What does the future hold for the Amazon, and particularly the Peruvian Amazon?

The Amazon Basin and its species, as well as tropical forests around the world are being lost at stunning rate as urban areas grow, and the surrounding forests are increasingly tapped for a variety of resources. Current threats to the integrity of the rainforest include:

• crude oil and gas extraction, along with the inevitable spills and environmental contamination by oil, heavy metals like cadmium, and hypersaline water

• gold mining which completely devastates the mined areas, and leaves the land, rivers and fish heavily contaminated with mercury

• palm oil, soybean, and other monocultures for export

• timber harvesting for export (this is often closely followed by clearing remaining trees for the following activities)

• clearance of forest for large-scale ranching

• slash and burn for subsistence farming (probably the least impactful of any of the above)

MT Amazon Expeditions supports the preservation of rainforest habitats in the Peruvian Amazon by using (and investing in) rainforest field stations that provide long-term protection for forests, and by sponsoring the participation of Peruvian biology, ecology, fisheries and forestry students on many of our expeditions, so that they can experience the rainforest first hand, and observe that it has great value when kept in its natural state. MTAE also supports community-led conservation and sustainable-development initiatives in the communities that we interact with.