Paul Rosolie Met An Uncontacted Tribe & Is Trying To Protect Them: On Preserving The Amazon To Save All Life On Earth

29:53And so I just think that right now is the time where we can define our species in history. Either we mess it up for all future generations or we save it. And so if there's a chance, you go forward. I mean, in life, you play the game like you can't lose. Share with us the experience of being in these places that have remained untouched for millions of years. Basically, you've been to places where it's unclear whether another human being has even ever been there before. And you're just surrounded by just an onslaught of nature. How does that impact your sense of humility and your feeling of interconnectedness with everything?

30:39This notion that we walk around with in the Western world, in our urban society is we're indoors and nature's outside. It's something that's separate from us. And the truth is we are nature and nature flows through us and we are an integral part of it and we're not separate from it. But it's difficult to kind of grok that in the way that we live our lives. especially in the last five years i can definitely say this that i've spent more time in my adult life sleeping outdoors than i have in and what you're saying about nature flowing through us that you know jj showed me this when i was very young where he we would dip our hands into the river and especially in the clear streams and drink from the stream and then he held his arm up in the sun and you could see the sweat coming off his arm in the sun and that went straight up and joined the mist coming off the canopy.

31:37And then you see these thunderheads forming in the afternoon and it rains back down. And then just to finish the cycle, he dipped his hand in and he drank again and he goes, it's going through us. And that's like this incredible physical, spiritual sacrament that you go, whoa, whoa, whoa. This water is flowing through the ecosystem and through me. And we're so disconnected from these systems. Whereas if you're a farmer or if when I'm out in the jungle, when that sun gets up, you got to go. It's not negotiable. And so if you're camping on the side of a river and the sun comes up, you got to go because the sand flies and the bees are coming for you.

32:16You got to get in your raft and move. And if the river goes up at night, you got to relocate your camp. If the river goes down too low and you're in a boat, that boat might bottom out and you got to stay up there for weeks. And so to me, living by the natural cycle, sort of the irrefutable laws of nature is certainty for me. Everyone's sort of in this crisis of belief right now where they're like, what do we believe? Is AI going to take over? Should I be showing my butthole to the sun every morning? Do I need peptides injected in my neck? And it's like, there's always something new. And it's like, man, there's the original laws and the stones and the rain.

32:52And there's this very, very, you can start from scratch and sort of build your way back up to sort of natural physical chemical certainty. And I like that. I really like that. You said to a 1 ,000-year-old tree, the human lifespan is minuscule. I mean, just imagine these trees that are 10 times the size of this room. You imagine those, you know, our grandparents' grandparents were, I mean, the constitution of the United States, to a 500-year-old tree. And then you do a time lapse in your head and you imagine all the monkeys racing across the branches. How many birds were going in the branches?

33:31And you speed that up over the centuries. Human lifespan is like, bloop, bloop. We come in, we go out. It's like the way we think of frogs. They'll live for a little bit and then they'll go. To a 1 ,000-year-old tree, we're insignificant. And that thing has watched centuries and weathered storms. And you go beneath these things and you put your hands on them, you go, what do you know? I don't know. There's a power to them. Yeah, so how does that translate into how you think about your daily life? Like just having that appreciation and that understanding and that context. Well, I think it makes me incredibly, that's where it comes from.

34:09It makes me incredibly sensitive, especially to the natural world, to animals. And whether that's in New York, whether that's, you think of the sequoias and what's happening in the West with those forests And all over the world, my daily life, the thing that's paramount is making sure that these ecosystems are protected, not just because we need resources from them, but because these animals exist for their own reasons. There's families of animals out there. There's herds of elephants. There's animals in the trees in the Amazon. To me, I think about this all the time. I think about this constantly.

34:42And so now it's become that I've realized that so many people on the other end of this, so many people are going, what did we disconnect from? How do we get back to that? And I've been hearing everyone reacting to you doing episodes outside. And everyone's like, we love this. And I heard the birds and there's green. And it's like, there's something about it that's just so comforting. You mentioned Avatar. The way that you describe these places, and if you watch any of Paul's videos, it comes across beautifully. It really is Avatar. are, especially the canopy aspect of this, which I didn't know a lot about.

35:22Explain what the canopy is, because you mentioned it earlier. The rainforest, when you're walking in the rainforest, it's like, I can't even use the pen and this, I'd have to put my hand to the ceiling. You're this big and the canopy is 160 feet above you. And there's macaws up there and there's parrots up there and there's monkeys going around. What you don't realize is then there's ants and termites and lizards and snakes, and there's all this stuff moving around. 50 % of the life in the rainforest exists in the canopy, and much of it never touches the ground. And so it's this world of branches.

35:58And so when you're walking in the rainforest, you are this tiny thing that's restricted to the ground, and these giant trees like pillars of some great cathedral are above you, and then the branches, and you have no access to this. maybe there's a few maybe alex honnold could climb up there you know i've done it a few times but it you're risking your life and so the canopy of the amazon is where there's undiscovered medicines where you know scientists have been trying i met a guy who would take hot air balloons and throw a net on the canopy and then he would jump out of the hot air balloons so that he could sample the different plants that are growing in the canopy wow i know people that you know, shoot a giant slingshot to go over the branches.

36:40And then they use the ascenders to get up onto like one branch. And then they serve them. But when you say branches, I mean, these branches are so, it's not like branches as you think of it. Like these things are like, you know, as wide as like a, you know, an 18 wheeler truck. Like they're gigantic. I mean, width wise, like you can walk on, they're not bending, you know, like they're gigantic. So once you're up there, it's like this whole world opens up to you. Yeah, well, the video that I sent you where I'm like, that first shot where you go to a thousand-year-old tree, I'm sitting up on a branch that's, I want to say it's like a full oak tree, but in New York, good luck finding an oak tree that big.

37:18Most oak trees are not as big as the branches of these trees. They're skyscrapers of life. And so if you're up there at dawn, the jungle just starts screaming. All the animals are awake. And it's like, if you're high enough to see the sun come over the canopy, it's like the first day on earth. It's like the first Sunday. And God rested. And then you see the sun come up over the jungle. And that's part of the reason that we built that treehouse, because we were like, all right, we got to share this with people so other people can see the sun come up over the Amazon. And then that 20 trillion liters of water that's coming off the canopy, there's an invisible mist river flowing over the Amazon rainforest.

37:59And you can see it at dawn if you look to the east. And so we wanted to share that. Everything with me is sharing it with people. And as a kid, I felt hopeless. And that's why with jungle keepers, we rely on big donors, but it's like, I also have mothers calling me going, my kids are horrified about what's happening to the natural world. They want to save the Amazon rainforest and we're donors. We donate$5 a month. And so those people are not helpless or cut off from it. We're going to fix this problem. And we're not just, it's not like what I'm saying, we have to save the ocean. We're not fixing the environment.

38:30We're saving this river. We're saving this one river and it's a defined area. And we're going to save the tribes and the trees and the wildlife now. And then if we do that, then we can work on the next project. But I'm a big believer in not getting bogged down, being upset by everything. I know too many people, I come home, I'm working on this one project for all this time. I come home and I'll have a friend or a relative go, the world is just insane. I'm losing my mind. I can't sleep. And I go, what thing are you upset about? The war and the economy and the drought. And I'm like, but pick one.

39:03What can you affect? And is there anything in your community or your family? Chances are there are people in your community or your family or species or a little forest that's about to be bulldozed by a housing development or people that need help getting out of poverty. And instead of being worried about the entire planet's fate at all times. We're not built for that. We're village animals. We're not supposed to be worrying about the floods in Bangladesh at any moment. And so I think that the screens put it right in front of your face where at any moment on earth, there's a million miracles and a million tragedies happening.

39:38And the fact that we're getting it fed straight to our faces is not natural. It's fine to think global, but you have to act local. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, what is the solvable problem in my midst and amidst the incessant news cycle of fear and destruction that almost by design is making us feel paralyzed or like our lives lack agency. Yeah. And the other thing is that you're competing on a global scale. You know, it used to like, if you're the best guitar player in your town, it's like, yeah, but you go on TikTok and there's somebody that's even better in Sri Lanka. And it's like, well, you're competing with 8 billion people.

40:21Good luck. And so I think, you know, whether you're the strongest, you're the best at jujitsu, the best singer, whatever it is, there's going to be someone stronger, faster, you know, better equipped for it. And it's, I think that it almost de-incentivizes people to even start.

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43:34help me understand how this became your mission what is the origin story of paul that led you to becoming you know this activist and this very hopeful but ardent uh uh conservationist so devoted to protecting and preserving this part of the world well i grew up with the oak trees and the maple trees and the sycamores. And going out in the woods as a kid, I always wanted to be able to drink the streams. I always wanted to be able to find a part of the woods that would just go on forever. I'd go out and get lost, go camping by myself by like 12, 15 years old. But then you'd come out the other side of a state park.

44:19And I'd be like, man, there's more roads. I just wanted to see a place that was completely wild. And so I went to the Amazon. And I always, I grew up with this environmental stress of like when they tell you that elephants are going to go extinct in your lifetime that we're losing the rainforest the polar ice caps are melting the pandas won't screw and it's like that's horrible so you're telling me we actually live at the end of days and all these amazing animals that i mean for someone that lives on wildlife that loves animals that finding a snake on a hike can make my week you know looking up at an eagle is is just magical to me.

44:53And so someone that's that connected to wildlife telling me that the most amazing things on our planet are going to be destroyed because they're not vanishing. We're killing them. And so I went to the rainforest. I dropped out of high school after sophomore year. I went to the rainforest because I was like, I have to see this for myself. I'd seen the videos when I was a kid of the, you hear the chainsaws and in the Congo, you see the trees going over and them stacked, these giant trees. And I was like, I have to see if this is real. And I got to the the Amazon rainforest. And I had the luck of going to a place that you had to travel by days, by boat, past the last city, past the last shop, the last place you could buy a Coca-Cola, and then past the last hut.

45:35And you go completely into unconstructed wild dream space, where it's as natural as it was 40 ,000 years ago. And I just fell in love. It's like the first scene in Jurassic Park where they realized there's dinosaurs. And I went, oh my God, it's real. That message though, the idea that the elephants might go extinct, that we're wreaking havoc and destroying these pristine places that are rapidly shrinking across the planet is a ubiquitous message. And I want to dig a little bit deeper into kind of your DNA blueprint because you just kind of came out of the gate wired for this. There is something about you, like you are living your destiny.

46:26There's no question in my mind that you're doing exactly what you came into the world to do. From the get-go, this was your thing. You knew it as soon as you were like a sentient human being actually. And it took a little bit to get you there. But do you think about that? It's almost like a past life thing. It's sort of like you came in already knowing like this is going to be my path. Yeah. I mean, as a kid, I mean a child, like from the time I could walk, I wanted to go to streams. And so I'd ask my parents to take me to streams. And there's videos of me, you know, five years old with my sister, you know, holding her hand as she's like a two-year-old that could barely walk in a stream, but we're barefoot But walking through these streams, looking at these big trees, I was just magnetized to nature.

47:14And when people cut trees, I feel it. Like it really breaks my heart, especially old trees. And as a kid, to me, the greatest magic, and I'd get this feeling when you get those, you know, they have those big rainforest books in the library. I would get those out, and it would be like these explorers with giant snakes and people in the mist, you know, David Attenborough with gorillas. And I was like, I want that. And that idea of like really remote, beautiful places. And so, yes. And I've always had this thing of like animals magnetize. You know, I'll be with people doing something random. I was in Brooklyn one time at a barbecue in the backyard and a parakeet came and landed on my shoulder.

47:56And like everyone was like, what is happening? How did this possibly happen? And we had to like reverse engineer it. You know, it just knew. like this is the guy I'm gonna hang out with it's weird um the times that I've been in the Amazon and it's like you don't just find a 20-foot anaconda one does not simply and then it happens you know elephants that should have killed me stopping and communicating with me and it's like I've just I just have had this this the time I pulled a spider monkey out of the river and was able to speak spider monkey to her like these things sound ridiculous and so thank god there's video of all of it.

48:33But somehow I went down to the Amazon, fell in love with animals, and then realized they can't advocate for themselves. There's this human world and 60 % of humans live in cities. And you have loggers and industry going out there in the Pacific Northwest and the Amazon and Borneo for palm oil, for timber, for all this stuff. And there's worlds being destroyed that are filled with reptiles and amphibians and birds and mammals and flowers and it's like avatar yeah and i don't think people realize what we're losing and so to me these are the places that are church these are the most beautiful things that i can imagine that i'm obsessed with studying and and enjoying and drinking the streams and then i i have seen too much of times where the place i love gets incinerated and all the animals and all the butterflies are dead and all the trees are laying on the ground and it's just ashes, a 30 million year old ecosystem destroyed.

49:33And then you can only see that so many times before you start screaming, guys, what are we doing? And that's how I fell into this role of being like, look, I love these animals. They have no one else advocating for them. So we're going to do it. As much as you were somebody who kind of came into the world with this sense of purpose and destiny, I think it's important to underscore how difficult it's been. This is a recurring theme in the book as well. This took you a long time to get to this place. So any notion that you just sort of went to the Amazon and started basically doing what you're doing now is insanity.

50:14I mean, the amount of obstacles that you have had to face and overcome to be in this position right now is mind-boggling. And I think it speaks to obsession, persistence, like all of these character traits that are necessary to change the world. When I first met you, I was with my youngest daughter who is super into nature and especially reptiles. Yeah. had a snake at one point. And she says, Paul, she's just like in rapture, like with you telling stories. And she says, Paul, did you ever see that video like over a decade ago where that guy was getting eaten by an anaconda? And you say - Oh, I saw it.

51:02I said, I did it. Yeah, you were like, not only did I see it, Jaya, that was me. And she like freaked out that you were like the guy. Yeah. And I want you to tell that story because I think it illustrates a really important inciting incident in your kind of trajectory. Yeah. I mean, I found myself, after we'd started doing research on anacondas, having the adventures first, right? So, we're going out on 10-day expeditions, catching these giant snakes. And then I started doing a couple of interviews about the conservation, my experiences with local people. and suddenly I found myself sitting in an office at like UTA in LA.

51:42But this is after you trying to get people to pay attention to what you were doing for like a very long time and like the struggle for the first book. Like, oh, there was so many instances in which you were like, can you please shine a light on this? And you were getting nowhere. And suddenly you're in a position where like, oh, because of that short film that you made and the UN thing, like we can tell that story. You're in a position now where people actually are listening and you can do something. And I'm also like 25. And so you find yourself in this office where they're going, hey, we'll do a show where you take us into the Amazon and you find anacondas.

52:19And I was like, yes, that would be great. I could show people the avatar thing. We could show them these giant snakes and that'll make them come in and watch the show. And it was like this great plan. And then we had already started and then they went, you know, that's not good enough. What if you proved that anacondas could eat a person and you made a suit and you let it eat you. Let's turn it into a reality show. Let's turn it into a ridiculous stunt. A fear factor situation. Exactly. And so that, you know, sign on the line, kid. We'll give you everything you want. We'll just, we'll hide the, you know.

52:54And I remember asking Jane Goodall about it. I was like, but this is the only way to, and she was like, don't do that. She was like, it's going to be so bad. It's going to be a train wreck. And I went, no, I can pull this off. because the snake's not going to try and eat me. And the expedition part will be more important. And yeah, Jane was right. It was beyond a treatment. She was very disappointed in you. She was very disappointed in me. Which is crushing if you know the backstory here. Yeah. Well, she helped. I mean, she changed my life. I always say like she, first of all, she's like a living historical figure.

53:28My parents read to us a lot. When I was a kid, me and my sister, my parents would read to us. They read us Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, Jane Goodall books. I didn't learn to read until I was in the double digits because of dyslexia. And so they read to us relentlessly. And so I had known Jane Goodall since I was a child. And so when I went to see her in New York City, I think it was at NYU, and I gave her a couple of chapters, you get to meet her for two seconds, you get a picture. For some reason, I had the audacity to give her a couple of chapters of this book I wanted to write called Mother of God.

54:02and I said would you please take a look they're in a manila envelope with a little note saying like just like you experienced Africa I'm experiencing the Amazon and days later she actually wrote back and she goes these stories are incredible your perspective on the jungle is great when you get a publisher tell them I will write you a beautiful endorsement for this and that moment changed everything because Jane Goodall waving her wand in my direction gave me the first legitimacy I'd ever had. I don't have a PhD. I didn't have an affiliation with an institution. I just had the time I'd invested out of sight in the middle of the Amazon with my indigenous friend, JJ.

54:45And for then I got to walk into places like Bloomsbury and HarperCollins and going, look, Jane Goodall says this is a good idea. And it's because of her that I got my first book deal. And so that changed my entire life. Without that book, there'd be no jungle keepers. Without jungle keepers, we wouldn't be saving the river. We wouldn't be talking right now. It's like you pull Jane out of the story and the whole thing collapses. She had done this amazingly heroic thing of just nodding in my direction and changing my whole life and giving me the power to protect the thing that I love. And then I went and fucked it all up by trying to be a Discovery Channel star.

55:22Yeah, but you were a punk. I was a punk. You had to learn that lesson, and I'm sure she knows that. But you said something about how that experience with Jane Goodall taught you about the value and the preciousness of giving somebody your full attention. Do you know what I'm talking about? I do. My assumption when I handed her that envelope was that she's a living legend. She's 80 something years old. She's traveling 300 days a year. She's never going to look at this. Nor should she. I was like, it's just a shot in the dark. You just got to shoot your shot. And then she did. And so now being at this point where we're running this major organization and there's thousands of kids all over the world messaging me going, how do I find adventure?

56:11How do I figure out what I love? How do I help the environment? I mean, some of them go, how do I get your job? And I'm like, kid, it ain't a job. But that sort of grace to be at the highest level and still realize that now your job is to drop a ladder for the kids coming behind you. And that, I think, is such a tremendously powerful thing. And I've seen people that do the opposite, that reach a really high level and then they think they're hot as shit. But true class, true wisdom to me is that if you have the incredible luck of doing something innovative, whether it's an achievement as a musician or a filmmaker or a business leader or a scientist or an inspiration like Jane Goodall, then your job is to inspire the next generation.

56:59And so what I try to do is every time I'm traveling, I try to go through the hundreds of messages. And there was one that was really cute. this girl goes you know i'm i'm a girl from ireland and you're never going to read this because you get so many messages but i'm working to protect this local you know patch of forest in ireland and we're about to do this and i just wrote back and i was like best of luck i hope you do it like i did read this and and you hope that you that you you know i mean for the first the first few years it was happening i went there's no way that i matter enough to to these people to and then there comes a point where you go oh we're all just doing the best we can and so then when they when they see read your book you become something that they want to follow and so then it is your job to try and yeah follow up yeah and you have no idea the ripple effect of exactly taking that you know 60 seconds out of your day to do that yeah it's just incredible and i think of the people that you know when i was a kid the little things that people did that changed everything you know you people are by being i mean it's this is the fun thing about being 38 you're not 20 anymore you know i'm running a major organization it's really nice to be able to be the person that that that that is the positive influence that that helps somebody up that goes yeah you know what you should do i'll put you in touch with this guy i've been in the field for so long and it's like we've all been burned there's so many sharks out there there's so many pieces of shit out there.

58:24And it's like, it's a lot of fun to be that person. I mean, I met someone, that video that I sent to you, the mission thing, that guy, Dan, incredible filmmaker, he saw me on a podcast, lived in Singapore, signed up for a jungle expedition with my organization, came to the Amazon. And then I was coming down the river in a boat. And I think him and the guide and the people that were stranded on the side of the river, their boat had broken down or something. And we swung around and pulled up. And he was like, dude, you're the reason I came. And I was like, that's awesome. Cool. And he was like, no, no, no.

59:01I'm also a filmmaker. I want to show you my stuff. And I was like, everyone's a fucking filmmaker now. Sure. And I was like, you know what? Show me your stuff. And then when I saw it, I went, I've never seen anyone that's this talented. I went, I need you to come back. And so from seeing me on a podcast and hearing that message and then taking the initiative to travel to the Amazon and also having the chops, he's also that amazing of a filmmaker. And now he's like, he's part of the team, close friend. And it's like, it's just amazing the connections you can make. And we live in this age where, I mean, people say social media is negative.

59:38I watch, I have people that are, my friend Connor is saving rhinos in Africa. I have people in Indonesia who are working with orangutans and rehabilitating them after the deforestation. I see people all over the world doing amazing work. And I see that as a network of hope where people are deciding to do that. I want your feed. Yo, you got to get my feed. Back to Discovery, Anacondas. You sign on the dotted line. You make the Faustian bargain to make this show. And what happens? well we did end up catching the largest anaconda we spent six weeks in the amazon we began research that would later we're still doing today we learn things about the anacondas that we never knew and we're publishing this the problem is the producers at discovery didn't that wasn't none of that mattered and so i really got i mean it's like it's almost like it's like scripted out of a bad movie you know it's it's like we we came back with all this amazing footage and they just cut it up, ruined it.

1:00:40There's a part where we go 18 feet, six inches. That's how long the snake is. And they changed my friend's voice and they make him say 19 feet, six inches. They took my monologue about the beauty of anacondas and they changed it to the time that I talked about how dangerous they were and what would happen if they bit you. And the public hated it because they also had called it Expedition Amazon EA. But then when I got back, they called it Eaten Alive. And so it's just in every way I got destroyed and that's but now here's the thing I hit my head on the ceiling so hard I mean Conan O 'Brien Jimmy Kimmel opiate I mean everyone was just going this kid's such a piece of shit running around the Amazon saying he's gonna get eaten not getting eaten wasting two hours of our life I mean everyone was making fun yeah PETA was going how dare you endanger an animal everyone else was going that was a waste of my fucking time so I was on the street and people be like, yo, fuck you, Paul Rosen.

1:01:31I was like, I got to get out of here. So before your career had even really begun, it was over with. And this is sort of like, if this is a movie, you're at the bottom of the second, you're thinking you're at the bottom of the second act or like, it's just game over completely. See, that's the thing. That's the important lesson is that at the time I thought it was game over completely. There's so many times I thought it was game over, whether it's almost dying in the Amazon or this, but this, I went, man, I picked my head up and tried to get my message out to the world and got smacked down so hard.

1:02:07I just went, you know what? It's fine. I'll be the guy that lives in the jungle and I'm just going to keep doing what I love and hanging out with the animals. And this was so bad that I went to India for months and started living with the elephants, which was actually turned out to be a really good thing. And so, you hear people talking about how like if you want to succeed like you better start loving to fail and it's like you're like what does that mean david goggins what that means is is if you survive enough of those like now thank god that happened you know it builds character it makes you more shrewd in deals and then you realize just like on an expedition you know when when in the old days the motor we'd go five days up a river and the motor would break and the first few expeditions I'd be like, oh shit, man, this isn't going according to plan.

1:02:53I wanted to get to here and then cross over to there. And it's like, man, screw your plan. When the plan starts going to shit, that's when things are getting good. That's reality sucking you into the narrative. And I feel like today we're so calculated. We're like, I'm going to go to college and then I'm going to get a job here. And I want to get this type of a girlfriend. And I, okay, sure. But there's a beauty to when, and I always wanted this in life. And it's like taking off in a plane, but it's like, to live a life where necessity pulls you forward, where you're not calling the shots. You're fully immersed as the character you are in the movie.

1:03:29And so I didn't know, was I going to have to stop all this jungle shit and eventually come home, face the facts, and buckle down and get a real job? And I didn't know. I didn't know what my... I really, really wanted to save the Amazon and to go on adventures, but I'm trying to remember what baseball... Maybe it's Moneyball, where they go, at some point, they tell you you can't play baseball anymore like we all just want to keep playing the game uh and i just up until like 32 i would say there's a it's in the book where there's that day where my dad you know i had come home from the jungle and i was broke and i was depressed because i was thinking and he just went man i have something to tell you and i won't but and he goes you know it's okay we love you no matter what and i was just like dad no like please stop and he was like giving you permission to give up he was giving me permission to give up.

1:04:21And he was saying, even if you don't, even if this is all we get, it's okay. You know, it's great. We love you. And I was like, oh no, that was great. Actually. Again, that was one of those moments where you go, this is a low point, but now fuck that. Like, I'm going to keep running. What I take from that story is the fact that despite you being earnest and well-intentioned and committed to this goal that you had of being this person in this part of the world who was doing good, you weren't ready for that yet. Because the person who says yes to the Get Me Alive TV show is not seasoned enough to responsibly shoulder the gravity of the kind of mission that you were sort of thinking that you were on.

1:05:13And you had to figuratively and literally go to the jungle, to the cave, right? You had to be seasoned more. And so that situation forced you to do that so that you could be prepared to be doing what you're doing now. Had that not happened, I don't think that you would be here. If it had gone your way, you might be doing something, but perhaps you would just be some kind of Jeff Probst TV host or something. Like, who knows what, I don't know. You wouldn't have ended up where you are right now, this is what I'm saying. No, 100%, no. And I think you had to go out and earn it in a deeper way, and that situation forced you to do that.

1:05:56So it is a really important moment, and I think it's easy to say, like, oh, the obstacle is the way. Yeah. But the obstacles are what, like, grind you into preparedness to be able to do the thing that you claim it is that you want to do, right? Like it's not on your timeline. No. It takes a long time. You're 14 years old. You want to do this. Years and years and years, decades have gone into this where you had to earn your stripes in a very real way. There was no shortcut to being able to do that. No, and the thing is I thought I had because I'd put almost a decade into it. But there's always another level.

1:06:35Yeah, it's like, oh, there's a whole other level here. Yeah. Well, it's like you train at boxing for a year and you're like, damn, I'm good. And then you go get smacked down, get your jaw broken. It's like, now go back to camp, find someone better to learn from. It's going to take you a while. It's like, you got to show up. And then now, you know, now I go, thank God that happened. Thank God. Because the scar tissue that that builds, the resilience, the confidence in yourself where you go, man, I got publicly humiliated. It took five years of going back to the drawing board, wiping the chalkboard and starting over and then sticking with it.

1:07:12Again, at that point, you can go do something else or you can sort of renegotiate the contract you have with yourself and just go, I'm just not going to stop. And that's where I think obsession is the only way to do it. And so to me, it was just like, I just love the jungle and the responsibility of going, well, I'm just not going to stop screaming about it. I'm just not going to stop. And so that was in 2019, that was the year that the Amazon fires were burning and everyone was talking about it. And for a few weeks, they were like, the Amazon rainforest, the Amazon rainforest. Every news station was talking about the Amazon rainforest.

1:07:44And I had just come back from six months in the jungle. And I had a video on my phone where I was screaming at the phone in the fires. We were looking for animals to save. And I was going, this is happening every day. It doesn't need to happen. This ecosystem does not naturally burn. And I was like, welcome to the fucking Anthropocene. I was so mad, so frustrated with that no one would pay attention no matter what I did. And I uploaded it to Instagram. And the next day I had like 40 ,000 messages, news agencies calling me. And after, I think, you know, that's years later, it was 2014 when the Eatin' Alive thing, it was 2019 that then all of a sudden MSNBC was like, can we get you in the studio today?

1:08:25And all of a sudden I'm on a panel with Bill McKibben talking about the Amazon rainforest and it started to heal the image of you know this is some douchebag who was on yeah and then you know all of a sudden it was like look no i'm down there seeing this stuff and i could tell you for real it's going and now to be at this point where you know we just had this meeting with the jungle keepers team me and jj and stefan and mosen and roy and the the directors of jungle keepers and we have the the peruvian police and the and the government talking about national parks and but we also have the narcos and we have the challenge of getting the funding of raising the next$20 million.

1:09:04And the analogy I always make is, how hard is it to make it through the highest level of high school football and college football, and then get into the NFL and you're the last guy in the NFL, player number 700 or whatever it is. And you end up on the field in the Super Bowl. It's like, now's the thing. We've been through so many levels, so many iterations. We're standing on mountain peaks right now that the dreams of our past are like down there. And we're going, wait, you're telling us that we have 150 ,000 acres already protected and that we might actually be able to do 300 ,000 acres. And you go, wait a second, we might actually be able to save this thing.

1:09:46This might actually happen. And now it's not a joke. We have to do it. We've come this far. There's no turning back. How the hell we got here? I don't know. And so you're just running forward with their eyes closed. Obsession. On the narco tip, explain what's going on there and how it's different than when you started. When I started in the Amazon, it was so wild, it's almost impossible to describe it. going days into the jungle, you were insulated by hundreds and hundreds of miles of jungle. You're in the middle of the Amazon. And over the last 20 years, I've seen these roads cut through the trans-Amazon highway, the offshoot roads.

1:10:31And what that's done is give people access. Usually the jungle was viewed as impenetrable. And so right as we're starting to protect this land from the loggers and the gold miners and we're figuring this out about two years ago you know if this was you see like the second act it's like this is like the the third act where we're like we're starting to get there this is going to happen and we're we're notching these winds and running down field and then that all ended with a gunshot and one of the guys on my team got killed by narco traffickers and we realized that we hadn't realized that we had this infestation of very serious criminals that now wanted to infiltrate the deep wild because there's no police out there.

1:11:13It's the wild west. If me and you get into a dispute, whatever happens, happens. It's up to us. There's no one coming. Are these at the behest of the large cartels, or are these mom and pop shop narcos? Luckily, they're mom and pop shop, which is great because as we support the police, we get them boats and we help them with drones and we'll pay for an overflight if they need it you know the peruvian police everyone assumes that they're corrupt these guys are great they really want to do good they want to protect the forest they want to keep us safe and so we've been helping them and over the last year you know there was a period about a year yeah a year ago right now where i thought the mission is done i'm 100 going to get killed because they found on on a phone they found that them saying you know if you can kill paul or jj do it there'll be a reward and so i was certain that i was going to get killed i was worried about jj getting killed certain that the mission was over and then you know recently one of one of the guys on the the police team that's been going out and dealing with the narcos he goes you know in a firefight he goes picture you playing you know he said something else but you know picture playing tennis one of us versus like a you know decorated college athlete it's like the game's going to be quick they're like these are these these narcos they'll kill you but he was like trained special forces he's like we're going out and cleaning them out and so the peruvian government has been showing a tremendous amount of uh initiative in terms of not allowing this to get worse and we've been supporting them and again you have the indigenous people you have the peruvian government you got these this this group of experts that is now the the directorate of anglekeepers.

1:12:57And we've survived getting the funding. We've survived the logging blitz. And now we might not get killed by the narcos, still to be determined. Do you have to travel with security? Yeah. That's the thing that sucks. In the old days, I'd be barefoot driving my boat up the river for five hours. And now I have to have five or six guys with me at all times. How are you perceived by the mining industry? I mean, there's so much money at stake with these large industries that, yeah, it's easy to point the finger at the narcos, but wouldn't it be just as easy for some kind of corporate agenda, corporate way of taking you off the chessboard here because you're obstructing their goals?

1:13:45I don't think in our river, I don't think there's any sort of corporate thing. The mining, again, it's artisanal. It's these groups, It's these bands of people that go out and they have nothing. And so you really, you know, you start out to protect the animals and then you zoom out to protect the forest. And then you realize that if you don't help the people, you're never going to get anywhere. And so it's the same thing in Africa. These people are like, I want to save the elephants. And they realize, well, the most effective way to do that is to work with farmers and their crops to make sure that these elephants aren't coming in and causing the conflict.

1:14:19So you really, it ends up being a human problem. Think about it. These ecosystems, they're not in danger. Tigers aren't going to just jump off a cliff and go extinct. The only reason we're having a problem is because we are causing it, our species. And that's why it's our responsibility to fix it, which is veering wildly from your question. But the point is those extractive industries are not organized enough in the wild that I work in. Yeah. My question was, is that specific to the region where you are? Because obviously the Amazon is massive. Huge, yeah. There must be areas where it isn't artisanal and it is very kind of like conglomerate driven.

1:14:59Yeah, you're absolutely right. And across the Amazon basin, I think it's a few dozen environmental activists get killed every year. Yeah, they get killed, right. Yeah. So it's not just narco terrorism, it's literally like corporate terrorism. It's corporate terrorism and it's like the guys on the ground. There'll be a logging company that has the rights to this land there'll be some indigenous person protesting it and like starting up with the social media trying to bring people attention and they know what it is because those people aren't that common take the head off the snake and everyone's so devastated everyone's so scared and again you you strike that chord in people where you you devastate them kill the person that was starting to make the hope and then that usually works you know and so so the the idea that they can just assassinate, it's happening constantly.

1:15:50What's the one thing that you want people to understand about the adventures that you've been on and this particular corner of the world that you think is misunderstood? I think that the urgency of saving wildlife and saving ecosystems, I think most people know about it and most people feel helpless. and i think i mean for me the most important thing is letting people know that now we've created a way to include everybody in it and that we're on the cusp of making history by creating a national park and that we're we found a way to do the triple score we got improving the local people saving the ancient ecosystem and saving the wildlife that's my most important message at this point in terms of the the sort of higher level it's that we we haven't lost our connection to nature We've just forgotten it.

1:16:43And I think that we can rediscover that and that it is our duty to protect it. I think that that's what we are. I really think that it almost seems like the world is this really intense game where the difficulty is turned up to max. And the game is, can you do good? There is evil out there. There are bad people out there. But can you do good? And can you save what is good? And it's not that easy. and it is really easy to mess up and it's like you know i think today more than ever like i said people are doing amazing things to make this world a better place i just spoke at a wildlife conference and we met this woman who was getting pads to africa to women that don't have period care people that are trying to trying to save obscure desert tortoises that nobody knows about where there's like six of them left and they've devoted their whole life to it and it's like Like, as you meet these people, you're like, wow, there's so many good people in the world that are just trying to make it better.

1:17:41You're a master storyteller. And I think storytelling is really central to all of this. It's part of the transparency, telling the story of how the dollars are going to work to solve this problem. so that the person who is contributing feels emotionally connected to the solution and can see exactly what's happening and how those dollars are actually going to solve the problem and not paying for overhead in some office or somebody's salary. CEO salaries, yeah. The storytelling is at some point when you've done the work, you have to share. And then now at this point, that's the other thing I would love to, you know, we've had this incredible concert.

1:18:26Again, I know people that are trying to save an obscure desert tortoise and have been doing it for 50 years. Incredible people all over the world. And it's like now that we've gotten to this point, that we know the storytelling works, that we've united people with projects, I want to help other people to learn to tell that story. Because people doing incredible work. I mean, I know a woman who has devoted her entire life to saving the animals of the Amazon. And all she does is nurse monkeys back to health. And you go, man, people would fund you. Forget it. And she's going, we have no money. I can't even buy food.

1:18:56The whole place. I go, man, if anybody knew about your work, you'd be fine. And it's like, she doesn't have time. She doesn't even understand what Instagram is. You know, it's like, let alone TikTok. It's like, but if you send that. And here's a perfect example where you take a kid that knows how to do social media and good at filming, send that kid to help this woman to get her word out. And it's like, all of a sudden you've saved wildlife. You've given this woman's calling some teeth to actually make progress and you've helped some new kid actually do something important. It's like, this is what's fun right now of like, let's go, let's get work done.

1:19:28How have all these experiences that you've had, these unique experiences informed your relationship with spirituality?

1:19:38that's a huge question um i have found that there's no difference you know when i when i was young you hear like you know there's like some sort of a challenge between spirituality and science and in the jungle they're they're braided it's not any different and i think that that sort of is reflected in the native american vision where it's like we're like you said the ecosystems run through us we're not separate from it and so to me the jungle is church the forest is church and so that's i think why it part of the reason why it just devastates me when we when we clear cut them when we destroy them because we depend on them and so i think that there's like a really tactile way that because because we are connected to nature that it also has to be part of our spiritual makeup and so whether i just need to be a recluse from society or it's that i just spend all my time in church i don't know but it it is you know the the power of a sunrise there's something that's so vital and and ancient in us when we're when we're in these situations when We're on the earth that hasn't been destroyed by concrete and noise and lights.

1:20:56And I don't know, that's where I feel my vibration makes sense. Yeah, this sense of separateness disappears when you're locking eyes with Dharma the elephant. How can people get involved? Please, please, please, everybody go to www.junglekeepers.org. It's not like these normal organizations where we wanted to do it. 85 % of every dollar goes to on-the-ground conservation. The rest is admin. And it's 5-1-C-3. We have to publish all that. We have the chance to make a national park to protect the Avatar place, to protect the Nomoles, whether they like it or not. Let them continue running around naked in the jungle.

1:21:40But the jaguars and the butterflies and the spider monkeys and those millennium trees that are skyscrapers of life, we can protect this. And the other thing is the people who are helping us, whether it's$5 or$100 a month, so many of them come down and they stay in the treehouse at Alta Sanctuary. They become part of it. And so we're on the cusp of doing something truly amazing. And if we save this river, then we're going to go save more rivers. And so I just think there's so much potential right now. I hope if people can – we've talked about surviving and following your dream and all this stuff.

1:22:14Jungle Keeper is out. it just became a New York Times bestseller. If you're in school and you want to know what not to do with your life, don't do what I did. So if you're thinking, I want this guy's job, don't do it. It wasn't that much fun. Do you have a sense of how much it costs per acre to save this area? No. And it changes every time because you have a logging company. So you have a 10 ,000 acre parcel of land that a logging company owns. They're going to negotiate differently with you than a 20 ,000 acre piece of land that's owned by some old man that's a native. And he's like, I just want to protect it.

1:22:51He's not trying to make a fortune out of it. And so he'll tell it to you cheaper. And he'll be like, I love you guys. And so every piece of land is different. But what I can tell you is that we're crossing 150 ,000 acres soon. We have several thousand donors and that's what allows us to have boats patrolling this forest, keeping everything safe and so you know it's so funny because you you the difference between being the kid that wants it and then the person that did it and it's like we we wanted to make an organization that wasn't like the organizations we didn't want to be like when people give a dollar you go where's it going you give a dollar to a big wildlife organization you're like what what project is this going to and it's like this is going to making rangers gasoline boats tuna cans boots on the ground And it's like they can come and see it all in action.

1:23:38And so I don't know the price per acre, but what I do know is that very small amounts of help from a lot, a lot of people are going a really long way. Beautiful, Matt. You said, we are all eager to transform, to break free of the chrysalis and enter the arena. You're squarely in the arena. The arena is open for business, for people who want to enter it. And maybe the one way you can enter it today is by getting involved. I want to be involved. And I'd love to come down and visit you and have that experience. Anyway, man, a gift to meet you. Same. Incredible what you're doing. And mad respect, brother.

1:24:19Amen. Thank you.