National Geographic Magazine

THE ISSUE YOU HOLD in your hands is genuinely special. It is the culmination of incredibly deep research, exploration, inquiry, and documentation designed to give us all greater insight into one of our most critical ecosystems. Amazonia—a popular term for the waterways and terrestrial areas around the Amazon River and its tributaries—is a place like no other. A huge carbon sink of 344 billion trees. A haven of biodiversity that’s home to 10 percent of the planet’s species. A cultural landscape rich in knowledge and creativity developed over millennia. A source of millions of gallons of water and rich nutrients that feed our oceans. Our planet would simply not be the same without it. Over the past two years, the National Geographic editorial team has partnered with scientists, researchers, and story-tellers in…

» A man climbs a towering date palm tree, his feet nimbly navigating the trunk, also known as a stem, like a ladder until he reaches the canopy. Amid the palm leaves, he pulls a long, curved blade to expertly cut away a cluster of dates that he lowers to the ground. It’s a scene almost unchanged for millennia in the oasis of AlUla, northwest Saudi Arabia. The region is renowned for its dates, which have been essential to oasis life for almost as long as humans have lived here. The oasis of AlUla was always more than a vital watering hole for travelers: It was a community and kingdom built on farming the desert. » AlUla’s oasis was formed by a wadi, a desert ravine that brings water from faraway…

THE DRIVING FORCE behind our Amazon expedition, Thomas Peschak—a National Geographic Explorer since 2017—spent more than a year documenting the world’s most biodiverse rainforest and the scientists studying it. He and his team, including videographer Otto Whitehead, embedded for weeks and months in over 30 locations. It was often demanding, says the South Africa–based photo-journalist, but his best experiences were “off the charts.” Among them: snorkeling with a tapir and diving with human-size catfish.…

João Campos-Silva, p.76 An Explorer since 2021 and founder of the Brazilian non-profit Instituto Juruá, he leads a team that’s developing and implementing community-based conservation solutions in rural Amazonia. He specializes in the once endangered arapaima, a gigantic fish crucial to the culture of flooding lowlands, the subject he wrote about for this issue. Angelo Bernardino, p.120 This oceanographer at Brazil’s Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo led a research team that recently identified a new kind of mangrove forest at the mouth of the Amazon, an area he covers in this feature. An Explorer since 2018, Bernardino is also a dedicated ocean paddler—on the water by dawn every morning in his outrigger canoe. Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, p.30 Raised in a Quechua village in the Peruvian Andes, Pillco is a biologist helming a research team high…

The story of how the Amazon got its name begins on June 24, 1542. Francisco de Orellana was praying for an escape from the green world that had swallowed his beleaguered expedition. The Spaniard’s two boats, containing fewer than 50 starving men, were nearing what the crew hoped would be their salvation. After seven months of navigating a series of tributaries beginning at the foot of the Andes, they’d finally reached the largest river any of them had ever seen, and Orellana hoped it would soon lead them to the Atlantic Ocean. He was accompanied by Gaspar de Carvajal, a Dominican friar, who kept a detailed chronicle of their journey. The priest recorded the Europeans’ astonishment at the advanced cultures they encountered—densely populated villages along the riverside, including one that stretched…

SOURCES: ANA P. BARROS, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN; SCIENCE FOR NATURE AND PEOPLE PARTNERSHIP; ESA; NASA/JPL; OPENSTREETMAP ANDES TO ATLANTIC From mountain headwaters to tributaries, water takes on sediments and chemicals that change its appearance and characteristics as it flows over different terrain. More than 58 million gallons, enough to fill 88 Olympic swimming pools, flow from the Amazon’s mouths into the Atlantic every second. Black water Acidic and low in nutrients, these rivers are darkened by decomposing plants. White water Nutrient-rich water laden with sediments flows out of the Andes, clouding these rivers. Clear water These rivers are low in sediments because they flow through ancient shields of hard rock. WATER CYCLE OF LIFE Much of the Amazon Basin’s water is returned to the forest as rain. The remainder is carried by east-west winds as an aerial current—a mix…