Austin, Texas Team Embarks on a Trans-Amazon Expedition: A journey with a purpose

Sept. 23, 2009 - PRLog -- For most of us, global warming is just an idea.  For all the stranded polar bears and calving ice sheets, climate change lacks a human face.  Now two young Austinites are out to change that, with a three-month canoe expedition into the place many believe is most responsible for the problem – the diminishing Amazon rainforest.

On Monday, September 28, Joe Hochman, 19, and Tim Hawkins, 31, will launch their native-built boat into the headwaters of the Amazon River in Peru.  As they float 2,500 miles to Belem, Brazil on the Amazon, they will talk to the people of the Amazon basin, take pictures, and communicate constantly with their legion of supporters, in hopes of putting a human face on deforestation.

“The Amazon rainforest is diminishing at a fearsome rate, and a lot of Americans know this is one of the biggest reasons for global warming,” said Hochman, leader of the expedition.  “But they don’t know why.  They don’t realize that, for most of the people who live in the Amazon Basin, it’s simple economics.”  

The expedition embarks from Chazuta, a tiny village in northern Peru.  Chazuta was chosen because it is near the site of the first project of Rainforest Partnership, an Austin-based nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing deforestation of tropical rainforests.  The team is currently staying in and getting acquainted with the indigenous community of Mushuck Llacta de Chipaota in Chazuta, San Martin, Peru, where Rainforest Partnership’s first project was implemented.  It is from here that the team will begin their journey.

The expedition will allow the team to provide a personal account of a vibrant ecosystem facing living, ongoing issues of human-environmental interactions.  “One of the biggest obstacles that non-profits like Rainforest Partnership face lies in the nature of the problem they are trying to fix,” said Hochman.  “When Katrina devastated New Orleans, the Red Cross was flooded by donations and volunteers from all over the country.  Americans could see that the disaster was about people like themselves.  But they don’t realize that’s just as true of the disaster that’s deforestation.”

“Deforestation is responsible for about 20 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions every year,” said Niyanta Spelman, executive director of Rainforest Partnership.  “It’s a bigger cause of global warming than all the cars, boats, trains, and planes in the world put together.”

The expedition team is challenging supporters – individuals, local businesses, and larger organizations alike – to sponsor $10 per mile to raise awareness about issues of rainforest preservation, deforestation, climate change as well as financial support for Rainforest Partnership’s work.

“The rainforest is disappearing because of the choices we make here in the U.S.,” said Hochman.  “If Americans could see the effects this has on the people of the rainforest, they might choose more wisely.”

The team will be available for interviews by phone or SkypeTM  on Saturday and Sunday, September 26th and 27th, before beginning their journey.

For more information contact:
Maurine Winkley
Rainforest Partnership, www.RainforestPartnership.org
Office: 512-420-0101, cell: 831-325-6190
Email: maurine@rainforestpartnership.org

About Rainforest Partnership:

Rainforest Partnership's innovative approach links people in rainforest communities to people in U.S. communities to raise awareness about deforestation's global impact on climate change.  By supporting ecologically and economically sustainable ways of making an income that makes the forest more valuable standing than cut down, Rainforest Partnership allows its partner communities a stake in protecting their forests.  For more information about Rainforest Partnership and its ongoing initiatives, and links to the Trans-Amazon Facebook, Twitter and TripTracker pages, visit http://www.rainforestpartnership.org/home.html.