Our Storytelling Agency Team Meets the Guardians of the Peruvian Amazon

Filming in the Peruvian Amazon

Client: World Nomads

In 2017, our client World Nomads invited us to shoot a project in the Peruvian Amazon telling a story of conservation and sustainability in one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Our visual storytelling agency crafted a script in collaboration with award-winning travel writer Tim Neville, shot the video on location in the depths of the Peruvian rainforest, and edited the material into the final video that you see above. ‘Meet the Guardians of the Peruvian Amazon’ tells the story of a community fighting against the tide of deforestation and illegal mining that threatens to engulf this mighty jungle, and what we as travelers can do to help.

We shot this video in the Tambopata National Reserve. The reserve consists of 274,690 hectares (1,061 square miles) of protected land in the south-east of Peru, near the Bolivian border. Thanks to its protected status, Tambopata is one of the most biodiverse regions on Planet Earth. These forests are home to over 1,000 species of butterfly, 100 species of mammals, and 600 species of birds. Astonishingly, on average, a new species for science is discovered there every single month.

Unfortunately, Tambopata, like much of the Amazon jungle, is threatened by human development, particularly the Interoceanic Highway. This ambitious road runs from the Brazilian Atlantic coast to the Pacific shores of Peru. During its transcontinental journey, it plows through some of the Amazon basin’s most remote and diverse regions. It has brought undeniable economic benefits to certain areas but has also unleashed untold catastrophe onto the lungs of the world in the process. From large-scale deforestation, monoculture, illegal gold mining, and animal trafficking, where roads open up the frontiers of the rainforest, it rarely ends well for local wildlife and indigenous cultures.

One of the over 100 species of mammals that can be found within Tambopata Natural Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon

Yet thanks to the efforts of dedicated local and international conservationists, there is hope in the Madre de Dios region where Tambopata is located. Our visual storytelling agency partnered with World Nomads to visit the pioneering Tambopata Research Center and the Camino Verde foundation. These projects are doing incredible work in the fields of conservation, reforestation, and sustainability. They are working with local communities to offer an alternative path to the economic pressures that force people to engage in profitable yet destructive work such as mining and logging.

Meet Our Documentary Host

The host of the video was the gregarious and keen world traveler, Andre Bolourchi. He is fluent in Spanish and an inveterate rough ‘n’ ready traveler. His comfort with his outsized personality allows him to connect with people from all different walks of life. He’s also one tough guy, so he was able to roll up his sleeves and pitch in with the local farmers and laborers. This hands-on approach helped the video to highlight the work that local people do in these projects.

This approach went hand-in-hand with the underlying message of this video: the next time you travel, don’t ask, “where will I go,” but “HOW will I go?” Travel should be about more than checking off bucket list activities and counting up the number of countries that you’ve visited. It should be about connecting with people’s lives, engaging with their struggles and victories, and, if possible, lending a hand in the process. Andre’s journey epitomized this ethic.

The video begins with Andre pondering the Amazon rainforest, its remarkable scale, its implacability, its monstrous indifference to the presence of man. As he wades through thick mud and gazes over an endless canopy to the distant Andes mountains, we see the lushness of the jungle bathed in soft light. The Madre de Dios river flows gently through curling dawn mist, as thousands of parrots wheel around the muddy banks. The music is gentle and wistful, pan pipes softly rising in and out of the background as we see the beauty of the rainforest laid out on the screen.

Andre Bolourchi gazing out over the Madre de Dios river at sunset

Stories of Hope

Then Andre’s hopeful narration takes a turn: “Everywhere I look, I hear stories of its demise.” Suddenly we are jolted out of our reverie as the camera begins to spin uncontrollably around the canopy, losing focus, the color draining from the screen. The music changes too, a sudden key-change turning the wistfulness into dread. Stunning images of never-ending jungle give way to gut-wrenching shots of cranes hoisting timber over denuded river banks. All the color is now gone, as we see the harsh reality of Amazonian deforestation and destruction laid bare before our eyes in dull sepia tones.

But then drums start to beat in the background, and the color suddenly returns as we see the eyes of the people working to conserve this rainforest flash across the screen in a montage. The message is clear: there’s still hope, and these are the people responsible for it.

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More from the Amazon rainforest: “A Destination Guide to Filming in Colombia: The Amazon”

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We then meet these individuals from Camino Verde and the local indigenous population, the Ese Eja people. They are focused on working in harmony with the natural gifts provided by the rainforest to bring sustainable forms of living to local communities, thereby incentivizing them to conserve the forest.

There are eighty species of trees with edible fruits at the Research Center, including cacao and Brazil nuts. The rubber that flows freely from the giant Hevea trees towering above the canopy can be turned into hand-crafted bags and artisan crafts. The rubber boom of the late 19th century unleashed untold suffering on the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. That same product is being used here for a nobler purpose; to help sustain local people and give them the economic freedom to conserve their forest and way of life. Andre sums it up perfectly: “When someone pays for a product made from this rubber, what they’re actually doing is buying a story.”

Meeting the guardians (and future guardians) of this precious and threatened corner of the Amazon rainforest

Video Soundtrack

During the majority of the video, music is relegated to the background. Small fragments drift in and out, but the natural sounds of the jungle primarily soundtrack the video. Cicadas thrum in the distance, birds call overhead, and torrential rain beats down onto a million leaves. As people walk through the forest, we hear the swish of their rubber boots against the dense carpet of vegetation, the metallic twang of machetes slicing through the tough Brazil nut shells, and their gentle laughter as Andre gets his hands dirty hauling sacks and splitting nuts. This soundtrack takes viewers down to ground-level and gives them a sense of what it feels like to be in the heart of the Amazon, in one of the most diverse yet extreme environments on earth.

The video ends with a stark yet hopeful message. As the music swells back up, we see Andre laughing with the local guides and conservationists. Macaws fly high overhead as the suns sets over the river. The shadows lengthen as Andre intones the final lines: “I want to be the pulse that helps this forest live, rather than help it die.” A candle flickers in the night. A hand suddenly appears from the darkness and snuffs it out. Cut to black.

The Brazil nut crop from the Camino Verde project in Tambopata

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