The beginning of my journey into the Amazon forests of Latin America began with a flight over the snow fields of the Bolivian high Andes, I was at last traveling from Buenos Aires to the capital of Peru Lima, after months of planning to visit the worlds largest green lung, the Amazon basin. Whilst traveling above the Andes I began to wonder what adventures lay ahead in Peru and further on into the heart of the Amazon basin which lies in Latin Americaʼs largest nation Brazil. I was now en-route to the Andean nation of Peru to film and to learn about this countryʼs stunning biodiversity.
Here I was to witness the Pacific coast line and perhaps the planets richest fishing grounds,from the Pacific one encounters coastal deserts, Savannah’s and then on into the high snow caped Sierras and the Altiplano and finally to the summits of these magnificent mountains where melting and receding glaciers are rapidly disappearing.
From the summit of the Andes one begins a descent down into high altitude cloud forests before finally descending into the planets largest green lung and the earths most extensive equatorial rain-forests, the Amazon.
It is the stunning array of this regions biodiversity that has brought me to 
this part of the planet and it would be here that I would begin to appreciate how vast tracks of virgin forests that are rapidly disappearing as timber, gas, oil and valuable minerals plus cattle, rice and crops such as soya are rapidly being exploited while other regions are set to produce biofuels such as palm oil.
In an overcrowded world rapidly running out of resources the vast untaped richest of the Amazon forests are due to be accessed by the worlds all powerful and growing multinational corporate giants and with the new emerging economyʼs of China, India and Brazil this momentum is set to expand and grow consuming this regions vast untapped wealth.
Lima the capital of this Latin country is a megametropolis of over ten million inhabitants a city booming with vast avenues of new apartment blocks with entire neighborhoods of up and economically prosperous citizens shopping and clubbing.
The other-side to Lima are large neighborhoods of impoverished campesinos or newly arrived citizens from the less prosperous rural districts. These citizens lack the basic amenities such as water and electricity and are subject to high levels of crime social depravation, gang warfare and administrative corruption.
Peruʼs booming economy largely depends on the opening up of the Amazons vast untaped wealth by large multi national petroleum giants. In many cases indigenous community have turned against foreign companies who have signed lucrative contracts with the government in Lima but have ignored indigenous land rights in turn sparking in some cases violent confrontations with the police and the army leading to deaths and a sense of distrust and dispossession.
In order to appreciate this countryʼs extraordinary diversity I began my first journey into the high Andes ,a region with stunning mountain scenery.
Here I arrived in Huaraz in the early hours of November and immediately felt the impact of the towns high altitude,3150 meters.
Huarez as with other regions of the planet is rapidly undergoing a transformation of it climate and glaciers on the high Andes are disappearing with glaciers in some cases receding as much as 30 kilometers here I was to witness at an altitude of 5300 meters the effects this impact is having and standing next to these glaciers one can literally hear the vast sheets of ice melting and transforming into vast lakes of partially frozen water and in some cases melting snow and glaciers have caused devastating avalanches which have submerged rural villages and towns…
The full journal is included in the new book which will soon be for sale online and in select book stores.
