us using axes and adzes — beautiful, Biblical canoes. The Brazilian government authorised us to name places, but we blew this privilege by naming all the landmarks after our Brazilian girlfriends. We had spent three months cutting trails and doing scientific work right up there at the headwaters, when Richard Mason was ambushed by a hunting party of Parará tribesmen. We found his body surrounded by 40 arrows. Twelve years later we made contact with the men who had killed him and discovered they were probably the most warlike tribe in Brazil — it was incredibly bad luck.

You say in Tree of Rivers that the Amazon was the one environment that the conquistadors — and later Europeans — failed to adapt to. What do you enjoy about it?

Europeans are used to open places and we have never come to terms with jungle “red in tooth and claw”. To live in the Amazon you have to hunt, fish and gather — there aren’t really any animals you can domesticate in the rainforest. The Incas had guinea pigs and llamas, but the Amazon Indians who lived in the heart of the forest had no domesticated animals.

But I just love it. To me it’s rather like being in a church, and I feel at home. I love the womb-like feeling. I am also attracted by the beauty of the rainforest and the biodiversity of the world’s richest ecosystem. Once you get used to it there is very little danger and it’s rather cosy. Some people bemoan the lack of sunshine, but there is plenty of that out on the rivers.

What has been your most memorable experience in Amazonia?

The most thrilling and wonderful moments have been when spending time with tribes at the time of first contact with Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, which is led by the expert sertanistas [field guides] who work to protect native land and cultural rights. The greatest moment of my life was probably seeing the Asurini people right after contact was made. For the Indians, of course, it was always traumatic, and they all reacted differently — some were bewildered, some wouldn’t let us see their women, others were fierce warriors — but it was always mind-blowing. There are still 30 groups in Brazil with whom we have not made contact; Indianists know about them because they have seen trails or artefacts, or seen people from the air. We should be optimistic about the fact that many Indians that have had contact with outside society, after seeing how others live, have chosen to go back to their own way of life.

What is our greatest loss in our disregard for the rainforest?

It can be summed up in three words: carbon, rain and biodiversity. Two Brazilian scientists have also shown convincingly that the Amazon provides the rain for southern Brazil and northern Argentina, destined to be one of the world’s breadbaskets, and argued that deforestation in Amazonia is causing a reduction in that rainfall. Also, Brazil gets 80 per cent of its energy from hydroelectric dams on rivers flowing north into the Amazon. That’s the same rainwater. So the country could be jeopardising its wealth and its future by destroying its rainforests.

We have no moral right to destroy and burn the ecosystem that has the greatest number of species on the planet — and which absorbs so much carbon.

An Amazon cruise is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most travellers. How can they make the most of it?

You have to lose your fear and get off the river and into the forest. Then you have to accept that most of the flora and fauna are up in the canopy — you are one of the few animals that can’t fly or climb — and animals and insects are brilliantly camouflaged, nocturnal or moving so fast you can’t see anything. There may be thousands of insects right in front of you but they are disguised to look like bark, twigs, vegetation or rotting leaves. Some tourist firms let visitors cut little trails through, which may not sound very environmentally sensitive, but the vegetation grows back quickly and it’s good fun. The key is to have a good guide, with expert knowledge of entomology and botany. The farther west you go, the greater the biodiversity and the varieties of forest — so if you’re looking for that it’s best to go to the Manu and Tambopata-Candamo reserves in Peru or parks in Ecuador.

Where do you go on holiday?

My wife has been with me to all sorts of weird places, but now she wants to go to Europe. My kids are still helping me colour in the gaps on my world map — so I go with them to Albania, Mongolia, Mali. I am going to Bhutan this year — with my wife and friends — and I want to go to Niger soon. But I manage to find an excuse to return to my favourite places, Peru and the Amazon, almost every year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsandculture/1586214/John-Hemming-the-rainforest-man.html