AN EXAMPLE OF THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Conservation Efforts in a Region Plagued by Drought
From competitions to community-based tourism in Amazonas’ traditional community of Tumbira
In early July, dozens of accomplished scientists board a riverboat in Manaus and head up the Rio Negro. Around them, the magnitude of water is stunning. The Negro is the largest of the Amazon’s tributaries, holding the record as the largest blackwater river, as well as one of the world’s top ten rivers in terms of discharge volume. At times, its waters are so wide that one can see its banks but none of their details.
The riverboat’s destination is Tumbira, a traditional community of about 45 families, one and a half hours by speedboat from Manaus. It sits just off the Rio Negro, beside a river tributary of the same name. A soccer field marks the community center along with a guesthouse, restaurant, church, playground, and school. In addition to the people traversing the small network of brick and dirt paths, the only traffic has a heartbeat: the dogs, who laze on the soccer field, the turkey-like black vultures.
This small community is hosting the finals of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition. Over the course of the month, six teams with members from all over the globe battle for a share of the contest’s ten million dollar prize, as well as the promise that their technology will be scaled and used around the world to better understand and conserve the rainforest. Their technologies have the potential to inform conservation efforts and help drive interventions that stop forest destruction. In the air is a feeling of both urgency and excitement.
Tumbira itself is a conservation success story. Part of the Rio Negro Sustainable Development Reserve — a conservation unit of just over 103 thousand hectares — its residents have collaborated with the Foundation for Sustainable Development (FAS) since 2008 to establish the eco-friendly businesses that now host the XPRIZE contestants and staff. Roberto Brito de Mendonça, a former logger who began felling trees at the age of twelve, now runs the restaurant and guesthouse. Neide Garrido, who has lived in Tumbira for over half a century, founded and runs Entrelacando Geracoes (Interweaving Generations). In her shop, the placemats and mandalas created from bacaba palm fibers are displayed beside jewelry fashioned from açai seeds. In her backyard one can find turmeric — for the yellow dye she uses — and crajiru, which is dried and then boiled to create a red color, as well as tucumã trees, from which weaving fibers can be sustainably harvested. Neide Garrido’s sister, Izolena Garrido, has catalogued over 150 natural dyes from the region.
Before FAS began working with Tumbira, the community school went through fifth grade, leaving most of the locals without an opportunity to pursue an education beyond that. Tumbira now has a high school, as well as guest quarters for an instructor. Students arrive by boat from five other river communities to study here. The community has electricity, internet, a health center, and a communal workshop — any resident can use it, provided they clean up.
Not only have the FAS projects improved the quality of life for Tumbira’s residents, but the community-based tourism industry developed over the last decade and a half welcomes visitors to explore the region. One can set the alarm for five a.m. and head east by boat with a local guide to watch the sunrise or take a kayak, paddling until the stream gives way to Igapó, a flooded forest. In early July, flooded forests are prevalent. Half an hour from Tumbira by speedboat, among the four hundred islands of Anavilhanas National Park, the land is flooded, and the waters mirror the vegetation with stunning clarity. At night, to a chorus of crickets and frogs, the stars stretch across the sky, untouched by light pollution.
In Tumbira, with the XPRIZE efforts unfolding nearby, it’s easy to feel hopeful about conservation efforts. The community has successfully transitioned from a logging economy to one in which the health of the forest is carefully guarded; Tumbira’s logging paths are now hiking trails, and the XPRIZE technology being tested in the nearby forest promises to inform and push forward conservation efforts, at scale.
Just months ago, however, this region was paralyzed by drought. The schools in Tumbira closed, as did the guesthouse and restaurant. Boats that used to run between Manaus and Tumbira ran aground. Fires made navigation more difficult. The fall of 2023 saw the Rio Negro reach its lowest level in 121 years, and Tumbira became isolated. Seventy percent of the community’s income comes from tourism, but until the rains came and rivers were once again navigable, the guesthouse was silent.
Communities like Tumbira are particularly vulnerable to drought because they depend on rivers for access to healthcare, food, and fuel. Last fall, the community’s residents traveled nearly an hour and a half by canoe to catch jaraqui and pirarucu, staple fish of the local diet. This difficulty is hard to imagine in early July when Tumbira is surrounded by water, though river levels throughout the region are already lower than they were in 2023. By early August, Greenpeace spokesperson Roberto Batista reports that the Madeira River, another major tributary of the Amazon, is at the lowest level that permits navigation. On August 2, the Associated Press reports that “severe drought has returned to the Amazon and that it is happening earlier than expected.”
The likelihood and severity of droughts is increasing as a result of climate change, and drought years bring an additional month of low water levels, prolonging isolation. Dr. Leticia Santos de Lima, who studies the impacts of droughts in rural communities in the tropics, found that this was also the case in 2005, 2010, and 2016, when droughts in the Amazon basin were severe as well.
“There is evidence of a long-standing lack of coherent, well-planned, and integrated governmental response to this complex issue,” she writes. She points to the need for strategic long-term planning that “combines insights derived from natural and social sciences — as well as traditional knowledge from Amazonian communities,” stressing that “the impacts of droughts cannot be solved — and may even become worse — by applying a simplistic strategy focused on roadbuilding.” Numerous studies have shown that roads drive deforestation, which in turn negatively impacts rainfall, river siltation, and the incidence of forest fires.
“We cannot effectively protect what we cannot accurately measure and understand,” says Peter Houlihan, Executive Vice President of Biodiversity and Conservation for the XPRIZE. The prize’s six finalists are making strides toward obtaining the knowledge humanity needs to become better forest stewards. FAS, which helped mobilize emergency deliveries of food, water, and medicine to communities impacted by drought last fall, warns that climate adaptation actions are needed urgently. Riverine communities are fragile against climate extremes and a testament to the need for widespread collaboration to still the drivers. The waters that carried the riverboats to Tumbira will recede over the coming months; concern must not.
Published in The New Climate. Follow for the latest in climate action.
