Traveling to the Rainforest with Gisele | Years of Living Dangerously

We're in Alta Floresta, State of Mato Grosso in Brazil, on a boat going up the river with Giselle. Giselle has been in the Amazon before, but it's new to her to be a correspondent, to be a reporter, and not just to be the subject of the story but to be an explorer and ask questions.

We're going towards an 800-year-old tree, and this tree represents everything about the rainforest: the importance of its preservation, the carbon that it holds, and the threat it faces. I'm from Brazil; I grew up in a small little village in the south of Brazil. When I was a kid, I thought the rainforest was an invincible, massive forest that is indestructible. As I grew up, I faced the sad reality that that's not the case.

How can anyone want to destroy this? How can they do it? This is the place for the most amazing biodiversity in the world. This is the castanha de parado, this is our nut, and you can eat it! And that tree over there, that’s where it comes from; it’s a giant taking care of this forest.

Before the Portuguese arrived in Brazil, these channels were watching the forest and witnessing how the forest is being chopped down. Nowadays, they can see, unfortunately, but they cannot talk, while we can talk for them. I do my best to speak for them. If a tree could talk, right? Imagine the knowledge of this tree!

I mean, I realize, even though it is so grand and magical, how fragile at the same time it is. I feel that it’s my responsibility to try to do everything I can, you know, to protect it.