Emil Carlsson talks about the deadly threat facing South America’s ‘Grand Canyon’
As a Swede living in Scotland working as a firefighter for NHS Highland, it’s fair to say Emil Carlsson already lives a pretty interesting existence. But this Inverness-based expatriate also happens to be a very proficient and thoroughly tough white water paddler too, having worked on turbulent rivers all around the world including his native Sweden, Costa Rica, Scotland, Nepal, Morocco, Uganda and Iceland.
This January, Emil will team up with renowned American paddler Rocky Contos on a trip to raft the Rio Marañon, specifically a section dubbed the ‘Grand Canyon of South America’, on its highest water level. The team will face Grade V rapids, nightly flash-foods and a possibly hostile local tribe, all in an attempt to raise awareness about the plight of this river, which is to be dammed for hydroelectricity by the Peruvian government in the next few years.
We spoke with Emil about the upcoming journey, what challenges the team will face, and whether there’s any chance to save this important Amazonian headwater from being stilled permanently:
Hi Emil; great to be speaking with you. Firstly, please could you explain a bit about the upcoming trip? What’s the plan and how did you get involved in it?
Well it all began after rafting the Grand Canyon with my girlfriend back in January. I came home from the States happy but in need of a fresh challenge – something new to look forward too. So I started browsing around the web to see what I could do, and I came across this guy, Rocky Contos. He’s quite a high profile paddler in the US. Rocky had just spent six months in Peru paddling all the headwaters of the Amazon River, and during his travels he’d come across this fantastic deep gorge on the River Marañon.
In his own words, this section was the ‘Grand Canyon of South America.’ It looked amazing, fantastic scenery, and according to Rocky one of the better rafting trips you can do in the world, yet not many people know anything about it. Rocky also came across the knowledge that the river was going to be dammed. The Peruvian government has signed a contract with Brazil to provide them lots and lots of megawatts of energy, and so they’ve decided to dam the Marañon up. During the next few years up to 20 dams are going to be built along the river. Obviously this is a great shame as it’s a fantastic waterway and one of the biggest sources of flow for the Amazon itself, so there could be major environmental implications if these dams are built.
So Rocky’s trying to raise awareness about what’s happening to this river and part of that plan is organising this trip that we’re doing in January. It will go for 25 days. It might be the last chance for anybody to run the Marañon before it gets dammed up.
Moving to the expedition itself, what’s it likely to involve? What obstacles are you going to face?
The Marañon has been paddled before, but the section of the river we’re doing has never been paddled on a high river level. We’re attempting the descent during the rainy season, so the water levels will be really, really high. That means whilst some rapids will obviously be flooded, others will be absolutely ferocious; much larger than they normally would be. So that’s obviously a big challenge. High water also means it might be hard for us to find camp spots along the river and we’re also running the risk of getting flash flooded; the river level getting rapidly higher during the night – possibly rising by up to two metres. So needless to say it’ll all be quite exciting.
What sort of boats are you taking?
We’re taking rafts and kayaks. We have five support rafts and in the region of ten kayaks on the trip, so there’ll be about twenty people on the expedition in total.
Obviously the expedition is one way of letting people know about the dams, but are other methods also being used to raise awareness about the plight of the river?
There are a few. There’s a petition on Rocky’s homepage; he’s part of an organisation called Sierra Rios and they’ve this petition going to try and gather as many names as possible. The aim is for them to hand the signatures over to the Peruvian president and say ‘look at this; here are the voices of this many people and every one of them is opposing the building of these dams’. Rocky’s also trying to raise a bit of money so that the people along the river to be affected by the dam-building can organise a protest march in Lima.
What has the reaction been from people when you tell them about what you’re doing? Firstly with the hard river descent, and also when you tell them about the environmental situation as well?
People have been excited, but it has been hard to get them riled up about these dams because it is tough when you live so far away from a place and you’re not directly involved in what’s happening; when it doesn’t really affect your day-to-day life. But hopefully when I come back from the trip I’ll have more information and I’ll be able to do a better job of explaining what’s happening to the Marañon and the Amazon more generally. But about the trip itself, people are super-excited and quite jealous!
How does this expedition rank on the scale of your previous rafting journeys? Do you think it’ll be one of the harder ones?
This will definitely be one of the harder ones. It’s always tricky when you haven’t paddled a river before, and we’re going to be paddling some Grade V rapids. That’s always tough, especially when you haven’t rafted them previously and when you haven’t actually seen the river. So this trip will definitely be the hardest challenge of my paddling career so far, especially with that high water level.
Am I right in saying that paddling Grade V won’t be the only danger you’ll face out there? Your press release talks about a potentially hostile local tribe; could you please tell us a bit more?The Awajún tribe has a history of sometimes being violent to visitors to the area, especially now, with the dams about to be built. In recent months there have been dam-survey trips going down the river and these people haven’t always been straightforward with the tribe about what their purpose is in the area. So the Awajún feel a bit cheated, a little bit ticked. We have to be very careful that we make it clear about why we are on the river – that we are on their side – otherwise we could run into trouble if they begin to think that we’re a dam-survey group. Also, to pass through certain sections of the river you need permission from the Awajún tribe itself; Rocky is currently working on getting that permission from the tribe leaders. Hopefully we will have it before passing through these areas.
And will you have a translator with you in case there’s trouble?
Hopefully we will have some members of the actual tribe with us on this trip, so that will make it easier with us to interact with these people if we meet them. Rocky did do a trip out to this region in September and, without a translator, he got taken for part of dam-survey team. The tribe detained him for 24 hours in one of the villages and he had to explain himself, and say that he was on their side. He even had to show them a video of himself protesting the dams. So I think it’s really important that we’re open and show that we’re opposing these dams as well.
Which part of the expedition do you think you’re looking forward to the most, and which aspect are you – I won’t say dreading – but are perhaps more apprehensive about?
I’m looking forward to the paddling. Having done the Grand Canyon way back in January, I’m just looking forward to getting back on the water again and doing a new river. If all the rumours are true about this being South America’s Grand Canyon then it’s going to be a fantastic trip with fantastic paddling. I believe there’s something like 80 Grade III rapids and 20 Grade IV rapids, so there’s plenty of white water to look forward to. I’m also excited about interacting with people along the way on this expedition. When I did the Grand Canyon, obviously it is in the States, it’s in a Western country, and there weren’t many people alongside the river. But here we have a chance of interacting with people that few other Westerners get to meet because they’re located in such remote places that you can only be accessed by the river itself.
What I’m dreading: I’m a bit apprehensive about getting mistaken for dam survey crew and perhaps people firing before they’ve asked questions. That’s maybe a little bit of what I’m nervous about.
Understandable! Do you think the expedition will make a change in regards to the damming?
I hope so. For me, I want to gain a little bit more knowledge when I’m away and then when I come home I can then be part of spreading information about what’s happening out on the river. So, I hope we’ll be able to make a difference.
