Paul Rosolie has had a career unlike any other. First traveling to the Peruvian Amazon at the age of 18, Rosolie partnered with Juan Julio Durand, a local member of the Infierno Indigenous group. Together, the pair explored the primeval forest of the Las Piedras River, a tributary of the Amazon River and a place little seen by outsiders. “It’s climax community, untouched, primordial forest, and we have the chance to save it,” Rosolie tells Mongabay in a new interview. When roads began to breach the region, Rosolie and Durand turned from young explorers into “junglekeepers,” the name of both their nonprofit and a new book by Rosolie. Junglekeepers: What it Takes to Change the World is the personal tale of Rosolie’s rise from a wide-eyed student to heading a multimillion-dollar nonprofit devoted to saving part of the western Amazon — and all the challenges in between. The book recently made The New York Times Best Sellers list. Rosolie says he had many ups and downs in the book. From the Eaten Alive documentary debacle to partnering with billionaire Dax Dasilva to fund the Junglekeepers nonprofit; from discovering the floating forest with its giant anacondas to struggling for years with depression and a plaguing sense of failure. “At 22, people are like, ‘Yes, go follow your dream.’ At 29, people are like, ‘OK, that’s cool. It’s been going on for a while’ … Then, at 33, 35, people are like, ‘Hey, man. How’s that going, jungle boy?’” Rosolie says. The…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.