February 13, 2025

Best New Thinking: Can the Amazon Be Saved?

32 minutes

Fernando Trujillo discusses his work to protect the Amazon’s freshwater basin during unprecedented drought and dangerously low river levels.

What happens in the Amazon is of planetary consequence. Its rainforests influence weather and rainfall around the world. Its rivers account for 1/4 of the available fresh water on earth. Its drainage basin is more than twice as large as that of the Congo River in Africa, which is the world's second-biggest. It harbors an estimated 10% of the planet's known lifeforms.

Our guest this week on New Thinking for a New World is Fernando Trujillo, Colombian marine biologist, 2024 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winner, and National Geographic Explorer of the Year. Trujillo, who is a global expert on river dolphins, leads a team that is working to keep the Amazon's freshwater basin alive. That is particularly important at a time when the region is suffering from record drought. River levels are low—in some cases historically so—and water temperatures are at intolerably high levels, especially if you're a fish. Continuing deforestation makes everything worse, of course.

Obviously, none of the consequences of the Amazon wasting away would be good for any of us. Can it be stopped? Listen as Trujillo explains his search to answer that question.

Please tell us what you think here.

This episode was originally published on December 11, 2024.

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By Tällberg Foundation

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