Kelly Hearn has made six trips into the Amazonian rainforest to give a big-picture look at the hydrocarbon industry's push into the Tropical Andes. Media attention has turned on crop, logging and cattle threats to the Brazilian Amazon.
Northern Peru: Jungle Rivers Where the Sweet Water No Longer Flows
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Published March 21, 2008
Tomas Carijano sat at the front of the canoe, whittling the wooden dart to a deadly point, a blowgun propped against his knee. Then, with a nod, he gave the signal.
On the Macusari River, whose muddy waters flow into the Amazon River here in northern Peru, the pilot cut the engine, letting the canoe slip silently into a tiny inlet. The Indians pushed with poles, and then dipped gourds into the amber water.
"You can drink this," Mr. Carijano said in an Indian dialect through a Spanish interpreter. But "most of the rivers near here are agua salada."
"Agua salada" means water that is highly-saline, toxic, useless for human consumption - made that way by what oil antagonists say are the results of sloppy oil drilling operations. ...
The Downstream Gateway examines global issues related to water, from ecosystems and watersheds to freshwater resources, conservation efforts, and the impact of human activity and public policy.
In May 2008, The Pulitzer Center partnered with Helium to continue its second round of the Global Issues/Citizen Voices Writing Contest. Find the winning essays here.
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Kelly Hearn has written on national security and diplomacy as a staff writer for The Washington Times. His investigative reporting has been funded by The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting...
