Amid the din of tragic tales of environmental degradation in the Amazon, there are other, quieter but no less compelling stories testifying to the sheer power of nature to thrive when left untouched. Such is the case of the Napo River, which flows along the north of Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park.
“It’s a place where all your senses explode. You’re not just seeing life all over, you’re hearing calls of birds, frogs, the wind; smelling the pollen of plants, the soil, the rain. It’s overwhelming,” says biologist, conservationist and environmental photographer Lucas Bustamante. “For anyone in love with nature, it’s like being a kid in a toy store.”
A trio of hoatzins (Opisthocomus hoazin) hang over a stream by the Napo River. Hoatzins build their nests above streams as a protection mechanism. If predators try to raid their nests, the young chicks leap to the water to escape, and use their claws to climb back into their nests once the danger has passed.
Established in 1979 in northwestern Amazonia, Yasuní National Park is the largest conservation area in Ecuador. It protects some 1,1 million hectares of Amazon rainforest, an area roughly the size of Croatia. It’s one of the most biodiverse forests on the planet—and the Napo River is the artery pumping life into its heart.
The river begins in the high slopes of the Andes to the east and marks the park’s northern frontier. It eventually joins the Amazon River to the west, after crossing into Peru.
Bustamante is from Ecuador, and he organizes expeditions for photographers into Añangu, a village by the Napo River managed by local Kichwa indigenous families. Twenty years ago, the group decided to pursue ecotourism instead of logging and hunting as their main source of income. The project has thrived, and so has nature.
“It took a few years for the animals to start coming back, and for the forest to start recovering,” Bustamante says. “Right now, it’s like a small paradise, an island of biodiversity.”
‘Aquatic spiderweb’
This pristine space was the perfect place for photographer Thomas Peschak, who wanted to capture the deep connections between the Amazon’s animals and its waterways. A National Geographic Explorer, Peschak is working on a long-term project to document the rainforest from the water—its “aquatic spiderweb” of giant rivers with hundreds of tributaries and thousands of streams.
He and Bustamante spent weeks on a canoe paddling on the creeks around the Napo River, looking for endemic species like the giant river otter. These endangered mammals are among the Amazon’s top five predators, wolfing down seven pounds of fish in one day. Their presence is a strong indicator of a healthy aquatic ecosystem.
“Across the Amazon we are seeing things deteriorate, but Napo really bucks the trend. Because there’s no poaching, illegal logging or mining a lot of the wildlife around the river is incredibly relaxed around people,” says Peschak.
That ease, in turn, gives Peschak a unique opportunity to capture and showcase many animals’ behavior in the wild, like a butterfly drinking the tears from a river turtle’s eyes, a giant otter snatching up a fish, and red howler monkeys feeding on leaves above a stream.
Not everything is so simple, however. In the days before Peschak’s expedition, heavy rain swelled the Andean headwaters. Water levels in the Napo River rose dramatically, making its streams overflow and bleed into the forest.
The flood, while not unusual for the river and its ecosystem, made the explorers’ search for otters much harder. The flooded streams meant that the animals could swim far inside the flooded forest, away from the main riverways. So Peschak and Bustamante spent seven days paddling with no otters in sight—until, on the final day, they saw a group of them feasting on fish.
“In this job, you have to be patient beyond stupidity,” says Peschak. “When every bone and brain cell in your body tells you to give up, that’s when you have to keep going. Patience and persistence are rewarded by nature.”
Highway of seeds
The remarkable biodiversity around the Napo River reflects its descent from the foothills of the Andes to the Amazon Basin. These ecosystems blend along its banks in a unique way, and this means that the Yasuní National Park has a vast array of species within its bounds.
A red howler monkey (Alouatta seniculus) spotted from a canoe on the water. These monkeys like to pick the best trees, leaves and fruits in the forest, and this connects them to healthy rivers and streams, where trees are always producing new, crunchy leaves. It’s impossible to ignore their presence in the Amazon: their vocalizations to mark territories can be heard miles away.
The Napo is also loaded with nutrients from the Andes, including rich ash from volcanic eruptions. It’s a whitewater river, which designates waterways carrying large amounts of sediments, giving them a muddy color. It’s also an efficient disperser of seeds. “The Napo River is like a highway in which millions of seeds travel from the Andes and across the region, helping species to propagate,” says biologist Gonzalo Rivas-Torres.
This flow of seeds is also a crucial food source for the great variety of fish found in the Napo’s waters. And this has ripple effects on the rest of the forest, far beyond the river’s bends.
“Fish depend on the amount of nutrients, fruits and seeds in the water. If the forests by the riversides aren’t in good shape, fish populations will be low, and otters won’t have enough food,” he explains. “Everything is connected.”
Rivas-Torres is the director of the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, a biological field station kept by Universidad San Francisco de Quito in collaboration with Boston University for research, education and conservation.
Their base is on the banks of the Tiputini River, a tributary of the Napo. From this perch, Rivas-Torres says he’s always spellbound to see wildlife so close and all around. His students have wept after seeing a jaguar in the wild for the first time, for example, or when releasing a yellow-spotted turtle back into the river.
“They say they didn’t expect to see this, or they didn’t know Ecuador was also this.” Rivas-Torres says. “It’s a life changing experience.”
This article was supported by Rolex, which is partnering with the National Geographic Society on science-based expeditions to explore, study, and document change in the planet’s unique regions.
Look for more reports from our Amazon expedition in coming months, including a special issue this fall. We’ll also launch an immersive digital experience at natgeo.com in September, and a documentary will premiere October 10 on National Geographic and stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
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