The Green Team: Ultramarathon in the Amazon
Fighting for the Rain Forest

“The Jungle Marathon is one of the toughest and most dangerous ultra races in the world,” says organizer Shirley Thompson. 57-year-old Friedhelm Weidemann is tackling four legs totaling 127 kilometers, with a marathon – 42 kilometers – on one of the days. The real diehards complete six legs in six days, notching up a total of 254 kilometers. “It’s an intense, difficult race and only the strongest will make it,” says Thompson. She is proved right: 43 people from 14 countries entered the jungle challenge in October 2016 and twelve of them gave up before they finished.

Day 1 (23 km)
In the first stage of the marathon in the Amazon, Friedhelm Weidemann battles his way through thick brush and treacherous swamps. Natural obstacles increase the challenge of the course through the Brazilian jungle.

Day 1
The applause of the promoters and other athletes spurs the 57-year-old to peak performance.

Day 1
Exhausted but satisfied, he finishes the first stage.

Day 2
The second stage includes short stretches where the runners have to ford rivers

Day 2
Despite eating and drinking right, Weidemann collapses from dizziness during the second stage.

Day 2
The ambitious athlete is forced to take a break: doctors prescribe a day of rest in the hammock.

Day 3 (42 km)
Recuperated after his compulsory break, Weidemann heads into the third stage, a single-day, complete 42-kilometer marathon. One kilometer of the route leads him through a cool river.

Day 3
The toughest day of the Jungle Marathon is also a gratifying one for Weidemann. He goes the full 42 kilometers – with pride and elation.

Day 4 (24 km)
Nothing can stop him now. In the fourth stage, he covers long, sandy, in part desert-like stretches. Only scattered trees offer protection from the sun.

Day 4
Over long stretches, Weidemann is entirely at the mercy of the sun. The course leads him along the Rio Tabajó, a tributary of the Amazon.

Day 4
Following the arduous final kilometers along the sandy riverbank, Friedhelm Weidemann crosses the finish line of the last stage.

Day 4
He has conquered it: the world’s toughest ultramarathon.

Respecting Nature

The towering trees, the dense rain forest – the river that seems as endless to him as the ocean: all of this fascinates Friedhelm Weidemann. “We humans must not think we have the right to destroy this,” says the athlete. “The Amazon has to be preserved. That’s worth fighting for.” Numerous conservation initiatives, indigenous tribes, and political activists are working hard locally to protect their home, fighting against deforestation, overexploitation, and additional large-scale construction projects with all their might.

Local Role Models

Thomas E. Lovejoy, The “Godfather” of Biodiversity

When Thomas E. Lovejoy first coined the term “biological diversity,” the Amazon was a major inspiration. The biologist has spent much of the last half century studying the devastating impacts of human activity on the rainforest. At the age of 75, he can still be found there trudging around in gum boots.

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Thomas E. Lovejoy, The “Godfather” of Biodiversity

The Person

It is more by chance than design that Thomas E. Lovejoy ended up in the Amazon rainforest in 1965 to work on his Ph.D.. Over fifty years later, the biologist continues to conduct research there about the impacts of deforestation on animal and plant diversity and species extinction.

I will retire with my boots on.“

As a conservation expert, Lovejoy has served as an adviser to the World Bank, the United Nations, and US Presidents Reagan, Bush (Senior), Clinton and Obama. He has also led projects for organizations like the Smithsonian Institution and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Since 2010, he has been a professor at George Mason University near Washington, D.C.

The Project

Lovejoy initiated the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragmentation Project in 1978. It involves a research area measuring a thousand square kilometers – an area larger than Berlin – in the heart of the Amazon rainforest near the city of Manaus. Some parts have already been heavily deforested, so scientists can compare them with areas of untouched rainforest.

The Objectives

Many of Lovejoy’s numerous books and articles focus on how the flora and fauna of the rainforest are affected by roads, urban development, and farming. Lovejoy seeks answers through the Forest Fragments Project, and fights to conserve species like the tapir, which has a large territory of up to eight square kilometers. Among other things, he is trying to determine the minimum size that a nature reserve requires in the Amazon in order to remain healthy.

The Results

Lovejoy’s Forest Fragments Project constitutes the world’s biggest long-term experiment on the fragmentation of habitats. Originally planned to last twenty years, it has now been running for almost twice that long. It has given scientists a much better understanding of the complex impacts of deforestation.

We still tend to think in the very short term and locally when in fact we are disturbing global systems and the way that the planet actually works. Thomas E. Lovejoy

Hundreds of biologists have researched in this area and have published more than 700 articles in scientific journals. The project has also served as the inspiration for more than 20 studies on isolated habitats in other regions of the world, and has encouraged policymakers around the world to create resilient nature reserves in rainforests. Lovejoy is now working to ensure that the project continues in perpetuity.

Find out more here: amazonbiodiversitycenter.org

Paulo César Nunes, Keeper of the Brazil Nut

Paulo César Nunes’s grandfather was fascinated by the Brazil nut. And he passed his interest on to Paulo: the agronomist wants to use Brazil nut products to protect the Amazon rain forest and offer its inhabitants a future vision.

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Paulo César Nunes, Keeper of the Brazil Nut

The Person

Paulo César Nunes inherited his enthusiasm for the Brazil nut from his grandfather. As early as 53 years ago, his grandfather tried to extract and sell the nut’s oil, but his plan failed when a foreign company canceled its purchase contracts. The story of his grandfather so captivated Paulo that he decided to study agricultural sciences.

I drove all over Brazil – on a mission that my grandfather had begun five decades earlier and spent his whole life trying to accomplish. Paulo César Nunes

For 25 years, Paulo has worked in social-ecological projects in Rondônia and Mato Grosso. He works with traditional rain forest residents and small farmers to develop sustainable alternatives to conventional agriculture in order to prevent the overexploitation of the Amazon. And the 51-year-old has never quite been able to get the idea of Brazil nut oil out of his head.

The Project

Paulo invested his hopes in renewable non-wood products from the Amazon, like the Brazil nut. The nuts can be gathered from the forest without endangering the tree stocks. He convinced a number of native Amazonians, small-farming families and agricultural workers of his idea. In 2008, they founded Coopavam, an agricultural cooperative. It bought Brazil nuts from the indigenous gatherers from the neighboring reservations – for twice the price that local commercial dealers paid.

The native inhabitants of the rain forest have been living from its resources for many centuries without destroying it. Paulo César Nunes

In a small factory owned by the cooperative, the nuts are cracked and dried, packaged or further processed into oil, flour, noodles, cookies, and other products. In 2010, Paulo realized his grandfather’s mission – and personally delivered the first truckload of Brazil nut oil, all the way across the country to São Paulo.

The Objectives

I’m fighting to preserve the Amazon rain forest, for its inhabitants and for all of us. Paulo César Nunes

Paulo wants to create sustainable alternatives to conventional agriculture and livestock farming. These are meant to offer the Amazon’s inhabitants a livelihood as well as economic incentives to preserve and restore the rain forest. For one thing, local jobs are being created that pay fair wages. For another, the further processing yields rain forest products with added value. Even big industrial companies are dependent on the manual labor of the indigenous people if they want to get involved in this business. This is because Brazil nuts, never having been successfully cultivated, are harvested exclusively in the wild. In addition, they only grow in intact rain forest – that is, primarily in areas managed by the native population.

The Results

In the last few decades, many young people have left for the cities, where they are exploited as cheap labor. Now they can come back, work here, and live with their families in the forest. Paulo César Nunes

Paulo takes the greatest pride in the well-paid jobs that Coopavam has created. The indigenous gatherers earn wages they can live on, even outside of the harvest season. They take care of their area of the forest year-round, where they apply permaculture in cultivating their fields – that is, they practice a kind of agriculture that they have known for thousands of years. In this way, they are becoming important protectors of the Amazon. Another positive aspect: the Brazil nut factory employs mostly women. Through their work, they make an important contribution to their household income, thereby gaining in status and influence in their families and in society.