#383 - “Massacre!” - Paul Rosolie on Uncontacted Tribes Video PROOF, Narco Mass Grave & El Dorado

Summary

Podcast Summary: Julian Dorey Podcast #383

Title: “Massacre!” - Paul Rosolie on Uncontacted Tribes Video PROOF, Narco Mass Grave & El Dorado
Date: February 13, 2026
Host: Julian Dorey
Guest: Paul Rosolie

---

Overview

In this riveting episode, Julian Dorey welcomes conservationist and author Paul Rosolie to discuss the dangerous realities of protecting the Amazon rainforest. They cover mind-blowing encounters with uncontacted tribes (including the first verifiable video evidence), the deadly threat posed by narco traffickers and illegal gold miners, the violence against environmental defenders, and insights on Amazon history, culture, and conservation victories. The tone is raw, at times humorous, deeply personal, and driven by a relentless focus on what it takes to defend the jungle.

---

Main Themes & Purpose

• Exposing the current existential threats facing the Amazon, especially from narco traffickers and illegal miners/loggers.
• Sharing firsthand accounts of violence, close-calls, and the loss of colleagues and friends to targeted killings.
• Revealing new, never-before-seen video proof of uncontacted tribes and the ethical dilemmas around sharing such documentation.
• Highlighting the on-the-ground realities of conservation work, organizational transparency, and the emotional cost of defending nature.
• Illuminating how grassroots action, storytelling, and transparency can yield global conservation victories—and why the fight is far from over.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Deadly New Era: Narco Violence & Conservation

• Paul recounts the day a police official he’d just shaken hands with was shot dead by narco traffickers.
  Quote:

  “I get the phone call. The man whose hand I just shook who saved our asses today, is dead.” (109:59)

• Organized violence has escalated, with narcos putting bounties out for Paul and his Peruvian colleague JJ.
  Quote:

  "If you find the gringo that flies the drone... or Juan Julio Doren, and you can kill him, we’ll reward you.” (111:23)

• A hair-raising near-ambush: Only an impulsive change of plans saved JJ and Paul from armed hitmen waiting on a jungle road.
  Quote:

  "They had him on the ground with a gun against his head: 'Where's Paul and JJ?'... 'Tell them they got lucky today. They're not going to get lucky again.’" (115:02)

• The magnitude of the threat is unprecedented:
  Quote:

  “This was a dangerous job before... now there’s angry people that want to kill us out there.” (125:51)

• Data:

  “2024, at least 146 environmental defenders were killed or disappeared globally, with the vast majority in Latin America.” (127:01)

---

2. Gold Mining: The Amazon’s Wasteland

• Illegal and legal gold mining areas are vast and fiercely guarded by mafias, often with military-grade weapons.
  Quote:

  “You find your guy with the AK47... you don’t go past there.” (138:17)

• Paul describes face-to-face threats from Russian and other mafias, and how his conservation work made him a target.
  Quote:

  “They know your name. They know you raise money to stop them. They're all talking about the fact that you're here right now.” (138:45)

• The scale of destruction:
  Tens of thousands of acres are rendered unlivable, with sandstorms and mercury poisoning in former jungles.

• Desperation drives local people to risk everything for tiny nuggets of gold while destroying irreplaceable ecosystems.

---

3. Jungle Keepers & Transparent Conservation

• Paul details the ethos of Jungle Keepers: open accounting, grassroots funding, and direct action.
  Quote:

  “We started just publishing the funding. This is how we use it. This is what goes to Ranger Pay. This is what goes to Land Acquisition. ... People can see it.” (03:56 - 05:35)

• Illustrative victory: Buying land to stop logging and immediately ending plans to destroy thousands of acres.
  Quote:

  “You looked at all of us and said, ‘What you see here looks like a great loss, but this is actually a huge victory.’” (08:53)

---

4. Uncontacted Tribes — First Direct Video

• Paul shares the story and ethical complexity of filming a direct encounter with an uncontacted Amazonian tribe (Mashco-Piro), coordinated with local indigenous communities and anthropologists.
  Quote:

  "This is the first time in history that we are getting a view into what it was like when people were living in the Stone Age. It's like an aperture back in time.” (196:00)

• The tension of such encounters is palpable:
  Quote:

  “They came down the beach with the bows out. Seven foot arrows.” (189:18)
  “At first, the first two hours were very tense.” (201:18)

• Footage shows exchange of gifts (plantains, rope, clothing) and cultural gestures; the tribespeople speak a dialect related to Yine and display both wariness and curiosity.

• The uncontacted tribes’ existence is under immediate threat from narcos, loggers, and gold miners who have massacred clans and are destroying habitat.

---

5. Facing Existential Overwhelm

• Paul reflects on the impossibility of saving the whole Amazon—and why the “boil your own pot” approach is all anyone can do:
  Quote:

  “For a second, yeah... but that's no way to fight a war. You worry about the hill you're taking. ... We're focused on one thing right here." (55:05 - 55:16)

• “Wawa Theory”: Most Americans, away from screens, get along; it’s a media distortion that makes collapse feel constant.

  "You just heard the bad news from an entire planet. ... Shut your phone. ... Look around you. ... All of a sudden, everything's okay.” (34:58 - 35:25)

---

6. Conservation Wins & Hope

• Paul highlights conservation victories: elephant seals, California condors, and tiger and bald eagle recoveries.
  Quote:

  “Tigers have gone up from I think 3,000 to 5,000. ... Bald eagles are back in the Hudson Valley. ... When you just stop polluting, the wildlife comes back.” (180:41 - 181:07)

• He also stresses the importance of storytelling and mission for mental health and impact.
  Quote:

  “As long as you're on a mission, the human brain is happy. ... If I'm on that level of a mission, why the fuck would I care what some politician said?” (30:21 - 31:33)

---

7. The Unyielding Personal Toll

• Paul shares harrowing injuries and brushes with death: animal attacks, stingray bites, dangerous falls, and more.
• The emotional cost is heavy. Grief over loss of wild places—and determination to carry on driven by love, responsibility, and grassroots support.
  Quote:

  "The thing you love the most gets annihilated in front of your eyes. ... Maybe my job is to bear witness to the loss of something beautiful." (169:38)

---

Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• Narco Threats:

  “The police happened to arrest somebody... If you find the gringo that flies the drone... or Juan Julio Doren, and you can kill him, we'll reward you.” (111:23)

• Uncontacted Tribe Encounter:

  “This is the first time in history that we are getting a view into what it was like when people were living in the Stone Age. It's like an aperture back in time.” (196:00)

• Conservation Transparency:

  "We just didn't do that. We're just direct line. And so now I get to go on all these shows and be like, we are the most direct way to protect the Amazon. And nobody can fight me on that because the IRS says it." (05:35)

• Fear and Focus:

  “For a second, yeah. But again, that's no way to fight a war. You worry about the hill that you're taking. … Done.” (55:05)

• Encounters with Wildlife:

  “I've been charged by a black bear ... I mean, you can make noise and be like, 'Hey, bear, you know, get out of here.' ... I've snowboarded next to a fully running black bear.” (45:38 - 46:57)

• Human Connection:

  “In that moment you get lifted off the ground and you're totally in the movie and you're not thinking about performances or camera angles... that's just where you lose yourself.” (80:58)

• On Media and Outrage:

  “I could post today, we saved 5,000 acres of forest. ... If I show an elephant getting shot in the face... hundreds of thousands of likes, shares. … Distress sells.” (31:33)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

| Time | Segment/Topic | |------|---------------| | 00:00 - 07:47 | Early dangers, narco threats, what drives Paul’s work | | 07:47 - 13:26 | Deforestation, transparent fundraising, conservation impact | | 25:25 - 31:33 | Fear, presence in the jungle, psychological toll | | 34:58 - 39:35 | Media distortion, “Wawa theory," real America vs. perception | | 45:38 - 48:09 | Wildlife encounters, bear charges, perils of the jungle | | 109:56 - 116:09 | Narco violence peaks, assassination of an ally, bounties | | 125:51 - 127:30 | Increased operational danger and cost; defending environmental defenders | | 186:47 - 213:39 | Uncontacted tribe encounter, ethics, documentation; showing the video | | 219:19 - 221:06 | Discussion of ancient Amazon cities, El Dorado myth |

---

Tone, Language & Notable Moments

• Raw and Candid:
  The conversation moves between alarming (massacres, assassinations, macabre jungle realities) and deeply inspiring (conservation wins, living by an unwavering mission).

• Humor and Humanity:
  Despite dire circumstances, the banter is laced with self-deprecation, dark jungle humor, and relief at moments of safety, demonstrating the bond between host and guest.

• Transparency:
  Paul stresses clear accounting, openness with supporters, and the importance of being mission-driven (not organizationally bloated).

• Philosophical:
  The show dwells on deeper issues of what it means to have purpose, the value of human mission, stewardship, and personal sacrifice.

---

Final Takeaways

• The Amazon faces an assault from organized violence: narco traffickers, mafias, and illegal extractors—this is not just a matter of trees, but human lives.
• Grassroots action, transparency, and storytelling work—Jungle Keepers has doubled protected acreage in the last few years and inspired global involvement.
• Contact with uncontacted tribes is a rare, dangerous, ethically-charged phenomenon; these people exist on the edge of time, now under existential threat.
• Saving ecosystems requires focus on what you can change—“worry about the hill you’re taking"—and that meaningful victories still happen, every day.
• The struggle—for land, wildlife, indigenous autonomy—is ongoing, often harrowing, sometimes heroic, but always urgent.

---

Resources

• Jungle Keepers (Paul Rosolie’s organization)
• Paul Rosolie’s new books—including Jungle Keeper and Mother of God
• Paul's Instagram: @paulrosolie — See the viral uncontacted tribe footage

---

Suggested Listening/Viewing

• Full segment on the historic uncontacted tribe encounter (186:47 – 213:39)
• Paul’s intense retelling of narco violence (109:56 – 116:09)
• Conservation impact stories (8:53 – 11:34; 55:05 – 56:34)
• Reflections on media and civilization (31:33 – 39:35)

---

For more, visit The Julian Dorey Podcast or follow @JulianDorey on socials.

---

Transcript

[Paul Rosolie]

So I get the phone call. The man who saved our atlas today is dead.

[Julian Dory]

Who runs these operations?

[Paul Rosolie]

They were Russian gold miners. I've driven up to the gates of that area they call this La Pampa. That is where you find your guy with the AK47. And you don't go past there. We go in there, we're on like dune buggies going across this wasteland. And the Russian guy comes up to me and goes, you are Paul Rosolie. Yes, yes. He goes, I'm just telling you, they know your name. They know that you raised money to stop them. They're all talking about the fact that you're here right now.

[Julian Dory]

And do you feel fear? I wanted to if that would ever register with you, and it did.

[Paul Rosolie]

Not when I was down there for a second. Yeah, but again, that's no way to fight a war.

[Julian Dory]

2024, at least 146 environmental defenders were killed or disappeared.

[Paul Rosolie]

If you can cause that shock letting people see a body, they'll stop. My life mission is saving this forest. I don't care about anything else. And it just so turns out that someone came back with pictures from way out in the Amazon where the narcos had rounded up the uncontacted tribes and just shot dozens of them. All we have to do is leave the jungle and this tribe remains safe.

[Julian Dory]

When you. This moment of contact, though, you come any closer to finding those pyramids, we're.

[Paul Rosolie]

Not going to talk about that.

[Julian Dory]

We're not going to. Wait a minute. You can't just say that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, I certainly can.

[Julian Dory]

You have found something. Hold on. Hey, guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. What's. What's this deal with the, with the hate on the thumbs up emoji? Is this like an Amazonian thing? You're not allowed to use the thumbs up emoji?

[Paul Rosolie]

All I can tell you is that if I send you a thumbs up emoji, know that. Know that it's dead bodies and burning buildings.

[Julian Dory]

That's not good.

[Paul Rosolie]

It's not good if somebody, if somebody texts me, if somebody's really pissing me off, I will send them a thumbs up. I'll give you an example. I texted my friend a thumbs up emoji the other day and he called me five minutes later. He's like, what? What's going on? He's like, is everything okay? And I was like, no, man, I love you. And I didn't realize what I thought? I thought I sent him like a laughing face and I was like, dude, I'm so sorry. So every time, like that's something like my dad does, I'm like, yo, I'll meet you at six. And he's not like, yo, great. Or he's not like, cool. He doesn't heart the message. He just goes, it's just such a, it's such a thumbs up. The yellow thumbs up is just the middle finger of the new generation.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, I don't know, like my setting got changed in like 2014. Black thumbs up. And I just have used that ever since.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, mine is a white girl. All my emojis are white girl.

[Julian Dory]

White girls. Yes, of course you miss them when you're down on the Amazon.

[Paul Rosolie]

It's just the funniest thing is an upset white girl.

[Julian Dory]

Well, dude, it's great to have you back. This is round four. Yeah, it's kind of crazy to think about. Yeah, it's kind of crazy to think about you and me sitting in my parents house like three years ago and now you're this international jungle keeper. Well, celebrity. But I'm very proud of you.

[Paul Rosolie]

It all started at the Julian Dory desk, something.

[Julian Dory]

Well, there was about 17 years before that of you down in the Amazon.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. But getting out to the masses, I don't think, I think it's safe to say wouldn't have happened if we didn't sit down so.

[Julian Dory]

Well, it's, it's cool and it's a nice part of the history of the podcast for sure. Because when I got to go down and Visit you in May 2024, that was a really, really special trip for me. Not just because it was like the first trip I'd taken since I started doing the podcast, but liter. I got to see what you do up close. I always knew it was deadly serious. It was even more deadly serious than I could have anticipated. And also you could see the small little ripple effects that happen when someone like you can come north of the equator for a minute, talk to people about what's really happening and reach people because of the acreage that you're now able to protect down there. So it's amazing to see.

[Paul Rosolie]

It's been amazing to experience this week living through these things. You know, like when they call and said, you know, your book is in New York Times bestseller, I'm like, man, do you know how many years I spent living out of a backpack in the rain? And so like, it's just, it's funny because everybody Keeps going. Dude, congratulations. It's like, it's like when you worked this hard, you're like, cool. Next thing. And when you know that the forest is going to burn if we don't finish this, it's like, it's like there's a feeling when, when you get these things. Like people like, oh, you know, you did the so and so show. And I'm like, yeah, great, more acres. You know, I don't for a second forget the, the reason we're doing this. I'm not. I'm not. But it has been cool and it has been fun. And we have gone from a few thousand subscribers to almost double that with Jungle Keepers, which means people are all over the world seeing this and coming in and saying, we'll help. And I feel like years ago, the thing that people were, you know, the first thing people heard was, oh, an organization that's trying to save the Amazon. They go, we don't believe in organizations. We're jaded. We think all organizations are cooks. They're stealing. We don't know where our funding's going. And then we started just publishing the funding. This is how we use it. This is what goes to Ranger Pay. This is what goes to Land Acquisition. This is what goes to Admin. Done. And people can see it. And if you look at all the big orgs that you can name, you can go on the. Nobody realizes. You can just go on the IRS website and see exactly how they use their money. 90% of their money goes to advertising and the rest goes to paying their CEOs $500,000 a year.

[Julian Dory]

Yep.

[Paul Rosolie]

And so we just didn't do that. We're just direct line. And so now I get to go on all these shows and be like, we are the most direct way to protect the Amazon. And nobody can fight me on that because the IRS says it.

[Julian Dory]

Also, he lives on, like, a wood floor with no running water. Dead ass. Serious. So, you know, if you guys are taking money like other organizations, I don't know where that shit's going, but not to you.

[Paul Rosolie]

So it's crazy. They make you report down to, like, the can of tuna. It's crazy.

[Julian Dory]

That's for the best. It really is. As you pointed out, there are so many organizations that take advantage of this and it's well beyond just CEO pay. They're straight up stealing money. And I understand why. People get jaded, especially when we're talking about something that's half a world away. They can't see it every day. So you sharing it as Aggressively as you do, and then also being transparent with everything that the organization does is really important.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And when I look at what the. It's. And it drives me crazy when I see people. We had a guy recently, he reached out and he goes, oh, I just gave money to Blank Organization. I don't want to start a war. But he said, major organization that we've all heard of. He said, I just gave money to them. And he goes, it's driving me crazy. I don't know where my money went. And he's like. And so he called me up. I'd cold call. I'd never spoken to this person in my life. He just said, I want to be a major donor. Major donor. Okay. Got on the phone with him. He said, what are you working on right now? I said, we have a narco trafficking road coming down from the north of our territory. I said, we don't have the firepower to stop it. They're going to bulldoze the forest. We also can't protect the land until we own it, until we add it to the reserve. And he said, well, how much is the piece of land? I said, it's thousands and thousands of acres, but it's 200 grand. And I said, we just don't have it. Have it right now. And I was just telling him. Because I was just telling him what we were working on. He just goes, I'll write you a check. He sent in the 200 grand the same week we bought the land. I flew the drone over the land, sent him a picture of just unbroken jungle from horizon to horizon. And I went, dude, you just saved millions of animal heartbeats. Thank you. And he went. I mean, he threw a party for his family. He was just like.

[Julian Dory]

Just from the drone footage.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I mean, he's. I mean, yeah, that's all he needed to see. That forest was there because of him. And so it was just. That was cool. And then I got, you know, then. Then these people come out and I get to meet them, and it's fun.

[Julian Dory]

No, I've. I've told people. I think the coolest moment I had down there was when you took us all up river.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

There were like seven of us going up river. You're like, ah, shit. You guys want to take a ride? We got to go up. We'll be out for like, 20 minutes, then we'll come back. It's a long boat ride. We were like, fuck, yeah, let's do it. So you took us up just past where the leaf cutter incident was. We'll talk about that later. But you took us up there. We. We, like, go up this side embankment. None of us know where we're going. You do, though.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And we get through these trees, and it was actually like, a tragic sight. You saw all the barren, like, trees that had just been freshly knocked down. The pile of sawdust that was. I don't. I don't even know how.

[Paul Rosolie]

Now I know where you're talking about.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah. I don't even know how many feet high that was, but it was at least 15ft high. And you see these literal, like, stations where they had this, which I've kept here since then. Fresh.

[Paul Rosolie]

Is that from there?

[Julian Dory]

That's from there. Oh, yeah. Fresh tape measures. I keep this in the studio all the time from all the loggers who had been cutting this down.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's a logger. This is from that spot.

[Julian Dory]

It's from that spot.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's why.

[Julian Dory]

And you could literally still see, like, smoke billowing off where the fires. Scorched earth had been like, just their personal fires. And so all of us were speechless when we saw it. Because you were like. It was actually, like, well done. Without trying to be dramatic. It was dramatic because we were like, what the did we just walk into? And I climbed on top of the sawdust, and I looked out and I saw just all these trees gone. I don't know acreage by eyesight very well, but it was a lot. And then you looked at all of us while we were all just staring at this and said, what you see here looks like a great loss, but this is actually a huge victory.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Because as of yesterday at 1pm, thanks to many donations from the grassroots around the world and from people like you who support this thing, you know, we now own this area. The loggers are out of here, and, yes, this little spot sucks, but they were gonna knock down, like, a hundred thousand acres back there. And now we're just gonna use the wood that they knocked down here to build a new research station right here. Put it to good use and protect the rest of this. Let's go.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yep.

[Julian Dory]

That was like goosebumps on me. So.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And there's a ranger station there now where we were standing. It's all cleaned up. The forest is regrowing again. You're not going to have ancient trees there for a while, but that's fine. There's macaws moving in. And the whole thing with that one was it was a. I think it was a 3,000 acre piece of land they had deforested like 5 acres, 10 acres maybe. And they had built a road back there and they had a plan to deforest the, the rest of the 3,000 acres. And then exactly like you said, because of that one was because all of the individual people that give five dollars, ten dollars, a hundred dollars a month, we were able to just go to them and just go, how long is it going to take you to log that 3,000 acres? And they're like, oh, the next, like three years we're going to be working. Next six years, probably we'll be working on this. And we just went, we'll pay you today to leave. They went, yeah. And then they're like stoked. They're like, they're not enemies, they're allies. That's the coolest part is they're like, really? And then once they get to it, they're like, great. They're like, we'll show you the cool parts of the land. And it's like they like the land, they love the land. They're also like, there's big trees, like, sure, you don't want to just cut a few of them. And we're like, we're not in the business. You don't get it.

[Julian Dory]

But you could check like that's the thing. Like people are some people out there. There's obviously two groups. There's people that are actually evil and you've talked about that before. But then there's people who are like making a living and this is who pays them. And if you give them an opportunity to join, you know, Team USA or whatever you want to call it and save the Amazon Bookkeepers. Right, Join jungle keepers as a joke. But you know, save the Amazon. They'll do it if they can support.

[Paul Rosolie]

Their families and they'll do it happily. Yeah, that's the important thing is they'll, they're, they're totally happy to do it. They're thankful because they don't have to cut down tree. I mean, it's so dangerous cutting down a fucking 160 foot tree. Yeah, that's four times the size of this room. And watching that thing fall, I mean, one time there's a tree falling and it was going away from me. So I was like, I'm safe. It was my first big tree that I ever saw go down. I went, I'm safe. And it bent this palm tree down, down, down with it until that palm tree snapped and like a 15 foot shard came rotating back towards me. I've never been so scared in my life. And I turned as this 15 foot shard of tree is rotating, it was like final destination. I was like, this thing's just going to cut me in half. And I started running. I'd been standing there barefoot and I like started running. And as I'm running, you know those black spikes?

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

I felt my foot just go, oh. And I felt all the spikes go deep into this, the arch tissue of my feet. But I had to keep running. I just went, oh, you know where it's like, it hurts so much that it like takes, it like takes the guts out of you. You like, you feel, you feel white and you start shaking. That really hurt.

[Julian Dory]

I'll bet it did.

[Paul Rosolie]

I've been really hurt. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Somehow like you, you're not this guy like that has the scars literally all over your body. I don't know how. I mean, when I was walking through there, I got scratches I could still see today. I was there for two weeks.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, no, I heal like Wolverine, dude. I mean, I have a tiger bite right there and I don't, I have a snake bite there. I have a huge crocodile bite right there. I mean my legs, I almost chopped the, the kneecap off of my, my leg last year. I have the stingray bite, but it's like unfortunate. I actually wish it would be more fun to be like, here's my scars, right? They heal. They do heal really well. So at least I have photographic proof of the injury. And then it just vanishes. Maybe it's the tree SAP that keeps.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, they got a SAP for that. What happened with the tiger bite again?

[Paul Rosolie]

I was holding. It's funny because I actually wrestled with like a 6 month old like 200 pound tiger.

[Julian Dory]

Awesome.

[Paul Rosolie]

And I was like, just, you know, like you do with your dog, smacking them in the face and wrestling with them and taking them down and doing all that. And I was, and then, and then they, they handed me a smaller tiger, like a, like a young tiger, a kitten by all measures. And I was playing with this thing and they were like, hey, the kittens are more dangerous than the big one because the big one knows that, like he'll inflict damage by biting you. And they're like, also those baby teeth are so sharp. Just like a puppy. They're like, they are so sharp. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like I know what I'm doing. And then it like was playing, playing, playing. And it looked me in the eye, it looked me straight in the eye and went, watch this. And it just bit straight through my pinky finger. And I, I Stood up and there was a bunch of junk like wires and stuff hanging out of there. And I went, oh, I just felt very hot for a second. And I went, I think I'm gonna get a drink. And then I. I woke up in the lap of this man. And he was like, you fainted? And I was like, no, I don't faint. I was like, I'm fine with blood. He goes, you don't faint. He goes, yeah. He goes, why is your phone over there? And he goes, your glasses are over there. He's like, you're. You just yard sailed your. He's like, you fell over. I was like, okay. I was like. I was like, that really hurt.

[Julian Dory]

Was it worse than the stingray bite?

[Paul Rosolie]

No, it didn't hurt at all compared to the stingray bite. Stingray bite was. The only thing I can tell you is like, I've been electrically shocked before. And I think if you took an electrical wire, stripped the rubber off of it, and then intravenously shoved it up your veins and kept going, I think that's what it feels like to be stung by an Amazonian stingray. That's the other thing. People keep being like, oh, I got stung by a stingray at the beach and it was fine. This is not like that. This is a different thing. It's like getting stung by like, you know, a honeybee versus, you know, a giant tarantula hawk like the wasps. It's a different. It's a different thing. I've never. I didn't know that there was a register for pain like that.

[Julian Dory]

Most people don't think about their mattress until it becomes a problem. You start waking up sore, overheating, or just feeling more tired than you should, and it's hard to tell what changed. That's usually when you realize you got to upgrade your mattress. And this is where my friends at Ghostbed are here to help. Ghostbed is a family run company with more than 20 years of Matt. Their background is in manufacturing, so the focus stays on materials, construction, and long term durability, rather than quick comfort tricks that fade after a year. Every Ghostbed mattress is designed to feel the same over time, not just on night one. They use high quality foams, built in cooling and thoughtful design choices that help the mattress keep its shape and support your body where it actually needs it. And Ghostbed also keeps their pricing grounded. Their mattresses cost up to 50% less than comparable brands, largely because they don't stack unnecessary markups onto their products. You're paying for how the MA mattress is Built, not how it's advertised. Every mattress also comes with a 101 night sleep trial, an industry leading warranty and fast free shipping today. As a listener of my podcast, you can take an extra 10% off the top of Ghostbed's already great prices by going to ghostbed.com Julian. That link is in my description below. And using promo code Julian at checkout. That's ghostbed.com Julian link in my description below. Promo code Julian for an extra 10 off your order. Some exclusions apply. C site for details. How long did it last? Like three hours, four hours?

[Paul Rosolie]

It lasted like five hours. And so when I got it, I instantly knew it was also funny because I was filming myself. I had my. I was like, oh, let me get a shot of me in the waterfall for blah, blah, blah. And then I, I just. You see me get. I'm like, oh God. Oh God. And. And then you just go, oh God, it's happening. It's like there's nothing you can do. It already happened. You can't get away from it. And then even in that moment, I've been so trained to, like, no matter what's going on, take footage, get footage of what's going on. And so I like, take out my phone and I'm like, all right, the worst thing ever just happened. The thing I've been scared about. Stingray bite. And I'm like. And my friend comes up to me and he goes, there's no time. He's like, it's about to get so much worse. And I was like, what do you mean it's gonna get worse? It's like, this is the max pain I've ever felt. And he was like, while you can still talk, we got to get you out of here. And I was like, what? I don't remember going from where we were back to the station. And it was. It was like a 20 minute, 30 minute ride. And then it was up the stairs. I do not remember.

[Julian Dory]

It was Pico driving.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, Pico wasn't there. And then I remember waking up on the deck of the station in so much pain and you couldn't even put my foot down. I was try rolling on my left, rolling on my right. I mean, I literally was like going, I'll. I'll. Is there any. Because there's always a fix, right? There's always like a way out. You can always figure out something like, oh, like this hurts. I could take a. It's like it's inside you and it's traveling up your leg and it's going through your system and it's radiating through your head and. And your leg feels like it's gonna die of necrosis. And. And then I'm going, how many months? Because the last guy I know that got hit by a stingray. He got hit just like me in the foot. He didn't walk again for two and a half months. He had a systemic infection. He spent time in the hospital, so, like, it took him out of the game. So I was sitting there going, like, this is going to be a major part of my year. I just, like, really lost time. So it wasn't just the pain pain. It was also the projected pain. And then JJ's nephew went and started scraping a tree with his machete, getting the medicines off of it. And then JJ's brother William also started scraping this other tree. And then they went and they packed it together and they made this. This poultice of medicine and they baked it on this. I had no idea this was going on. I was just laying on my back, sucking Marlboro Reds two at a time. I had emergency pack, which is just like oxys and marbles. And I was like, get me the emergency. No, I just had the cigs. I did not have the other things, but they took the poultice and they put it on the arch of my foot. And the hot does feel good. That thing that people are correct about, the hot helps denature the venom, like, really hot. You burn the skin at the expense of denaturing the venom, and then that helps. It drew the venom out. So three hours, four hours later, I didn't know. The only medication I had was ibuprofen. Oh. And I looked up. I had some. I know, but I had somebody look up how much ibuprofen you could take in a day without harming yourself. And it was like 6,000 milligrams. So I was like. She took a pile of them, which instantly put me to sleep. And so I had made it through, like, four hours of pain. And then by the time I was like, I'm just going to take this mountain of blue pills, I. I was. I woke up at like, 9:00 clock at night, and I was like, okay, the pain is back down to 10. You know, one out of 10 instead of a 10 out of 10.

[Julian Dory]

Sounds like you got, like, lucky on the other side of it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Very lucky. And because they sucked the venom out.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

It didn't get infected. I didn't have necrosis. I didn't have nerve damage. It was indigenous medicine. That saved the foot. Otherwise I'd still be limping. I mean, all my friends that have gotten stung by a stingray, it took them months and months to heal. I was up on my feet the next day, like walking around gently, like with wearing flip flops, which for me is like being in a wheelchair.

[Julian Dory]

Right. That's still like, it's great. It's amazing that the saps can work.

[Paul Rosolie]

Like, it's amazing the saps can work like that. And it's also amazing to me that they knew in that situation to like, they knew exactly which tree to go to. They were like, we've done this before. This has happened before. They knew which two trees to get, how to what, you know, how deep to go into the bark and then how to pack it together and then they wrap it in a heliconia leaf and they, they fry it on a pan. And someone was taking footage of all of this. I don't even know after. I don't remember.

[Julian Dory]

I saw a bunch of this.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was carried up the stairs by friends. They took such good care of me. That was. That was one of those days where you look around at your friends and you go, yo, thank you, guys.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, that's also, by the way, just so people understand. It's not like five stairs. You got to walk down like a quarter mile road and then you go up. I think it was. I count it was like 105 or 110 steps straight up the side of a hill and then up the H more and they're carrying you on like a wooden plank or some.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I was on the wooden plank on the flats for the stairs. I saw the footage later, but I had, I had arms over people and I was like. I was like one footing it. I'm talking. I just don't remember it. Yeah. So, yeah, that, that was interesting. But I'm again, that's still not as bad as. Did you see the video where I fall off the cliff? No, that we need to pull up. That we need to pull up. That is. This is the most insane thing. How long ago was this? This was like April. It is the most. Oh, we gotta go. Way bad decision I've made in a long time. I was driving.

[Julian Dory]

I missed that. Paul.

[Paul Rosolie]

I don't know, but it's. It just says big fall on the front of it and it's like a 60 foot fall.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, you're still in January. Thief. He posts a lot. So def will get it. But you start explaining, then we'll go.

[Paul Rosolie]

Not as we're going down the river, and there's like this new avalanche on the river. So it was like this whole chunk of the river that had come down, it was. It was. It was exposed clay. And then so there's roots coming off the top. And it doesn't look that high. And I go like. It looks like it's, like, soft. I'm like, I got this. I can get up this. And I was like, stefan, I'm going up. And he was like, you got this? Yeah, check this out. So I. All right, just play that.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, no, no, no, no.

[Paul Rosolie]

So this is it. So look, I'm going. And I like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Very good. Right? And I'm like, okay.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, you're like, all the way up it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Almost like 65ft straight up. And now I gotta get up the last bit, but the. The. The land is falling away.

[Julian Dory]

Come on.

[Paul Rosolie]

So I'm pure on arm strength. I actually got a hand over, and then I just go flying down the mountain. Stefan's filming. Look. Whack. Oh.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, you sick out of here.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, good.

[Julian Dory]

I'm not.

[Paul Rosolie]

I had bruised ribs. I couldn't sleep for two months. I mean, at the moment, it feels good. Yeah. And then, you know, they say it's gonna hurt in the morning, that if I just went a little bit farther, though there's all sticks facing me. I would have just been impaled. The fact that that whole fall happened. And look, it's the first. Watch. It's the first. You don't realize, but that top bit is 20ft, right? So I fell vertically 20ft and landed on my ribs.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah. Look how small. You can see it.

[Paul Rosolie]

So small. So watch. And I. When I go. This is from far away. You could barely see that. You can barely see. You see the impacts. But watch when the first fall. Right there. Whack. That. Just landing on the left side ribs was brutal. I really thought I was dead. I really thought as I was falling, I was like, okay, this is the ninth life. I was like, this one's. This one's it.

[Julian Dory]

I've never been able to figure out if you're a shining example of being anti Darwinism or pro Darwinism, because, like, in a lot of ways, you do everything to kill yourself, which says, like, that's gonna be Darwinism working.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And then in a lot of ways, it's like, you know, you're gonna survive because you're unbreakable. And it's like, therefore, I can do everything that everyone else can. So fuck Charles Darwin.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. I Don't want to. I don't even go there. That was like, I do it. I don't do that. That's like asking the tightrope walker, like, you know, do you worry about falling? It's like, no, no, no. It's like, if it looks fun, you do it.

[Julian Dory]

Do you feel fear?

[Paul Rosolie]

I feel fear of. Of. Not those things, though. Like, in that moment, I was like, this is awesome. It was all awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Oh, shit. And then it was awesome again, you know? So, like, I feel fear about, like, ideas. Like, fear is like, you know, the idea of being paralyzed or the idea of having to do more math homework at some point. I still have, like, like, back to school dreams. I really hated fear.

[Julian Dory]

That's like. That's a stress.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

I'm saying, like, do you ever. And we'll get to some of the other stuff later about tribes and things like that, but do you ever have a. Even if it's just a moment where you're preparing for something you're gonna do, could be something normalish out in the jungle that has some stakes to it where you're like, oh, I might not come back from this. And that actual, like, quote unquote, gift of fear sets in.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, I like that feeling, though.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

Like, I remember being a kid and the. The light switch for the basement was in the basement, not at the top of the stairs where it should be. So you had to, like, run down the stairs and flip on the switch or else, like, the darkness would get you. And I remember being very, like, like 4 or 5 years old and being very scared of that. But I'd also be like, this is fun. And as an adult, you don't get that that much until you're poised over a crocodile and you're like, okay, when I drop, I'm going to grab this thing by the neck and it's going to be teeth and power. And if I mess up and it grabs a finger, it is going to twist that finger off of my body so quickly or my hand that I will. This is an irreversible moment. So once I start falling forward and grab, Whatever happens next is up to the writers of reality. And I mean, so it's like that at that moment I go, oh, shit. And I feel that fear. But again, that's a good fear. Or the moment that you're high up on a tree branch and I was up on one of those millennium trees in the. In the top, you know, skyscraper, you can't even see the ground. And this camera Guy is flying the drone and he goes dude, it would be epic. He's on a radio. I can't even hear him from the ground. He's on a radio. And he beeps in. He's like dude, it'd be awesome if you stood on that branch. And I'm like yeah sure. And I like stand up on the branch and try to like look like something and then like a bee flew by my head and I was like. And like almost just fell 70ft. I had a rope on. But I heard it was the same thing that. That shot they show of Alex Honnold where he has his back to El Cap. Dude, I think this is the story I heard. I do not know this for sure but I did. I heard that the photographers were like dude, it would be epic if you put your back to the wall. And he was like. And they were like it's going to make a cover shot. And he was like you never naturally. You never have your back to the wall in rock climbing. It's just not something you would ever do right.

[Julian Dory]

But that guy though, he does not feel fear. Scientists studied his brain and I think it was to correct me in the comments if I this up off memory but I think it was like they measured his amygdala and it does not register like the same neuro firing straight.

[Paul Rosolie]

Up doesn't have like he's. He won't start sweating. Yeah, you make a great spy.

[Julian Dory]

Don't do that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Don't do what?

[Julian Dory]

What if he is?

[Paul Rosolie]

What if he is?

[Julian Dory]

What if he is?

[Paul Rosolie]

He's just. He's just a spy living out of a van and being front fronting as a rock climber for years and years and years.

[Julian Dory]

This is the wrong time to be putting this thought in my head. Paul. Rosalie. The Epstein files keep coming out and they're worse and worse.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh God. I thought you meant like a normal spy. Like no and stuff.

[Julian Dory]

Okay, well I wasn't saying like I'm not. Yeah, we're not going there without.

[Paul Rosolie]

Look, I don't know enough about the real world to. To. To even go there.

[Julian Dory]

You know I'm jealous of you for that. I love that you're like so checked out from the civilization crumbling that happens when halfway around the world when you're just there in the middle of the Amazon and hey, I fully understand why you are. When you're out there you're just a little speck and the universe is just right around you.

[Paul Rosolie]

It's very grounding. They say touch grass. It's like we'll go walk in the jungle.

[Julian Dory]

Fuck, yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. Dude, that was funny. Snoop Dogg reposted a video me wrestling with an anaconda. And the comments were great, but it was like, well, you know, of course, it was all like, this is like the most extreme white people shit I've ever seen. And then the next one was like, bro, you touched enough grass. Go home. That's enough. It was. The comment section was fantastic.

[Julian Dory]

Well, you're like. What I observed is that the reason I kind of asked you about the fear tooth is because I wanted to see if that would ever register with you. And it didn't. Did not when I was down there, but when I was observing you, like, just kind of watching you in your element, you are just hyper present at all times. You know, obviously, like, we're not on our phones out there. That's a pretty common type thing. Like, unless you're literally shooting a video of content, which that week you weren't really even doing.

[Paul Rosolie]

No.

[Julian Dory]

You know, you're not with. You're not connected with that. But it was never like, oh, you know, it's seven o', clock, we're going to do this thing. It was just like, here we are right now. Whatever it is, no matter how small of a thing it was or how like, oh, this is actually like a serious thing. Like, when we were looking at New Air, where they had taken over illegally and stuff like that, you were just always right there and focused on what was in front of you. And I got to think that that's an environmental, just trained thing that you probably had that. But it got developed like crazy when you moved down to the Amazon.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And it's also something that I enjoy and that you can't have unless you have a mission and, you know, necessity. And so when you're doing something, I mean, honestly, it could be something as mundane as washing the dishes, where you're like, I got to get this giant thing of dishes. And it's like you kind of get lost in it for a while and then you don't. You're not paying attention. But when you're driving the boat and you're like, oh, there's a heron and there's the skimmers, and like, oh, there's that Cayman. And you just. You're just kind of observing and taking it in, that's the greatest state of mind you can be in because you're basically happy or at least you're neutral and you're. You're taking in information that's relevant to you, like I'm taking in data on the river, which again, is not the important part. It's just, it's just you're just driving the boat and you're doing whatever you're doing. And it's like that to me is, is almost like meditation bliss. And so, yeah, walking through the jungle to what, the day we went and saw the area that they were coming into, yes, you're doing something that's hard and you're seeing something that's devastating and you're, and you're trying to stop this thing. That's very scary. But you're on a mission. And as long as you're on a mission, the human brain is happy. We are mission based. We need to be on the. We need to be fishing, trapping, carrying water, chopping wood, figuring out problems. And I've, I've just found out that as long as I'm on a mission, I'm okay. And it's like when you're sitting there going, what do I do next? And I think that's a pr. I think that's what, why everyone's so delirious with like, politics and all of like, the distraction crap that's on the screens is because, like, first of all, like, I feel like 10 years ago big people wouldn't fall for it as quickly. And I feel like in other countries, in, in the Amazon, I feel like in the south, even people are like, what'd you guys forget? There's, what's the song where he goes, you blow up your tv, move to the country, find you Jesus, build you a home. And it's like, I think it's a John Prine song, but it's like, it's such like a feel good song. But it's like, blow up your tv, get out. Because as soon as you disconnect from the screen. I had a hysterical friend not that long ago who is yelling at me, saying it's my responsibility to be more outraged about what? I don't know, politics, Nancy Pelosi? I have no idea. And I said, I said, listen, man. I said, did you know that. Did you know there's only 6,000 cheetahs left on Earth? I said, you know, there's, there's almost 600 California condors because of conservation efforts. I said, I am so focused on what I have to do. I said, you think when Michael Jordan is at the NBA finals, did you think he's thinking about anything else? You think he cares? Do you think Mike cared about anything else that didn't have to do with A basketball? No, no. My life mission is saving this forest. I don't care about anything else. And I believe that saving this forest and fixing the environment is the most important thing that could. That is the defining issue of our time right now. And that if we don't do it, we're the last generation that's going to have a chance to do it. So if I'm on that level of a mission, civilizations rise and fall. Why the fuck would I care what some politician said to another politician? It happens every week and it never stops. And the whole tactic is to get you outraged. And I've noticed this even with. Even in the microcosm of my own social media I could post Today, we saved 5,000 acres of forest. And like, you know, a small amount of people, 2000 people will like it. It's great. If I show an elephant getting shot in the face, the most disturbing thing that will ruin your day and make you feel sick and hurt your heart. Hundreds of thousands of likes, shares up. Like, people go nuts. And so I understand why the news does it. It. It's a ratings machine. Bleeds, it leads, it bleeds, it leads. Which also. That's the other thing that is the best. If I literally bleed, like every time I'm bleeding, it does great, but no. Distress. Distress sells. And so today it's like they've become. It's become. Because of. We've never had this type of connectivity before where everyone's on their phones and everyone has a tv. And even when you're not on your phone or your tv, you get into a cab and there's a screen, or you try and fill gas at the thing and there's a screen. And so coming from the jungle, I'm like, wait a second. Second. Like, I'm like, guys, stop. Like, stop it. I'm like, get out of my face. Like, you gotta stop at some point. And. And so. And I just don't know why, but literally. So this distraught friend of mine was saying, the world is falling apart and it's never been a worse time. And everything is so distressing. I said, well, what the. What's wrong? I said, open your phone. And it was like, the prime minister of the Philippines has been shot in the face. It was like, what's the next thing? A snow leopard has mauled someone in Cambodia. And I was like, what's next? And they were like, like in Kentucky. Like, a building fell over. And I was like, what's next? And I was like, you just heard the bad news from an entire Planet?

[Julian Dory]

Yes.

[Paul Rosolie]

I said, now, let's try and experiment. Let's try and experiment. I said, shut your phone. We literally shut off his phone, which he. He felt very distressed. You could see he was like, what do I do? How do I know where to go? What's going to happen next? None of us had phones growing up. I said, look around you. Are any of the people dying that you can see right now? No. Are the trees on fire? The mountains falling over? Are the heavens splitting? No. Is there a race war happening around us right now? Nope. And so it's like you can just walk through the street and all of a sudden everything's okay. Yep. I went to a. I went to My friends have the. The food truck, the Packalachian. And I went to this Southern music festival called the. The Rhythm Roots. And there was every kind of. I mean, there was the cops, there was black people, white people, Southerners, Northerners. Every type of person, you know, purple hair and piercings and every. Everything. Everybody. Everybody having a good time. Everybody having a good time. The only indication that there was even like a America problem was that they had snipers on every rooftop, which, as a person that comes from a cop family, I was very happy about. I was literally saluting all them. Thank you for keeping us safe. Last thing we need is a shooter. And if there is, shut them down. But it was like, I almost wanted to write an article about it where I said, wait a second. This is the America I see what's right in front of me. I'm watching cops sitting next to, you know, people cut. Biker gang people. Right. Sharon. I like having ice cream cones next to each other, laughing like, this is what's actually happening. It's only when you watch it through the screen that did you start going insane. And so. So, you know, that's why I stay in the jungle.

[Julian Dory]

You know that phrase, death by a thousand cuts?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

We live in a world now where it's death by a cut. Right. You can show something anecdotal. One thing.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

In some place far away from you or whatever.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And that anecdote becomes the definition of whatever the thing is. So, like, this type of violence is happening in this type of community. Therefore it happens in all the communities everywhere right now. Because I'm seeing this, and it's so bad.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And there's something very unnatur about us having access to that. And like, in my job, part of my job, I do all different topics here, but one of the many lanes we have is we're covering Things that are happening. And right now is actually an example of a time with these Epstein files where there is, there should be righteous rage, like if you don't waste your time with it. But like it's awful. There's. There's no other way to put it. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen and it does need to be addressed because they're going to try to cover it up. That said, dead, like I've always had this thought, like this theory if you will. I call it the Wawa theory. So you remember back at my parents house, like, I don't know if I ever did this with you, but usually when I pick people up from the airport, we stop by Wawa. Okay. And so I was locked away in the woods for three years, like three and a half years building the podcast. And so I didn't have a lot. Like I would connect with people when they came over the house and I didn't spend a lot of time like outside the house. So when I'd go to Wawa, this is when I'm seeing a lot of people.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And during times where social media was flipping out at the highest levels about shit in society, I would literally watch the purple haired girl hold the door for this 75 year old dude with the nom hat.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yes.

[Julian Dory]

And they'd probably hate each other from behind a keyboard, but they were cool and smiled and said thank you.

[Paul Rosolie]

That was incredibly well presented.

[Julian Dory]

Thank you. I've done it before.

[Paul Rosolie]

That was great. I mean the purple hill girl and Nam has like, that was like a. That was like you, like, you practiced it. That was really good. That's exactly, that's exactly my point. Made more eloquently than I could make it. I just. So yeah, it's very scrambling coming back and seeing everybody delirious and I'm like, could you help me save the Amazon? And the other great thing about saving the Amazon is that it's all nobody, nobody, nobody disagrees with it. Like everyone needs to breathe air and drink water. And I would think it's like a 99 to 1 sort of thing where I think everyone wants there to be animals. Like there's probably some sort of Manson like guy who's like rubbing his ears and like he's like, no, I want them all dead. You know, that's probably that guy. But, but everyone else is like, theoretically, yes. I wanted a world where there's polar bears and elephants in the Amazon rainforest. Like I think that's pretty standard. We can all agree. So yeah. You know, it's nice because when I. When I. When I welcome people to the tree house or. Or to the jungle, it's just all, everybody's a friend. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And the other thing is, like, you know, some people are like, dude, you went to the middle of the Amazon. Are you nuts? I was like, here's the really strange thing. And I don't say this to be, like, you know, nonchalant about it, but you can't really explain till you get out there. I felt incredibly safe and natural in the environment at all times. Like, you weren't afraid of an anaconda getting you. You weren't afraid of a jaguar. They want nothing to do with you. The worst things you have to worry about are, like, a falling tree.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. I mean, also, nobody's gonna mug you. You're not gonna get hit by a car.

[Julian Dory]

Right.

[Paul Rosolie]

You know, scaffolding isn't gonna fall on you. It's like, it is more safe out there statistically than it is when you're in your house. I mean, I think driving is way more. Way more dangerous. But the Amazon just sounds. People just don't want to get bitten by a bullet ant or stung by a stingray, and they don't know that those things aren't everywhere in the Amazon. Just like you go for. I went for the first time, and I was like, I hope there are snakes on every branch. Walk for six hours and not find a snake. Like, sometimes when I'm guiding people, I'm like, they want to see a snake. And I'm trying to find a snake. Not that easy. And they blend in and they don't want to be seen.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah. You get them on the cameras, though, a lot. You get crazy on all the cameras. Tell people about the cameras like you set up because they're all over the jungle. It was amazing how many you had.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. So I've been doing camera trap stuff for years and years, which is where you put out the little trail cam with a little memory card, and you put those out there. And so they're watching quietly. And the trick I've learned is a. Make them lower than you think, because a lot of these animals will drop their heads like a jag. Even if he's, you know, tall, they'll drop their head when they're walking. And so you want this face level so you put it a little bit lower and you figure out where the animals move. You look at the game trails. You got to do a little bit of thinking like an animal to put these things out you could just stick it on the side of a trail. It's not as good. Good. You want them coming straight at you. And so I've been monitoring the Amazonian forest with these trail cams for 15 years. And that was the, that was like one of the first things I had was I put together a compilation of trail cam footage that at the time I was like 20 something. And it won a United nations award. And it was like no one could believe that in one spot in the forest, I think I had two cameras in this one little clearing and there was over 2,000 videos of something like 60 species. And it was just this place with all these animals. I called it an unseen world. And that just goes on every single day. Pumas with their babies. For some reason, the mother puma that lives right behind the station, she keeps having twins. Not twins, but she'll have like two cubs at a time. And so you see this big mother puma walking out and then like her son and her daughter are even bigger than she is. And so you just go, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's a herd of pumas. Yeah, that's wild. Like there's a herd of mountain lions walking through the jungle. And then we have, you know, the jags are big. The bit, the jags are thick and you have tapers and we have peccary are back now because our forests are recuperating from the logging and industry thing that happened in the 90s, the mahogany boom. And so there's just, there's just all this wildlife. And if you walk through the forest, you know this, you don't see a thing. All the animals know you're coming. The deer are gone, the peccaries are gone. The jaguars watching you from somewhere else. The birds are off.

[Julian Dory]

See footprints.

[Paul Rosolie]

You see footprints? Yeah. JJ calls it the morning news. That's how he checks the news report. He goes, let's go see the news. He checks. He's like, oh, jaguar came here. He's like, oh, the deer went that way. You know, the jaguars following the deer. He sees who, who walked where. But yeah, we have just, just stacks on stacks of hard drives now of visions into the Amazon, which would at some point be so cool to do like a full on documentary of look at what's happening in this forest. But now this is only the floor of the forest. You got to think you have 160 foot can. If you really wanted to do it right. If you wanted to do it like planet earth level, you would have. You'd grid the whole thing like A cube. You do it like a Rubik's cube of cameras in every direction. And so you'd get like a 4D model of the 3D model of the whole jungle, so you'd see where the animals are moving and watch them go into their hole and come back out the next day. And that would be cool. That would be super cool. But right now we have the ground level perspective of we see when they cross the trails. And you'll see, you'll see a puma cross the trail and scent mark a tree. And then you'll see the jaguar cross that same trail and be like, oh, no, no, no, my trail.

[Julian Dory]

When you say scent mark a tree, can you explain that to people?

[Paul Rosolie]

They'll spray urine on the tree. And that is dog with a fire hide. Like a dog. Yeah. And so with the cats, they use urine and scat to delineate where their ranges are. And so the female jaguars know to stay off where the male jaguars are to keep their cubs away from dangerous males. The pumas, which are, you know, featherweights compared to a jaguar that's. That's thick and tough. They will stay out of the way. And so the jaguars, and on everything. And of course, all the other animals have great smell. So they know where the cats are and how recently they've been there. And I always say, like, the animals know what we're thinking to a degree, how stressed we are. Like, an animal knows your intention of pose. Like, if you walk, you know, when you're approaching deer, if you kind of keep your eyes this way and use your peripheral vision, and you're like, all right, so the deer is over here. Deer. But I'm going to walk over here and I'm just going to keep my gestures and everything in this direction. It's like the deer will clock that and say, okay, well, you're not, you're not interested in me. They know. And then the moment you square up to them, gone. And that's. That goes for birds, you know, mammals, whatever. The only thing that really doesn't react is bears. They don't have a very. Like, a bear will go from walking to charging without a lot of. Like, there's, there's no, there's no, there's no transition period with bears. It's really weird.

[Julian Dory]

There's not really anything you can do from a strategic standpoint.

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, you can make noise and be like, hey, bear, you know, don't get out of here. But I'm saying, like, if a cat is interested in you, they'll Kind of clock you first. You see them, get interested where they're going. Okay, you're interesting. Whereas a bear will kind of do this thing where they're like, I'm eating berries. I'm eating berries. I'm gonna kill you. And it's like they go quick. And so I've been. I've been charged by a black bear.

[Julian Dory]

And again, charged by a black bear.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I've done lots of stuff with a BlackBerry. Yeah, I've been. I've been charged.

[Julian Dory]

Where were you charged by a black bear? In New York.

[Paul Rosolie]

In New York. They're all over the place. But I mean, like, I was walking.

[Julian Dory]

Tackle it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I was. You know, I had her around the neck and. No, I was walking. I was walking on this trail. I was walking on this trail, and she was walking on another trail. And so we came sort of like face to face on a. On a V. And so she came and I came and then. And she just lifted her paws in the air and just went boom.

[Julian Dory]

And that she'd do, like.

[Paul Rosolie]

She didn't stand up. It wasn't that dramatic. She just lifted her paws up and went ba boom. And just. Just a big exhale and I went, okay, I see you. You know, I was like, cool enough. And it wasn't a charge. It was just a back off. I was like, I didn't mean to come that close. Did you have the shetty in New York? No, I don't walk around with machete in New York. But there was one time that I was snowboarding in New York, and there was a black bear that got sp. By kids walking around. So the black bear was running down the mountain through the trees between the lifts, and I heard the people being like, black bear, black bear. And I was already snowboarding, so I snowboarded through the trees, and for a minute, for like. For like 15 seconds, I got to snowboard next to a fully running black bear. And that was fun. That was cool.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, I wish you had a GoPro.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, I wish, I wish. Sick. Yeah, no, that was great. I have the video in here, and it's wonderful.

[Julian Dory]

And it's running and it's running straight downhill, right? And it's running.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. You know how there's, like, there's. There's those. There's all the trees in between the different things. So, yeah, he was just running through the center of that, and I was just, like, trying to keep up and trying to see where the bear was, and then thinking, there's that moment where when you see it it happens really quick. Like, oh, there's the bear. There's a big one. Because a lot of these New York black bears are not that big. It's like a. It's like a super diesel raccoon. But then. Then every now and then, every now and then you get that, like, refrigerator sized black bear. I'm out on that. You have your food source figured out and you've been doing it for a long time.

[Julian Dory]

That's when you need the bear spray. Yeah, I used to think that worked like bug spray.

[Paul Rosolie]

Do you spray it on yourself?

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I learned that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Did you? Did you. Did you really?

[Julian Dory]

No, I did not.

[Paul Rosolie]

I was gonna say, because that was. That would sound. Yeah, you'd be really, really messed up. Yeah, you'd be in the hospital, I think. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

I remember my friend Chris back in episode 86 was telling me about using bear spray. I'm like, so you didn't spray it on yourself first? He's like, no, you would die if you did that.

[Paul Rosolie]

JJ said, what was the story? JJ said that he. He sprayed. What did he spray on himself? He sprayed something on himself. I can't remember what it was. It was like, it was like bear spray or insect repellent or something that he didn't. He didn't know. He thought it was like deodorant. No, he maced himself. That's what it is. He maced himself when he was first guiding. He didn't know what mace was and somebody left it and he thought, oh, it's squirts. I'll just.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, no.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To write this book, I had to interview him. Like, I sat him down and like, you know, with. Usually with your friends, you don't, like, necessarily podcast interview them. You don't do the deep dive. And like, with JJ, I mean, we've been friends for 20 years. And I was like, wait, I really need to know. Like, how did the whole first part of your life go? And so I guess sat down, down and listened to it. And he went through it and it was like I had had no idea. I had no idea how hard he had it. I had no idea how raw it was. I just had no idea. And then it made me want to do this with, like. Like, why don't we do this with, like, our parents? Why don't we do this with our friend? You don't even just say, like, tell me you have four hours. Download me.

[Julian Dory]

That was the one thing, bro. You had him in town in New York.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, man.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, we Gotta do that. I really. JJ and I really.

[Paul Rosolie]

He'll be back.

[Julian Dory]

He's. He's the man. He's. He's one of those guys like you would always describe to me. He's kind of like almost this magical figure. Like, the way you describe him and you're like, wow. And a lot of times when that happens, if you then meet that person, it's like, almost underwhelming because they've been, like, sold so hard. But it's very hard to explain. When I met him, that dude has some of the most natural, subtle, but, like, lock on charisma I have ever seen in my entire life. I was like, whoa. It all makes sense now because, like, you and him, your person, your interests are the same.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Your personalities are yin and yang, though. And it's like, this is why this works so well down here.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. No, he. It was funny seeing him in Manhattan. He. He looked up and I went, what do you think? Think? And he just was very quick, very quiet. I think he was overwhelmed on a level where it was like. He was like, no, no, it's great. He was like, thank. Thank you. Thank you. And like, it was like a lot of like, he would, like, go lock himself in his hotel room and just be like. I think for them, it actually is too much culture shock.

[Julian Dory]

Manhattan, Sensory overload.

[Paul Rosolie]

After living in the jungle your whole life, I think they were stoked to see it. I think they were very happy, him and Roy, but I could see it on their faces that, like, after a few hours, they just. They were like. I mean, you're looking at buildings like, we're used to it, but you. I mean, even for me, like, I know how you think. Think of where I live. It's wooden posts with a floor and like an A frame that is difficult to build and maintain. And then you look at like, 30 Rock. Yep. It's kind of beyond the. The. So to the jungle mind, it's a little bit overwhelming. I mean, that. Yeah, there you go. I mean, that is.

[Julian Dory]

It's amazing. That man built that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Right?

[Paul Rosolie]

And quick those things shoot up. Look at that. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

We're looking at the. At the wallpaper over here on camera five for people at home shows Manhattan. But. Yeah, I mean, it's got to be cool, though, to bring him up here and him get to see, like, the launch of your book and all the people who are so behind what you guys are doing, like, almost, you know, on a mass scale. Put a name with the face, right?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. No, I mean, for years and years, he. I think he didn't understand, like, you know, he'd be like, when I would leave, he would go, when are you coming back? Why are. You know, why aren't you here doing the work with us? Even if I left for two months, he would. He would feel it. And then. And him being here and seeing us talking to donors, doing interviews, driving around, doing the thing, I said, do you understand now? I said, do you understand what I'm doing when I'm here? Because non stop, all day, morning till night. And he went, okay, I get it. And it was. They got to see. I mean, the gala we had, it was just packed with our donors and our friends and the. I mean, they did a huge tribute to jj. I mean, without him, none of us would be here. And so we got to see him looking up at the screen. You know, I. It's hard to read the emotion on his face, but I think it was deep pride and trying to be stoic. But I think it's hard to be stoic when you have a room full of 300 people basically giving you a lifetime achievement award. And that was beautiful to watch. We also brought his son in. And then the craziest part was that after all the. All that, you know, and he's watching me rush to ABC News and NBC News and doing all this stuff. And the. The book launch at Barnes and Noble was so cool because I told everybody at the start of it, I went, okay, I've given this book talk a million times. I said, but listen, this is the first time ever that I've stood before people. And. And I'm going to tell you, at the end, I was like. I talked about JJ and the book and our time together in the formation of Jungle Keepers. And I was like, and he's here. And I got JJ up on stage at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square, and everybody just lost their shit. It was amazing. The people at Barnes and Noble were, like, trying to calm us down. They're like, you have to stop. They're like, enough. No more questions. No, there was just. There was hundreds of people. It was like a riot. It was so much fun.

[Julian Dory]

That's gotta be so cool, man. That was cool because, like, when we're talking about the Amazon, obviously you and I have Talked on episode 124, 192 and 193 in the past, but for people who maybe are hearing you for the first time or hearing about it for. For the first time, we are talking about, I think, maybe the most magnificent Place on Earth. A place that's 2.7 million square miles, which the entire United states is like 3.1 million. So it's almost that size. And, you know, according to the stats, it provides over 20% of the world's oxygen. So it's this incredible, incredible place that also balances our ecosystem around the world. And you've done an amazing job explaining, like, some of the science behind that and how it relates to other continents in the past. But you guys have built an amazing, like, portfolio, if you will. It's a bad way to put it, but of 110, 120, 130,000 acres. 130 that you're protecting. And I think when we started, you were at like 30 or 40. Something.

[Paul Rosolie]

Something like that, something below. Because, remember, I was excited when we got to 55.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, that was after the podcast, the first one back in the day. So, like, it's amazing.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

But at the same time, do you ever get overwhelmed at the scope that is out of your control, that needs to be saved? You know, like, it's amazing that you're at 150,000 acres, but the million. That's right. Square miles, does that ever overwhelm you?

[Paul Rosolie]

For a second, yeah. But again, that's no way to fight a war. You worry about the hill that you're taking. You don't. That's it. It again, focus on this shot.

[Julian Dory]

Right?

[Paul Rosolie]

That's it. If you start worrying about every game that's ever going to happen anywhere, ever in your whole life, then that's. That's. You're just going to scramble your brains. And so we are focused on one thing right here, fixing this problem, saving the wildest place on Earth. And if we can do that, then it's a blueprint that we can use to save rivers in the Congo and New guinea and all over the world. And the model of that, it's grassroots that we're using. It's from the people that. It's people all over the world giving $5, $10, $100 a month for the price of a coffee from Starbucks once a month. Enough people doing that. We're saving the Amazon rainforest. And that is. That's what's so cool about. And that's what is very satisfying about the book, is that it's telling people how we formed it. Because I think at this point, people see me and they go, oh, he's a conservationist. He saves the rainforest. Yeah. But at some point, I was just a little kid. That's right. Right. And I had A dream. And it took 17 years of living out of a backpack in the rain, getting infections, getting stung by stingrays, having no idea if we were going to make anything work. And then now, as the director of a major organization that is the most direct way of saving the Amazon rainforest, it is my responsibility to give a hand up to the kids that are coming in the next generation, because it's exactly what people like Jane did for me.

[Julian Dory]

Me, Jane Goodall.

[Paul Rosolie]

Jane Goodall just changed my whole life. Yeah, I know.

[Julian Dory]

I know that she was important to you, but she was. She was an amazing, amazing woman. Lived an amazing life, man.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And, I mean, when I was a kid, she was sort of like a living historical figure. Like, you knew she was out there somewhere, but it was kind of a theoretical certainty, like the. The molten core of the Earth or the fact that there's millions of galaxies. It's like. Like, sure, Jane Goodall exists somewhere. Doesn't. Didn't seem real because it was like there'd be like black and white photos of her and there's books, and so she seemed mythical. And then there's a scene in the book that I described where it's like where I sat down with her and showed her the plan for Jungle Keepers, and she showed me the plan that she was thinking of in the. In Africa and how she planned on. On saving chimps and. And saving this ecosystem.

[Julian Dory]

Like, what did your plan look like to do that?

[Paul Rosolie]

Acres. Everyone just wants. We need acres. We need to protect acres. Humans are spreading like a cancer all over the planet, and we have to stop that spread. We have to. We have to keep. We have to keep at least half the Earth as ecosystems so that we still have clean air and fresh water and all this other stuff. Functioning ocean fisheries. Yeah, and she's very aware of that. And that was her whole message. First of all, that we're the last generation that's going to have the chance to do it. Second of all, hope. And third of all, that the children are going to be the ones that you need to inspire, because the adults are already out there doing it. They're already the ones working the backhoes, selling off their land, turning it into a development. It's like the children are the ones where you're going to reach them and go, wait, don't you care? Isn't a stream more important than your portfolio? Isn't a stream for all of us more important than any one person making money off of it? And so she. She knew that. But. But it was. It was beyond surreal to sit. Sit next to this living legend and, you know, drink whiskey and talk about how we're going to save the Amazon. And she was very deliberate with going, if I give you the words, if I give you my endorsement for your book, she said, I love the book. But as Jane Goodall, she said, if I. If I give you this, she said, I want Acres. You're going to protect Acres. And so she was giving me the Excalibur sword and going, you can. You can do this, but I understand the. That I'm going to redirect the entire narrative of your life. And without her, there'd be no Mother of God. Without Mother of God, there'd be no Jungle Keepers. Without Jungle Keepers, would be no Dax. There'd be no. None of this stuff would have happened. Would be no Acres. And so she literally changed the course of my life because she took the time to read some chapters that I had written at the time where I was not an author. I was just a student.

[Julian Dory]

But Mother of God was a fucking unbelievable book, bro.

[Paul Rosolie]

Bro.

[Julian Dory]

I'm like, holy, man.

[Paul Rosolie]

It's wild.

[Julian Dory]

It's a wild book. But, like, the writing in that book.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

I don't know how you taught yourself, but it is beautiful prose, man.

[Paul Rosolie]

Thank you. Thank you. No, I. I just had to read it. I just got to do the. The audiobook for it. I had to fight for years to.

[Julian Dory]

Be able to do it for Mother of God.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. They didn't let me do it when I was a kid because they were like, you're a nobody. We're gonna have a voice actor do it.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And then now. Now.

[Julian Dory]

Now you're Paul, Rosalie.

[Paul Rosolie]

Now all of a sudden, you go back and you go, audible. I want to record my own book. And they go, sure, you also. I also took screenshots of, like, 700 people that went, I bought your audiobook, and I hate that you're not reading it. I came into you from podcasts. Why are you not reading your book? Just push all those chips over and be like, audible now what? And then they were like, all right, fine. You can read your. You can read your own book. And so I had to reread Mother of God, which I have. You know, I haven't looked at Mother of God. You don't. You know, once you write a book, you don't go back and look at it in 12. What has it been? 12. 12 years?

[Julian Dory]

2014. It came out, right?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And I was like, bro, I was like, why did you. Who let this Kid do this stuff like the solos and the close calls and then it triggered back. You know, I think I remember everything. And then it's like, you don't really. That's why I journal so much. You don't really remember everything.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, you do so much. It's like, how do you even.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, but I'm saying all of us. I mean, so many days go by that could be mundane days. I mean, just like the last, last few days. I mean, I just, I just had a journal entry. It was like I had the most magnificent day. It was just like snowing. Dogs, family, nothing. But it was like, that's a treasure of a day. No tragedies happened. Everything is going well right now. It's like you, you journaled that. You know what I mean? Most, most people journal. Only today sucked because of this. She broke up with me. Blah, blah, blah. You know, it's like most people only panic journals. They. They like vent to their journal. It's like write down everything good.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

Today I cooked for an hour with my mom. She's still around. Today I did this with my kid. He learned this for the first time. It's like, you know, just whatever it is, it's like. Because then, you know, you end up forgetting most people. And I have a really good memory. I've remembered to the day. People go, how the hell do you remember this stuff? And I got this just the way my brain works. It's like my camera roll. I have access to everything that ever happened all the time. And which is not always a good thing because then I. It's very hard for me to get past a grudge. You know, like once somebody.

[Julian Dory]

Brooklyn.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. Like once somebody sends you a thumbs up emoji. You remember that.

[Julian Dory]

Now I'm really, I'm looking forward to reading the latest one because like I read Mother of God. After you and I knew each other. So after we had recorded. And I will say to this day, I've been doing this a long time. Now. I'm coming up on six years I've talked about with a lot of people. You're the best 30 to 60 second storyteller I've ever seen. And I think that's why your writing is unique and works. Because you find a way to maximize each page into its own little trinket of like, if I just open up the book like this, I read like that right there and I'm like, woo.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Okay.

[Paul Rosolie]

What else interesting? The best 30 to 60 second storyteller I do find I have as I Study stories and storytelling. Just like you go, okay, Inglourious bastards. An incredible movie. And they can take you through a 15 minute conversation. You are riveted the whole time because of the subtext. And you know what's going to happen at the end? It's all going to explode. I have found myself in the presence of individual humans that have started telling a story. Where I'm going, I am in physical pain. I need you to get to the point. And I'm. I mean, I'll own the fact that I am a professional storyteller at this point. And I. There are times where someone will go, you know, so back when I was living on this, the street, and then I had a neighbor, what was his name? And like, was it Bob or was it Joe? I'm like, make it up.

[Julian Dory]

Oh my God.

[Paul Rosolie]

It doesn't. It's completely irrelevant to me. I don't care what his name was. You can call him whatever you want. And like. And they're like, no, no, I'm gonna get this. Hold on. You go, okay. And then the story goes on and then changes directions. And I. Sometimes I, you know, like, it's almost like when you get high and like all of a sudden you come back.

[Julian Dory]

Yes.

[Paul Rosolie]

You go, whoa, what was I doing? I thought I was on a whole other trip. What story are you still telling? And it's like, you do have to deliver stakes and then sort of like a punchline to people really quick. It's like when you're catching an anaconda, these. This is how you can mess it up. This is what happened one time. And then get the out because people want to respond. And then it's gratuitous of you to continue pontificating upon your story. And so some people are so desperate to, you know, oh my God, I was mowing the lawn. And like, you know, it hit this thing and like, the blade was. Nobody cares to begin with. And then, and then to keep that story going for a long time, the best storytellers are the ones that are like, dude, I was mowing my lawn, the bait blade bent. And then like, the next thing you know, like, all of a sudden I fell over and I was under the car. And it's like. And then you laugh, but you're like, 1, 2, 3, done. You gotta be as brief as possible. It really is. It really is. And if there's a longer story, you gotta like notice comedians do this a lot where they'll be like, hang with me, hang with me. Like, trust me, trust me. On this you gotta like, you gotta like lead people in and be like, there's a reason I'm doing this. In this. I had to do this. There's one part where they. I don't talk to the reader like a whole lot, but with the floating forest and the giant anaconda, I'm like, listen, if you want to throw the book. I said, if you hate this right now and you're thinking this guy's full of shit, none of this is true, and you want to fling the book, book across the room, I understand. I actually agree with you. I said, that's the only story I'm going to tell you where I can't prove it with photos. But everything else, all the huge anacondas, all the tribes, everything else, I said, the pictures are in this insert.

[Julian Dory]

What was that story? The floating forest and an anaconda. I don't think he told that one here before.

[Paul Rosolie]

I've 100% told it and not.

[Julian Dory]

Not on my show.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, 100%. I remember doing this at your desk where I jumped on the back of the anaconda and I couldn't touch my fingers because it was so big.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, that one.

[Paul Rosolie]

100, okay. Yeah, 100. But I had to retell that story. Had to be like, look, it was the discovery of the floating forest that led to the obsession with finding the biggest anacondas. And so it was like, I was like, listen this, because everything else in there, the catching of huge anacondas, the tribes, the solos, the, the people being shot in the head by arrows, it's all, there's all photographic proof of it because to me it's picture. It didn't happen. And I think I've told you before, I think I told you this before. My friend came to me and he said, I got attacked by a wild Oscar ocelot. And an ocelot is like a dog sized cat. Yeah. And I said, that doesn't happen. That's not true. He's. No. I climbed a ladder and the ocelot followed me up the ladder, like, bit me on the thigh. And he said, like, as I climbed up the ladder, this wild cat is climbing up the ladder to get me. And then I pushed the ladder and it fell over. And I was like, this is all, I was like, this isn't even a good story because it's not creative. And he's like, I have the whole thing on camera and every word of it was true.

[Julian Dory]

It's a deranged oscillator.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I had rabies. Is what? It had bad. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because people.

[Julian Dory]

Anything did he.

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, he went and got his rabies shots.

[Julian Dory]

Okay.

[Paul Rosolie]

Right after that. But. But because we don't have rabies in the jungle, but you get loggers coming in from other regions and their dogs can be carrying rabies. And then a vampire bat bites the dogs. Because there's lots of vampire bats in the jungle. Which, which are. Which is if you ever wake up at night and your foot is just touching the mosquito net and they have an anticoagulant in their saliva and then they. They cut you with a. It's so sharp their teeth that they cut you and you don't know it. And then they have an anticoagulant and they lick you. And anticoagulant, it makes your blood more water, like it flows quicker. And so they can just sit there lapping up your blood while you're sleeping. So if your foot touches the mosquito net, you get vampire batted. And of course, the scary thing with getting vampire battered is if that vampire bat, the last animal that it bit, if that had raised rabies, then you're going to get rabies. And so while you sleep, you could die.

[Julian Dory]

It's a great invitation to join you down the.

[Paul Rosolie]

If you want to hang out.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, it's cool to hear you look at the perspective, though, of what you were saying a few minutes ago about how you view your jump shot. Right. The acres that you protect and what you do and what you were then getting at. To me, what the way I took it is, you can use your platform and the results and the transparency of everything you're doing to be the inspiration to the generation that's of new Paul, Rosalie's from around the world who are genuinely going to want to come in and not just be, you know, tourist trappers and. And actually do something about it and go to places like the Amazon, or not even just the Amazon, but places around the world. And my buddy Tommy G. Has a great quote where he talks about he can't boil the ocean, but he can boil his pot. Now always use that.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's cool.

[Julian Dory]

And that's exactly what you're saying right there. Because if you do that, enough other people are gonna grab their pots, come down to the ocean, maybe do something about the temperature of it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Because that's the other thing that a lot of people that are concerned with the environment are so concerned with is they're concerned with the whole thing. You're never gonna again again. Worry about the hill that you're taking. Right. And again, whether that's worrying about planting indigenous species of plants in your backyard so that the monarchs and the hummingbirds can migrate. Great. Whether that's keeping our oceans off the east coast clean, great. I mean, I was just on the west coast last week and I got to see elephant seals in Big Sur. I mean they're just thousands of elephant seals along the coast.

[Julian Dory]

They get huge.

[Paul Rosolie]

The males get up to 16ft. 16. 16. We pull them up with a, with like, I mean just the giant trunk coming off of their face. 16ft, 5,000 pounds. You're talking about like the weight of, of 20 adult grown men. Yeah, they are ridiculously big. But here's the thing. Their great conservation success story, because they were becoming extinct, they were saved. The beaches were saved. When you're out there in like that Big Sur area, there's not even boats in the water. It's just nature. These guys are out there on like the side of the highway. There's the beach right there, Thousands of elephant seals all interacting. And there's a boardwalk and there's like docents. There's like these old, there's like a couple of old men and women who are walking around with like, like, you know, we are the sea lion protector vests. And they're like, yeah. We come here and they're like, we tell people about the sea lions and how to protect them. And you know, we pick up any plastic and the sea lions are happy. They're all like having babies. The males are fighting, they're. They're throwing sand up on each other. And then as we're watching the se. The, the elephant seals, we climbed one of the hills and I see this bird and it was so big that I went, there is only one thing that that could be. I said, I can't believe it because I know there's only like 500 California condors left on earth. But I'm going, this thing has at least an eight foot wingspan. It has to be a condor. And sure enough, it was a California condor, which they almost went extinct. I think they went down to 17 individuals or something crazy like that because the lead poisoning from the carcasses that they were eating from hunting kills, they were getting lead poisoning and DDT was ruining their eggs. Just like what was happening to bald eagles. But now we went from below 100 to up to over, I think over 500, I think just below 600 individuals of the California condor. Bald eagles are back in the Hudson Valley. When I was Growing up, you never saw a bald eagle. It was like something that you wished you could see one day. See a bald eagle once every three days when I'm home.

[Julian Dory]

I know we were talking about, unfortunately, like, if it bleeds, it leads. That's what gets people's attention. But it is also critical to talk about it. Like, when we get W's like this.

[Paul Rosolie]

That'S amazing, you know, and there's so many of them. Because that's the thing. People come to me now and they go, I'm so distressed. Especially. Especially young people. They come to me and they go, I'm so distressed. You know, I'm not eating meat anymore and I'm not using straws and I bike to work and I, you know, and it's like, bro, pretty soon, you know, I don't wear any clothing that's sourced from plastic or from another part of the world. So I'm locally bred. I mean, at some point you're going to have to make yourself a teepee and you're going to have to start, you know, fishing. Like, there's that thing where the guy goes. He goes, I used to make music, but then I felt like a sellout, so I wanted to make my own drum beats and not use, like a synthesizer. So I bought some drums. And he's like. But then the drums, he's like, I realized I shouldn't be a sellout and I should make my own drums. He's like, so then I started stretching goat skin over the drums and I made my own drums. And he was like, yo, I actually shouldn't be a sellout and do that. So I actually bought my own goats. And then he realized that he'd just been living as a goat herder for a long time and not really making music anymore. So you got to be careful how authentic you want to be. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

You weren't a part of the VSCO Hydro Flask movement to save the turtles. That's not your kind of scene.

[Paul Rosolie]

The Hydro Flask movement.

[Julian Dory]

I'm not even gonna get into it with you.

[Paul Rosolie]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, that, that and the. The. The. The pervert fellow you keep mentioning who. Just keep those off.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, no, totally different topic.

[Paul Rosolie]

I just. I just. I don't. I don't. I don't want to know. Know.

[Julian Dory]

Below your line.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yes. Shall we say they seem below the. The bar. Would. Would. Would. Would Madame Jane Goodall care?

[Julian Dory]

Probably not.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

But that's. So talking about. Talking about the sea, the. The elephant seals. Yeah, there was. Do you ever watch on Netflix, the Our Planet series.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, they do an amazing job with that.

[Paul Rosolie]

They're incredible. I just watched one on plants and I was riveted. Yeah, they have like a Victoria lily. It's like this plant is going to be six feet across and it's like they show this thing unfolding and it's so beautifully filmed that you feel like you're watching stuff that couldn't possibly be real. I was sitting, you're sitting there watching this documentary and it's almost what an amazing time we live in, that we can see things that are filmed in such a way that you could never actually see it like that. Like, if you went and jumped in a swamp in the Amazon and like opened your eyes, you'd be, you know, you wouldn't see anything. But they go there and they light it perfectly and they show you this thing crawling up through the swamp and pushing aside the other lilies and then opening up this giant. Insane, Absolutely insane.

[Julian Dory]

I would love to see you get involved with them doing a series where they go through the whole Amazon and do that. Like, I know they've, they've been to the Amazon before and at least one of the series was something, but like, I, I forget there was some sort of estimated number you went through, and it's not even educationally possible to even know. But, but there's a crazy number of species that are completely undiscovered in the Amazon still. Like, imagine how many they could discover with their tools alone, you know?

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I mean, I can just paint this for you really quickly. So the, the, the fact that, and I want to look. Actually, could we look that up that you said, what's the area of the, the lower 48 states? I want to know that in miles. Because what I understood was that's like 7 million square miles is the. No, should be 3 million. Yeah, I think should be 3 million.

[Julian Dory]

One is all 50. And then 2.7 or 2.8 is a 48. I could be misremembering, I think. So what is square mileage of the lower 48 US states?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, I want to know that because I think that that's three something million.

[Julian Dory]

3.1. Okay, now, what is the square mileage of the Amazon? The entire Amazon jungle. Right.

[Paul Rosolie]

I have a feeling it's going to be like 7 million miles squared, se.

[Julian Dory]

Wait, am I misremembering it, though?

[Paul Rosolie]

I don't know. I, I, One of us is.

[Julian Dory]

It's been a while. 2.7.

[Paul Rosolie]

2.7. No, no, no. Dyslexia. I said put the seven before, still there. 2.7. So not much smaller than the. Than the size of the Amazon base includes the river system encompasses. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Basically take off, like 2.3 million square miles. Take off Washington state and one of the Dakotas, and. You got it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Holy.

[Julian Dory]

That's the Amazon. That's what I'm saying. Imagine just in our planet.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Where they go. Because, you know, how many countries is it in? 16 countries or something like that.

[Paul Rosolie]

It's single digit. It's like eight or nine.

[Julian Dory]

Okay. Either way, you. And one of them is Brazil, which is enormous.

[Paul Rosolie]

60 of the Amazon.

[Julian Dory]

Right, Right. So you go to all these different places.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And you discover new species. They're using like 40K cameras, too.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. No, I mean, look, I've. I've been. I've been. At this point, I'm just gonna.

[Julian Dory]

Gonna.

[Paul Rosolie]

Whatever happens next, I'm gonna do it myself. We're gonna save the river. We have to save the river. So we have. Mother of God. This book is Jungle Keeper. And then we're gonna have end game.

[Julian Dory]

Endgame 100.

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, because that's what we're in now. Once the. Once the narco thing happened, it was like, okay, once. Once we realized the roads, the narcos, the logger is the thing. Once the tribe came out and said, okay, like, you know, it's like once all of this came to a head, we go, okay, we don't have much longer.

[Julian Dory]

Right.

[Paul Rosolie]

We have to do this now. The question no longer is, can we save the forest? The question is, can we do it in time? We're racing the chainsaws and the flames and the narco traffickers. We have our proof of concept. We know that what we're doing works. We protected 136,000 acres. We've raised millions of dollars. But now can we Repeat that win three, three times, get to 300,000 acres? Because then the Peruvian government is waiting. They're waiting there with pens. Our lawyers have spoken to the Peruvian government. They said, if you can get the whole basin, we will sign it over into a national park. You just got to do it. And so it's like. That's why I've been telling people. It's like, the more that this book gets out there, the more people read the whole struggle that JJ went through, that I went through with meeting Jane, with catching the anacondas, forming jungle keepers, how we got from point A to this. That's why it's so important, because this explains it with all of it. And that what the publisher put you Know Jungle Keeper, what it takes to change the world. When they said that that's not my subtitle, they were like, we're gonna put this subtitle on the book. And I went, that's too heavy. You know, it's like every time somebody goes, hey, you're like, today's Steve Irwin. I'm like, no, I'm not. No one's like, Steve Irwin. You're not. Steve Irwin is the goat, period. And like, thank you for the compliment, but it's too heavy of a compliment to take. You can't take that compliment. And I said that subtitle, I said that what it takes to change the world. I said, that's pretty heavy. Heavy. But I think that my editor had a point in that. It doesn't matter that it's saving the jungle. It's. It's the story of. Even if you have no idea what the path is, you have no idea where you're going. When I started, I had no, you know, most people, you go to school and you're going to become a blank. So you go to school for blank. And so it's like, you can go learn a trade or learn a skill, and then you can get a job. And that job will give you a paycheck and you'll have. Have medical insurance, and so you have some security and you can work your way up, then you can pick a field. Whereas with this, all I knew was, I love streams, I love animals. I go to jungle and then we see smoke on the horizon, and JJ's like, either you help us protect it or you go home. And so there was no linear path. And that's why I had to go and. And fail against the wall so many times and just eat. And then finally, somehow. And then, actually, I got saved by a lot of people. Now I get these messages where people go, how did you know to keep going? I didn't know to keep going. I just was. I just. At some point, you've invested so much in the narrative that you're in that you can't change because you said so and because there's nothing. What are you going to do? Start a new career at 30? You know, like, I was just going to, like, come back to the workforce and be like, sign me up. I need to learn Excel. You know, I'm going to trade in my machetes and skills and the tracking and all the local knowledge I've built up in the Amazon and just know, no, absolutely not. And once you come to know the forest and the Trees and realize that nobody's going to save them. It's like seeing a sinking school bus with children on it. And it's like there's no one around. You go, well, you can just keep walking your dog or you can do something about it. And to me, all of those reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals that are all over those branches. I mean, some of them I've raised myself. There are spider monkeys that I've pulled out of the river. There's toucans that I raised from death's door. And it's like, so I walk through that forest and all my friends are there. I know where the big jaguar is, and I know that cayman that I call Kiara. And I know where Mr. And Mrs. Black Skimmer the two birds that are always on the bend at Big Beach. And it's like, I know all these animals, and I know these giant trees. And at this point, we are the only thing. And I say we as in all of the jungle keepers, everyone, that's. That's part of this thing now, which has become this global movement. We are now the only thing keeping that world green. I want to show you this because this is my favorite picture in here. It's my favorite and least favorite picture at the same time. But it's the most important picture, that picture. The half hat.

[Julian Dory]

The bottom one.

[Paul Rosolie]

The bottom one.

[Julian Dory]

All right. So people can see it right there on the camera, right?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. I mean, I can also send you the JPEG of that, but, yeah, that. Because that is the line. That is what Jungle Keepers. That's land we were able to protect because of people sending in donations. And being part of the Jungle Keepers team and the Blacks is just what we didn't have the funding to protect, period. That is as far as we didn't get to.

[Julian Dory]

That's an unbelievable dichotomy, man.

[Paul Rosolie]

And it's that simple. That is what we're doing. We're keeping the world green. It's that simple. I need to be.

[Julian Dory]

Okay, we'll be right back. Yeah, I've actually. I've been reading George R.R. martin's original books of the Game of Thrones.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Amazing, bro. Like, the creativity you get reading an amazing author like that is punchy and knows how to show the whole picture. It's like, you can't. You can't get that anywhere else.

[Paul Rosolie]

No. And even just anything. Anything beautiful, a beautiful novel, you feel the moment, the magic happens. It's like when you sit down to watch a movie, which never happens anymore. But now I'm going Back and watching all the old movies that are good. But when you sit down to watch a movie and it starts and you're in it and you're like, kind of in your real life, and then the moment you get lifted off the ground and you're totally in the movie and you're not thinking about performances or camera angles, you go, going. You're just like, oh, my God. Yeah, the Joker really is gonna win. Like Batman. That bike is incredible. It's like you just. When you get lifted up and with reading, it's the same thing, but it's a very different pathway in your brain. And to sit down. And this is what I don't. Can't stand as I can't stand watching past me that I can't stand. People watch. Watching people do this. They'll open a book. Yeah, they'll open a book and they'll be like, one. One, two, three.

[Julian Dory]

There it is.

[Paul Rosolie]

What's this? Oh. Oh, That's Katie. Okay, 1, 2, 3. What? What did my mom say? Oh, my God, that's great. And I. I watch them do it, and then they go, okay, well, that's enough of that. And they're like, I can't. What are you doing? Put the phone down in another room. Go sit on a nice windowsill or under a tree and read and make yourself do it. And also, and I hear a lot of people that one of the compliments I get on my books is people go, oh, it was a very easy read. And I agree with them. I like books that I can read easily. One of the great things that makes Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential so great is that you open the book and he's like, man, in the summer of 92, when I was working in this chop shop, he's like, you wouldn't believe how crazy this guy was. And you're like, this is conversational. And that's great. And when you open, like, you know, Pride and Prejudice, it's a little different. You know, you open some of those classic. You open Dickens. Different time, different time, different time, where eloquent verbiage was. Was celebrated. And you, you know, even the Count of Monte Cristo, those are big, dense pages on an 800 page book.

[Julian Dory]

I never read that.

[Paul Rosolie]

It'll change your life.

[Julian Dory]

Change my life.

[Paul Rosolie]

It'll change your life. Only thing is, I'll tell you this, the first 300 pages, some of the most incredible you've ever seen. Incredible. Like, it means something. It's important. It's like, you know, like, how like Lord of the Rings, you're like, it's not just a movie. It's. It's. It's kind of like a mythical bible. The Count of Monte Cristo is the adventure equivalent of that. You're like, there's. There's. He. He. He gets sent to jail for. By. By his enemies and then unjustly sentenced to solitary confinement for the rest of his life by his enemies, taken away from his girl and thrown in jail. And you're like, this is unjust. It is horrible what is going to happen. And the way things play out. It is such an incredible story. Story. The middle. The middle 200 pages drags quite a bit. Quite a bit. So you get from the most exciting to kind of. And then the end is pretty satisfying. It's kind of like you read that high school. Yeah, I'm due to read it again. I'm due to read it. I'm good. Due to read a lot of things again. But it's like. I mean, it's like I just. I just watched Armageddon again. It's like the same thing. The first half of the movie's incredible. All the different characters coming up. The last half of the movie is. Is Michael Bay blowing things up. So that's a lot of wind and screaming and sparks, and you're not even sure who's on what spaceship. And it's like, I want to like this movie so much.

[Julian Dory]

You need the slow pants with the doo, doo, doo.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. Or like, yeah, this is. You know. But, man, they made some good movies back then.

[Julian Dory]

There is something about. With books and movies that you watch or listen or read at one point, and then years goes by and you pick it up again and you get a different thought from it like that. It's funny you say Lord of the Rings. I mean, I owe Deep my thanks on that. I always cited the Lord of the Rings as like, this movie that I watched as a kid. Like, these three movies, they were incredible. I respected them. Great actors. Peter Jackson did a great job. Not my kind of thing. And then I watched it, you know, towards the end of last year, and I was like, oh, wait a minute. This is a whole.

[Paul Rosolie]

It.

[Julian Dory]

I didn't get it. Like, whoa. And it reopened the world to me. And I've done that with books, too.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. No, and I mean also Lord of the Rings. It's one of the things. I mean, dude. I mean, I watch. Just watched Rewatch Dead Poet Society, and it's. It's as simple as you look at Robin Williams talking to them about poetry. And it's like he's so invested in poetry and it's all about the boys in this school. There's no underhanded political messaging in the movie. They're just, just. They're just telling you a story. It doesn't have a. You know, and, and, and so, and with Lord of the Rings, though, there's, you know, you talk about Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones, almost every character is a monster. And if they're not a monster, then they're at least a bad guy that sometimes is good. And Lord of the Rings is the opposite, where it's like you have a bunch of innocent good people who are on a quest against absolutely black, black, bad, evil, black and white. They. I mean, it's literally. It's like. It's like World War II easy. And you look at a character like Aragorn or Frodo or Gandalf. I mean, the fact that he's running at the. At the end the battles where he's. He's not even necessarily fighting as much as running with his staff and inspiring them with the light and, like, giving the energy out.

[Julian Dory]

You shall not pass.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And they did that so well. I remember when my. Remember being a little kid and my parents would read to me every night, which is how I ended up being able to be a writer, even though I can barely read. I remember my dad would. I mean, he'd be up at 4 in the morning. He'd drive. Be a teacher and drive all the way home. And then to put us to bed, they would read to us for an hour. And when we got to that part, to the Balrog part of Lord of the Rings, I remember it was like, you know, because you hear the booms. They're in the mines and you hear the booms and there's something big coming in. The Orcs are running. And he was like, guys, it's late, late. I'm really tired. We'll pick up on this tomorrow. I was like, we will not. I was like, I need to know what's coming right now. And that, of course, becomes the most insane action sequence in literature. It's just the wildest thing on earth. I remember hearing that for the first time and just being. For days. I wasn't okay. It was incredible.

[Julian Dory]

That's another thing I always pick up in our conversations. One thing I think you really seem to have hit the. I've never met your parents, but the thing you really seem to hit the lottery with is you have had Parents who understood you.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, right.

[Julian Dory]

And supported what you loved and what you wanted to do and, you know, saw the potential in you. That's such a critical thing.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. I mean, there's that T shirt says, you know, my mom says I'm special. My mom sure always did. And they were very, very supportive since the beginning. I was such a weird little kid. Like, I had to raise praying mantises, and I was obsessed with foxes, and I had toy snakes everywhere. And then as soon as I got into like, the double digits of eight, like 10 and older, I had real snakes everywhere in my room. And it was like my parents were constantly yelling at me, like, you can't have. I mean, it was just the upper limits. They were like, you can't have a reticulated python in your bedroom. Like, it went from 2ft to 14ft in the span of 18 months. This is not okay. Like, you would have these fights and I'd be like, but I love. You know, I love him. And I was just. I was just obsessed with that. Or I'd go into the woods and camp by myself at 12 years old because somebody let me watch Legends of the Fall and I thought that I had to do that with my golden retriever. And I was just like. But they thought it was great. My mom's only critique was that she really wanted me to be. To be an artist. She thought. I mean, I am.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, you're amazing at drawing shit.

[Paul Rosolie]

I'm good at drawing shit, naturally. Like, if I ever. I mean, I went to art school too, for a period, but I just. I don't care. Like, I'm happy to be mediocre at it or, like a little bit better than the average. I just. It doesn't. Doesn't light me up. Writing lights me up. Falling off of cliffs lights me up. Talking to people about this stuff has in the last month, been incredible. Yeah, that actually does light me up, seeing people. I mean, we're at the point now where if I go to the airport, someone is going to come up to me. And I thought I would hate that because I'm actually, weirdly enough, an introvert when I'm not on.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, I know.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, yeah. Like, you've seen me where I'm like, I don't want.

[Julian Dory]

You're not. You're not a huge humans guy.

[Paul Rosolie]

No.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

I like the people I like, and the rest of them can off and. But the great thing is with this, because it's for a reason. Everyone that comes up to me has been so positive. People Come up and be like, yo, how's the toucan? And I'm like, what? You know? Or like, I was leaving, I was walking through the airport and there was a security guy and he moved it along, moving along. He went, I love what you do, by the way. And I went, I stop. What did you just say to me? And he went, jungle keepers. He was like, I love jungle keepers. I was like, come on. And then. And then the best one was the tsa. And I had the steel to steel toed boots on. TSA agent. And my wife was like, you do not hit a TSA agent. Big black guy. He goes, turn around. He goes, I got. I gotta search you. I said, all right. And he's going up and down my leg. And he goes, I don't want to find any anacondas. I was like, you gotta be kidding me.

[Julian Dory]

And I might have been saying that to anyone.

[Paul Rosolie]

I went, I went. I went, you gotta be kidding me. He goes, oh, come on, jungle boy. He goes, And I just, I, you know, friendly slap him on. The two of us were laughing our asses off. And she was like, I still don't think you should have slapped him on that. I was like, it was friendly.

[Julian Dory]

That's funny.

[Paul Rosolie]

As he goes a bit enough on any anacondas.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, don't touch my third leg. Oh, my God. But it's good. It's good.

[Paul Rosolie]

It's always been good natured.

[Julian Dory]

It's good to hear that, like, you are appreciating that too, because that's the effect. Like you're getting people excited about it. That's the biggest thing. It's like when people come up to me and they're like, oh my God, how can I go down to the Amazon to visit Paul? Or like, see what he does? I'm like, well, you kind of go through that. Like they have a whole program for that and everything. But it's not one or two people, dude, it's all the time.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, it's. The numbers are wild. And that is what's so important. It's like, okay, so if you do A plus B plus B. If you add up the whole thing, if you. Okay, so the wildest place on earth is about to disappear unless we save it. But we found a way to save it because me and J.J. met each other. And then we got joined by Mohsen and Stefan and Roy and all these other incredible people. And then we got that message out through Jane and through Mother of God. Now through Jungle Keeper and now all these people all over the world. A mother wrote to me a few, just a few. It was like last week she wrote to me and she said, my son is severely autistic, like non verbal autistic. And he, he says, jungle man. And he wants to see your videos because he enjoys the jungle, he likes the feel of the jungle. And she was like, it causes him so much joy. And it's like that stuff hits you in the chest. I also got one from, you know, like, you get ones where it's like, hey, I'm just a kid, I'm from Finland. You're never going to see this, this. But I want to be a local conservationist and I'm actually going to go on this expedition in my country to go do this thing with these people. And it's like they message me and they're like, I read your book, I saw your podcast with Julian, I saw your this, I saw you that. And they, you can, they're, they're sharing that, they're inspired and that's incredible. And that for me, that also, that also is then a feedback because then there's times where I go, we're all going to get shot by the narcos or we've lost a few acres. That's really devastating. And like, you get knocked down on your knees, you get the wind knocked out of you, you. And it's like you've been, you're on month seven of being in the jungle and you forget that the outside world exists. And it just seems like everything is burning and no one is helping. And you get these messages and it's funny because they always start with, you're never going to see this. And I know you don't care, but. And I'm like, I do see it and I do care. And that's so cool.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, that's so cool. Well, before the break, you had said something. I want to come back to this, where you were talking about all the different animal characters around you. Like, literally, I say it purposely like that in your environment that, you know, some of which you had rescued and raised, but other ones you just pass by all the time and they know you and you know them. A little bit of a stereotype here, but do you think you have like a fifth and a half sense with animals? Like there's some sort of understanding on a micro level you have with them that other people just can't do you.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, I think, I think that everyone has some talents that are specific to them. And the most obvious I can think of is like Michael Phelps it was Michael Phelps, a really good swimmer because, you know, chicken or the egg, which by the way, chicken with the egg is stupid. Chickens, dumb chickens branched off from like the phylogenic chart millions of years after eggs had already been in use by biologists.

[Julian Dory]

So it's like they're also dinosaurs.

[Paul Rosolie]

Egg came first. Yeah, yeah, so, so that's easy to answer, right? Let's just shut that one down for good on It Happened here. Julian Dory podcast Chicken or the Egg. We figured it out.

[Julian Dory]

Throw it in Urban Dictionary.

[Paul Rosolie]

Get rid of it.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

But I think that, you know, again, did he become a really good swimmer because he was, had a massive wingspan and, and, or, or, or, you know, which, which, which way was it? And I think that with me, I have spent my entire life, I mean my dad do, When I used, when I used to be five years old, my dad used to, he always used to call me, he used to call me Eagle Eyes because he'd be like, how did you see that? We'd be walking, I'd be like, look, garter snake. He'd be like, I don't, I didn't see that. And in the jungle, it's just become more and more and more and more amplified. And then when you're guiding for people, it matters. And then when you're trying to survive, it matters. And so you, you turn that sense up and up and up and up and again. The first time you play ping pong, you suck at it and the ball goes everywhere. And then you, you get to the point you got a good chop shot and you can, you got an overhand and you get, and at this point I have this also, when you're tracking or when you're out in nature, you, you, you tend to, you look at the environment differently. You look at it like it's a TV screen. So you're not focused on any one thing. You just sort of. And so then irregularities pop out at you. And so if there's branch, branch, branch, branch, loopy branch snake, you know, matte colored bark, bark, bark, bark, shining scales snake, you know, it's like you, you start to. Snakes are so hard to see, which is why I'm obsessed with trying to find them. But even as you walk through the forest, the birds, I always say the birds will tell you how fast you can walk. The speed at which you can walk is determined by the sound of the forest. And that is because there's moments that you're walking through the forest and the sun is out and there's just spokes of light coming through and all the birds are chirping and there's bees flying around. And it's the afternoon and everything's great, great. And then the jungle, 10 minutes later, all of a sudden it gets a little bit darker. And all of a sudden the birds get real quiet and everything changes. And it seems like there's not a thing moving. And is that because there's a weather system about to come in? Is that because. And sometimes you go, well, the birds over here are doing fine. It's just the birds over off to my left that have gone quiet. And it's like, well, is that because there's a jaguar walking through the valley right there. And everybody up here is still having a good time. But you know, sometimes everybody goes quiet and then you start to hear. You're like, it sounds like there's a. A stampede of freight trains somewhere just over the horizon. And you know that there is a thunderstorm of biblical proportions coming. And so you're standing in the sun still, but everybody's quiet. And in the Amazon, there's individual clouds over different pieces. Just think of this giant field of green. And these clouds are just an individual. It's like motherships and you know, independent state. They're just over, over and they dump straight down. So if you're outside of that rain shadow, you're great. If that cloud is moving and just soaking the jungle as it goes, you might be under golf ball size raindrops.

[Julian Dory]

You're giving me ptsd, bro.

[Paul Rosolie]

Dude, it. It is, yo. That night. Yeah, the leaf cutter at night.

[Julian Dory]

And he goes, oh my God. I'm like, what? I'm like, turn right towards him. But I can't see him. He's like, there are 10 million leaf cutter answers. Julian, you are new. Next. They are right up. He goes, they are right up against your tent. And I'm like, what the. Get him out of there. He's like, julian, there are too many of them. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. I left deet right outside my tent. There's a canon. Do you see it? He goes, oh, yes, the deet is right here. And I'm like, okay, Dan, I need you to grab that deet and I need you to spray it right along the edge of my tent. And he goes, okay, I will do that. You're saving yourself so you compare less. I'm like, cannot care less about that.

[Paul Rosolie]

I need to live.

[Julian Dory]

He's handling this well. He's a nature videographer. He signed up for this, right? You're Not. I'm Julian from New Jersey, and I don't with ants. You're like, give me that D. So I hear him with the deet, and I'm watching it because now I have. I put my headlamp on in there, so it's lit all right here. And I just see a shadow. And I see him go along the edge, and he's like. And then he goes, holy. And I'm like, what? And he goes. Goes the leaf cutter answer, unaffected by the deep. They are swimming right through him, like, no way. And at this point, Trevor just finally goes like. Like, next to me.

[Paul Rosolie]

I'm like, you think this is funny?

[Julian Dory]

We're next. And he's like, this is. No one will ever believe me. This is the funniest I've ever heard. This is a South park episode, bro. And I'm like, I'm glad my misery loves your company because you're about to get. Get eaten right along with me. Just out, though. Why can't you leave your ten? I'm screaming, paul. Now Paul has to be hearing this. I'm like, paul, yeah, yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

But just how quickly everything can change. And so to answer your question, yes, I think I've developed those senses. I think that when it comes to things like elephants, where it's like, at first, when I. The first time I met an elephant, I had no idea what I was doing. Again, elephants not in the Amazon. We're moving our conversation over to other parts of the world now. But, you know, you learn. Just like with the deer, you learn that as long as you're not looking, they're going to consider you not a threat because you're not paying attention to them. So it comes down to body posture. Just like with a dog, when you go, they know what that means. You know, it's like you. You get ready, they get ready. And cats are very good at that intention of pose. And so, yeah, you just pick up all these little things. But the thing is, I'm always going to be the student to jj, who is the master. Yes.

[Julian Dory]

He grew up there.

[Paul Rosolie]

He grew up there, man. And, I mean, I grew up in the woods, too, but he grew up without shoes until he was 13. That's part of what I. You know, when I interviewed him for the boy book, he was. He was. You know, he was like, yeah, I didn't have shoes until I was 13. I went, what? I never knew. You never told me that. And he said, yeah, we used to have to walk an hour through the jungle to get to the nearest School in the indigenous community. And like, you know, like the whole trope about like, like my parents said, oh, just, you know, like my walk to school. His walk to school involved jaguars and anacondas. And then, you know, when, when Pico had the tree fall on him, he brother. When JJ's brother Pico had the tree fall on him at 16, they had to sell all the cattle and cut a few trees and use the entire family savings to save Pico's life. And JJ got left in the jungle at age 14. For three weeks they were like, watch the house. And then the mom took the other brothers and everything they had to go to school. The dad took the, took pico to Lima. JJ, as a 14 year old, left for three weeks in the jungle. He just had a machete and he was like, every day I would climb this tree and look out over the river and wait for my parents to come back, back. And every day they wouldn't come. And 3 weeks picture as a 14 year old. Everyone in your family's gone. Your brother is broken in half by a tree that fell on his back. The family savings are completely spent and you're just left in the middle of the Amazon with some chickens for three weeks. No shoes. I mean, I just had no idea. I had been friends with him for 20 years and I had no idea. So it was so amazing sitting down and. But when I walked through the forest with him, him, it's almost difficult for me to access how much he knows because I'll go, I don't even know what questions to ask. Like, he'll stop and he'll pick up a palm nut and he'll be like, which one is this? And I'm like, I don't know. And he'll be like, open it up. And he's like, see, there's grubs inside of this one. How do you know that there's grubs inside of that one? He's like, you can tell. And then he'll go to a certain tree and he'll go, put your ear against the tree. Put your ear against the tree. And this sound coming from the tree. Tree, what's that? You see the bees nest? That's up. There he goes, those bees make the best honey. And I'm like, but again, I didn't hear this. How did you hear it? And he's like, well, you know when you see this thing, this is that this vine growing from this tree means this. And A plus B equals C. And it's like all the things mean Something so he's not walking through just a mat of green. Everything means. So when you hear, like, Percy Fawcett, and they were like, the. The jungle is a, you know, brutal green hell. And everything's trying to kill you. And there's no food to be found any anywhere. If they had brought jj, they would have been fine.

[Julian Dory]

Perspective. Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, for sure.

[Julian Dory]

That was another thing. When you talk about jj, William, Pico, Mario, you know, the whole family. There's. How many total kids is there, like, 11 or something?

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, there's. There's 19 brothers, including Alex, who was adopted, and then they've named me.

[Julian Dory]

Okay, so you're number 20.

[Paul Rosolie]

I'm number 20.

[Julian Dory]

I didn't even know there was that many, but that's wild. But the thing that strikes me about the four that. That I know is their level of happiness, man. Yeah. Their level of just pure bliss. And the best example. I mean, the guy that I just loved was. Was Pico, because you're talking about someone who's literally missing a leg. He don't speak a word of English. I don't speak a word of. Of Spanish at this point in my life. And yet there was a human understanding there. And this dude, like, watching him work the boat every day with the hand and the one leg, like, down, which could probably. That one, like, probably squat, like, 300 pounds, and he's, like, 60 years old. It's insane. But, like, he was just in his element, and there was nowhere on earth or no other job or no other thing that he'd rather be doing than that. And it was just, like, such a perspective grabber, because it's like, God damn all the little that we worry about or say, oh, you know, we're unhappy about this, or whatever. Look at this we guy. What's my excuse?

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, the only thing with Pico is that he's had such a rough life that when he's driving the boat for us, it's so much easier than being a logger, and it's so much better than being alone. And he enjoys the playfulness of us. He does have that playful spirit. And so he has the contrast of that. He's been through the worst. The worst pain, the worst abject poverty. And so when he's working for us, he's like, man, I'm making bank. He's. He's stoked. That was the only good thing that happened with the Discovery Channel thing. When they came down was like. Like, they said, what does your boat driver get paid a day? And I just went $100 a day for six weeks. And they. A boat driver gets paid in the Amazon, the boat driver gets paid like $10 a day. So I was like, I told him, I was like, you're going to be making $100 a day, which is like 360 soles a day for six weeks. He. He looked at me and he went, how. How is that possible? I was like, don't worry about it. I was like, just. If they ask you, just, just, just nod. It's great.

[Julian Dory]

God damn. Well, we've been putting it off and, and I do want to get to it now because I've known for months. We're doing this podcast, obviously, and you were doing other podcast before this, so I, I didn't want to check that out and see what's what. I kind of want to be surprised by it myself. But you and I have had some baseline conversations over the past, like probably 13, 14 months about the narcos problem. But to go all the way there, now that you're telling the story and it's public.

[Paul Rosolie]

Click.

[Julian Dory]

Let's just start at the beginning. These narcos you speak of, who are they associated with? When did you first notice them? And when did you realize it was going to be an enormous problem?

[Paul Rosolie]

The narcos, first of all, in the entire time, basically, for the entire trajectory of this book. It's like when I went down to the Amazon, started learning from jj, it was, we're in deep wilderness. Then we saw the smoke on the horizon and we started protecting it. Then we started turning the loggers and the gold miners into conservation rangers. That was the start of Jungle Keepers, but we could do that because JJ could go talk to the loggers and the gold miners. And they were people that, like, friends of his brothers, friends of his father's, local people who were just like, my best option is to be a logger. My best option is to be a miner. We were like, you want a better job? And they're like, sure, but we could go talk to them. And so one of the things we would always do is fly the drone over and just sort of scout and see, like, how many of them are there, you know, because you do have to be careful, right? It's not without risk. You've been to the edges of some of these clearings and, and so on this about. About two years ago, we saw this huge clearing spring up overnight on the side of the river above the reserve, which was horrifying because we said, wait a second, how did this happen? We thought it was Safe. And now this. This huge clearing, I'm talking about like six football fields long along the edge of the river, which is devastating, burnt to the ground. And so we went up one day and we had JJ, me, some of the staff, we even had donors with us. And I fly the drone up over the canopy and then down into the burnt area. And every time I fly the drone into a deforested area, the loggers do the same thing. The loggers see the drone and then they run into their huts and they're just like little corrugated steel huts or thatched huts. They will run into the huts because they know the. The drone has a camera on it. They don't to be seen. They hide. They ran the. This time we flew the drone. It gets down low, people run into the huts. And we just, we passed where the huts were. We had just gone upriver of the huts, and all of a sudden the people come back out with guns. And so I have the drone in the air and this is like a really nice cinematic drone. So you're talking about multi thousand dollar drone. And JJ goes, gun go. As they're running for their boat. So they're not running away. They're coming at us. And so JJ tells retold the driver, gun it. Thank God we had a 60 horsepower. They had a 40 horsepower. But they're coming behind us. And I have the drone in the air and we're flying the drone again. We have civilians on the boat at this point. Yeah, we have donors with people that were coming. They wanted to see. They wanted to see the land that they had protected. And so down where we do the eco tourism stuff, where the tree house is like where you stayed, it's safe down there. We're talking about six hours up river, a totally different part of the river. And so now we're all the way up there and now we can't even go down river because we're above where the narcos were camped. And so we're driving up river, the drone is in the air and the clients are picking up on it because they're like, hey, this. This whole Pirates of the Caribbean chase thing, like, what are they going to do if they get to us? And I was like, this happens all the time. They're just mad. They just want to yell at us. And like, you can see them with shotguns, like they're not joking. And JJ was like, oh, it's okay. He's like, this happens all the time. Then he looked at me and he was like, not good. We're going as fast as we can. Drones in the air. And then, you know, I'm going, okay, this is again, this is like a $5,000 drone. We cannot stop. So I raced the drone ahead on the last 2% battery it had. I just found like a tree there was like, I'll recognize that tree. Just crashed the drone. Leave it. Forget the drone. We kept driving and we had a. We'd been working with the Peruvian police police to try and investigate this area where this huge clearing was.

[Julian Dory]

How helpful is that? You're so deep in the Amazon.

[Paul Rosolie]

We have been providing them with boats. We have been helping them with gasoline. We have been providing as much support as we can. They don't have the funding, but they have the will to protect. And so we said, look, there's this huge patch of deforestation. We need you up. Then it just so happened that they were up there. We've been working with these guys for weeks, become friends with them. And so as this boat is chasing us and we can't stop, stop. We show up at an outpost where we have police that are friendly to us, that are posted there because of us. We get there and we go, look what's coming up river. And our friends. The guy Jonathan was running the team that day. He, you know, we get up there, we shake hands. Everybody, they look down river and you see this narco boat coming up river straight towards us. And they were like, let's go. They got on the thing, they called back, they got on the Starlink, they called for support. They all put on ski masks, loaded up, up, got on our boat, and then we turned our boat right around and drove straight towards them. Cuz now we're armed to the te. Now we outgunned them. And of course, their boat turned around immediately and went down river. So we got a police escort all the way back down to the station. Great. Now we're getting off the boat. And again, me and J.J. kept the whole situation, even though there was guns and everything. We were like, hey, look, we're just used extra pre precautions. We're just trying to keep it. We're totally, you know. Who wants coffee? Everybody want coffee? Everything's fine. We can't go see the land today, but we could try it another day. Everything's okay, you know, professional faces all around. And then I shook hands with all the cops, you know, ski masks off now. I said, guys, good job. Get back up river. You only got. You only got another hour to a daylight. Get back up river. Get safe. Thank you for saving Our asses. And, you know, shook Jonathan's hand, shook a bunch of other people's hands, and they went up. And then I'm at the station now where the staff is cooking for the clients, and we're talking about how to protect the river. And my phone keeps buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. I'm like, what? You know, I look at it and it's Stefan again and again and again and again. I'm like, not now. Like, I'm working right now. I'm like, hanging out with everybody.

[Julian Dory]

Stefan is the chair of your board.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Context out there.

[Paul Rosolie]

And he's like, right now. Right now. And I pick up. And when the cops got back up to their outpost, they figured the action was over for the day. And they were cleaning themselves in the river, and they didn't necessarily hear it as the boat came around the bend. And then they see a boat coming around the bend. It's got a driver and it's got another person, and it still didn't seem like a threat. And then right as the boat passed them, somebody popped up with a shotgun and shot Jonathan straight in the fucking chest. Best. So I get the phone call. The man whose hand I just shook who saved our asses today, is dead. So that day, we realized everything changed. It had been like 2022, 2023, 2024. It been like this. This sense of. Of success and building, and we're going to do this, and it's going to be great. And then if it was. If it was a movie or was like this montage of. Of hope and increasing capability. And then with a gunshot that all ended. All of a sudden, we got plunged into Dangerland, where it was. We said, wait a second. What? What? Like, it hadn't even occurred to us that this was possible. And then all of a sudden, our friend is gone. Just period gone. And now there's people on the river. And then in the preceding weeks, the police happened to arrest somebody that was on the periphery of this, and they confiscated his cell phone. And his cell phone said, if you find the mirda gringo Boladron, if you find the gringo that flies the drone, or Juan Julio Doren, if you find either of those and you can kill him, we'll reward you. So then we had an official hit out on us.

[Julian Dory]

What goes through now? We talked about fear earlier. What goes through your head? Because like this, this is a. These are the worst people in the world. These are.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, these are traffickers, you know, These are bad people. Okay, so this is the thing. These are like artisanal cocaine growers, right? So these are people that are out in the middle of nowhere, and they go, what's really remote out there? And they're talking to their brother, their cousin, or their friend, and they're going, look, if we go out there, we could grow some coke for a few months. You know, we can just cut down some forest. No one will know, because in the middle of nowhere, we'll grow some stuff, we'll get a few bags of powder, and then we'll sell it, and it'll be bank for us. And, like. And this is the way they think. We'll just do it again next year. And that's their whole business plan. Right. So they're desperate, too, but in that narco culture is that violent streak where it's like, if we get caught, we're going to go to jail. We're not going to jail, so we'll shoot you first. And so it's not like the loggers. Loggers. It's kind of like. It's more of an innocent sort of Robin Hood thing. It's like, you catch us, we get fined, we go to jail for two weeks. We come out, it's like it's. It's much more the narc. The thing is, the threat level increased, and we didn't realize it. The cops didn't realize it. Nobody realized it. And now we have a dead friend.

[Julian Dory]

And this is the end of 2024.

[Paul Rosolie]

This is the beginning 2025. This is last year in April, maybe.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, so you called me right after this. I didn't realize that because that's when you first told me about this.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Was like the end of April.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And then. And then weeks after that happened, you know, they basically said to me, they said, you got to get out of here. They said, you're way too recognizable. They said, even if we put you that the cops. I mean, then we had to work with the security team. We had to. Then we. Then we have secure. Now when I'm there, I have a. A security detail to this day. Yeah, yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And is it. Is it the Peruvian cops?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yes. And if I want to buy a banana, I have to be like, everybody up. We're walking to the market. Six people on either side of me. There's two other guys spotting. And so now I've gotten to the point where if I want to go buy a banana, I go, guys, could you just get me a banana? It's easier than going anywhere, because to mo. To mobilize a team of people in Cars and things. And also it's just. It takes a fun out of going anywhere to be.

[Julian Dory]

That's gotta annoy the out of you.

[Paul Rosolie]

Not just annoy the out of me, but it's, it's, it's also. It's really dark. The idea of that someone's gonna come and try to shut you off. Yeah, you don't. You might not even see it coming. That's horrifying. That I feel fear for that is very scary. And that fear was realized on the day that jj, you know, the way we leave the station, you know, we. You leave the station by boat and then you get to the edge of this. This road, this logging road, and then you take the logging road back to town. The logging road meets up at the Trans Amazon highway and goes back to town. And so me and JJ all the time take. We do it almost every, you know, once a week. We go back to town, we take the. Take the river down to the logging road. Our car meets us there, and then the car takes us back to the nearest city. And so I had just been told that I couldn't be in Peru anymore. And so I'd come home. Home. And J.J. left the station and came down the river and reached the dirt road where he saw the driver named Percy. Our driver's name is Percy. And he has a toy, a Hilux. And so JJ went, oh, you know what? He goes, we should have gone and walked the trail and figured out the thing. He goes, you know, I need one more day in the jungle. Just. He just happened to change his mind. And he said, you know what? Take the garbage back to town. Come back, pick me up tomorrow, and then I'll spend a few days in town. Town. He made a last minute decision. Percy's driving our pickup truck down the road. And they had downed trees, they had cut some trees across the road and there was armed men in masks that put guns, pistols in the windows. They pulled him out and we have tinted back windows. And he said that while he was on his knees, they were like, open the back. Get Paul and JJ out. They were fully intending on executing us right there. And then when we weren't in the car, they roughed him up and they took his wallet and they took his cell phone and they had him on the ground with a gun against his head. And they said, where's Paul and jj? And he, you know, he said, I have no idea who that is. And they said, don't fuck with us. We know exactly who you are. You know exactly who we Are. And they said, just tell him they got lucky today. They're not going to get lucky again. And so he came back shaking. And when that news hit us, then it was. It got really ugly.

[Julian Dory]

How long after April was that?

[Paul Rosolie]

I don't know if she knows.

[Julian Dory]

A month or two, a few weeks later. Are you worried, though, about them coming to the research station and where you are? They know where it is.

[Paul Rosolie]

No. Also now, at the research station, they would have to have a. They would have to have an army to get into the. You know, because we're very well protected now. We've. We have. We have risen to the threat level now, but also again, the. The.

[Julian Dory]

I mean, you have windows there, though.

[Paul Rosolie]

Sure, but that in order to get there, you have to come through the river. And there's no other way to get there, Right? Right.

[Julian Dory]

One way in.

[Paul Rosolie]

There's only one way, and there's no roads. You can't walk through the jungle to get there. It's just not. They can't do that. And so at this point, we have a huge security team. We're still bringing tourists and everything. They're not after them. They're after me and jj. The threat level is upriver, all the way up there.

[Julian Dory]

Right.

[Paul Rosolie]

And they're just saying, if anybody sees that Italian guy or that one Peruvian, take them out. Out.

[Julian Dory]

Who. Who did. The. The. The guys specifically who have been doing these things, these narcos, these growers. Who do they work for? Like, what syndicate?

[Paul Rosolie]

They don't. They're like. It's like. It's like. It's like wheat. Like weed growers in California. It's like they're just doing it on their own, man.

[Julian Dory]

Well, I mean, they work for, like, the CCP sometimes now.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, sure. I don't know what that. I'm saying, like, in the 80s, but, like. Like. Like the. The. The. I don't know what the current situation is that. Delete that from the record. I have no idea. That's all right. I'm just thinking about some guy in his backyard with some weed plants. I'm saying these people are just like, we'll just grow, and then we'll. So they're saying.

[Julian Dory]

And they're growing.

[Paul Rosolie]

We'll grow and sell to people that are really. So. They're kind of below. They're not like the cartel. It's not like the Mexican. This is a sicario.

[Julian Dory]

But who. So you don't know who they're selling the coke to?

[Paul Rosolie]

No, I'm not dea. Like, they're. We're and that's the sort of. The problem is, like, we're out there. There. You know, I'm a. I'm a artistic writing kid who wants to count butterflies and take pretty pictures. Like, I'm not. We were not ready for this. And now. Now they're hunting us, or they were hunting us.

[Julian Dory]

I totally understand that. The difference here is these are people that not only have made explicit threats on your life, they have made attempts on it. Attempts effectively. And, you know, I'm not you, but I would want to know, like, are they obviously this bad example because he's not around anymore? But are they working for Pablo Escobar? Are they working for El Chapo? You know what I mean?

[Paul Rosolie]

Like, we know that from the. From the police. We have a certain amount of intelligence. We know that they're not working directly for anybody, that they are individual groups of people that just think this is a good idea. And so they are artisanal cocaine growers.

[Julian Dory]

What are their grows look like? And you said they're upriver, the grows like, five, six hours or days. Like, sometimes you put a drone over to see where they're growing.

[Paul Rosolie]

We have. And then the Peruvian special forces has done it. They even, like, notified the American DEA because it was such a large haul that they got out out. But they've also, as far as we know, they've cleared out the threat to the point that there's no narcos left on the river. There was like. It was like one. You know, like when you get a wasp nest. Yeah, it was like a wasp nest. It's like they came in, they cleared forest. Think about it. You can't just do this anywhere. You have to clear forest to cut down trees that are 16ft thick with giant chainsaws. There's a lot of work just to make a field in the middle of nowhere. So they were stuck in that one spot. And so when law enforcement went in, they were able to clear them out, which they did. And so at the moment, the threat level has gone back down, because it seems like these guys aren't completely stupid. And they went, oh, this area is protected. The cops are going to keep coming and messing up somewhere else. Yes. And so that's the good part, is that it was, for about a year and a half, it was really bad. And right now, as far as we know, it's not as bad that.

[Julian Dory]

Do you know if they're native Peruvians to the jungle itself back there, or did they come in there?

[Paul Rosolie]

These are coming from another part of Peru entirely.

[Julian Dory]

So they could have been like from Puerto Maldonado or worse.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, they're, they're from a whole other part of the Amazon. They're from like the, where the, the Amazon turns into the Andes. They're from.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, they're from all the way up.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, they're from all the way up. They're not from the jungle. They're people, they're, they're people from the countryside, as JJ would say. So they're, they're, they're, they are familiar with the outdoors, but they are not Amazonian natives. How they're coming just to use the remoteness, the fact that we are past the edge of human civilization on the planet. They are trying to use how remote it is. The same reason we want to protect it. Because these ecosystems are thousands, millions of years old and have never been touched. They're going, well, it's so far past where anybody can get with a boat or a car. It's so inaccessible. We can do this and no one's going to catch us. But it just so turns out that this is within the area that Jungle Keepers is trying to protect. And it just so turns out that they're directly in conflict with the uncontacted tribes. And so the uncontacted tribes and the narcos. I was speaking to another anthropologist who you should have on the show, Kerry Bowman, whose work is incredible, set it up. He does work in another part of the Amazon and he was saying, same problem, this is becoming a problem with these artisanal narcos. Was. And he was saying that these people are so scared. They've come from another part of the Amazon and they come into the deep jungle. And so they don't know what these sounds are. Unlike jj, they don't know what any of the sounds are. They don't know what any of the medicines are. They don't know what the rules of the game are. And so when they hear that there's these tall painted warriors that have a whole different code, a whole different language that have been out there for centuries, they think of them almost as mythological, magical. Like they have beliefs where they're like, if you even see one, you'll die. Which is kind of true, because if you, if they don't like you and you see one, they'll clever girl you from the side with an arrow and you'll have it through your neck by the time you realize what's going on.

[Julian Dory]

How long those bamboo tipped arrows?

[Paul Rosolie]

Seven feet.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, that'll do it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. They're huge and so and so the narcos are terrified of the uncontacted tribes, which is in one way good because it keeps, keeps the narco activity under control. And also, a shotgun in the forest is not as effective as an arrow because a shotgun's range is less than an arrow's range.

[Julian Dory]

Really?

[Paul Rosolie]

Of course.

[Julian Dory]

A seven foot arrow.

[Paul Rosolie]

Can we look up how far buckshot shoots with any sort of efficacy? Because you shoot buckshot, I want to say, like, he's already got it.

[Julian Dory]

Machine.

[Paul Rosolie]

50 yards.

[Julian Dory]

All right.

[Paul Rosolie]

Buck shot.

[Julian Dory]

The range is generally considered under 50 yards with peak effectiveness often cited within 25 to 40. Yeah, actually.

[Paul Rosolie]

Now can you look up what is the range of a longbow arrow?

[Julian Dory]

Arrow.

[Paul Rosolie]

Narrow shot from a longbow.

[Julian Dory]

Do any of your guys have like AR15s? No. Okay. Longbow arrow is going to be 200 to 300 yards. It's not even close.

[Paul Rosolie]

Not even close.

[Julian Dory]

Not even so close.

[Paul Rosolie]

Not even close. And, and in the jungle where you, you know, buckshot's going to be hitting leaves and vines and trigs and things to actually shoot, you know, I might get a little bit of you, but I'm not gonna. You know, those arrows, if they get you, you, it's a whole machete going through your body. You ain't going to get up.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah. I remember when we first met before you did the podcast. It was August 2022 and you went down for the fire season.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

So I've told the story before, but I texted you maybe like a week and a half to you being in there. And I was up editing one night at like 3am and you hadn't answered for like three days. And then you got to a sad phone or something and you sent me like, like it was like a shuddering, like kind of like three paragraph text.

[Paul Rosolie]

Like.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, we ran into the uncle or so and so ran into the uncontacted tribes. Took a bamboo through the temple. Yeah, he's gone. I was just like, yeah, man.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, I mean it's, I mean it's like the wild west, but wilder.

[Julian Dory]

Yes.

[Paul Rosolie]

There's no rules when you're in untracked Amazonian jungle. There's just the, the, the, the rules are the rules of the rain and the rocks and the teeth. Like, it's like the, it's, it's who's faster, who's got bigger teeth. It's just, it's, it's the original rules. It's like, it's like caveman times and how wide.

[Julian Dory]

I'm trying to think the. When you're going up Madridios River. The average spots that you're going up, like across the way. How wide is that? 50 meters.

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, on our tributary. Yeah, I'd say about 50 meters to. To 80.

[Julian Dory]

Right.

[Paul Rosolie]

There's certain points where the river is much fatter and then it'll. It'll choke down at the turns and.

[Julian Dory]

But in range.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, 100% range.

[Julian Dory]

Meaning, like, if you spot them across Bill.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And they're deadly accurate.

[Paul Rosolie]

Deadly accurate. I mean, one of my close friends, his father, was shot through the stomach. And the way it hit him, it cut him across the stomach. So everything fell out onto the floor. It just perfectly opened him. So in one second he was alive and fine arrow went by and all of his guts fell out onto his feet. Feet. And so his son was there with him. And then they started noticing that the. That the. The animal sounds had been different and that there was multiple animal sounds coming from multiple directions. And the tribes were talking in animal sounds to. So that they hadn't noticed. And then the kid ran for it and ended up living. The father, of course, died, because there's no way of putting. But he's my friend, I know him. Very nice guy.

[Julian Dory]

All right, back to Narcos for a second. Do you have, like. Did you have an idea of the range of like, number that you were dealing with? Like, how deep they went?

[Paul Rosolie]

No. At the time that that happened, it was very scary. I mean, again, we're running scared on a boat. We're boating as quickly as we can. And then afterwards, I mean, I know, I'm saying. I'm saying afterwards, even afterwards, it was like, we have to start finding out. You know, we have to go. To go to the police and be like, look, this is now beyond our hands. I mean, we can have rangers going around with boats reporting to you guys when there's logging, but we have no idea how to deal with this threat.

[Julian Dory]

Right.

[Paul Rosolie]

You know, so it was really. We had to up everything about our operations. It became a lot more expensive to protect land because we have to do it now with. It's not just protect the land and stick some rangers on it. Protect the land, stick some rangers, bring security. It's a whole bigger thing now. And so this is horrible with the loggers. It's like sort of, it's, you know, it's like you're running a marathon and you're coming into the last third of the marathon and. And somebody jumps on your back. It's like, this is not what you needed right now. This is. And they're trying to stab you in the neck. It's like, it's just not. This is hard enough the way it was. Now that they're hunting us, it has truly become, you know, this was a dangerous job before that. The whirlpools, the falling trees, the vipers, the Amazon itself, the rushing river, the. Now there's angry people that want to kill us out there. And so, and if you look at the numbers of. I mean again, this is probably a stat that we could pull up, but like how many environmental defenders are shot in the Amazon every year? It's many. This is an ongoing thing where people will stand up for the forest, whether it's local people or people from outside, and then they will kill them.

[Julian Dory]

2024 data. In 2024, at least 146 environmental defenders were killed or disappeared. Appear.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Or disappeared globally, with the vast majority of these occurring in Latin America. There it is.

[Paul Rosolie]

Like it's an ongoing. They know, they know how it works because there's usually a figurehead at the top of the organization like me or jj and if you can cut the head off the snake also, if you can devastate enough, if you can cause that shock and awe of letting people see a body, they'll stop, they'll leave.

[Julian Dory]

Also, like, what kind of. I know it's in Peru. Peru's a nation, they have laws. But this is so far beyond where the cops or military generally go. Like it's, Are there even laws out there?

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, technically, Technically, according to who?

[Julian Dory]

You know, right.

[Paul Rosolie]

Again, if me and you are at or in Alaska and we are, are 150 miles away from the nearest police station, you know what. And we get into a bad argument. What's, you know, the only thing that stops us is our own ethical framework, you know, or if we run it. Let's, let's, let's rephrase that because me and you is a bad example. But let's say we ran into a bunch of people and they wanted to rob us. What's going to stop them from doing it? The only thing that's going to stop them from doing it is if we have guns sufficient to fight their guns. That's it. Because if they have more, even if we were loaded with pistols, they have shotguns, they're gonna win, period. And so it really comes down to who's got bigger teeth and stronger muscles. It's, it's like the original old school rules. And so we're days past. I mean, I'm talking days by boat where you go drive for a whole day through the jungle, you don't see anybody except for animals. And then you drive for another whole day. And so when you get to those places in the middle of nowhere, yeah, the bad guys have figured out that if they can go out there, nobody can mess with them. And so it's, it's, it's. It. Whereas it used to be. I mean, and mother of God. It was going on these solos deep into, you know, national parks that only JJ and the indigenous people have access to and going far, far up. But we knew that there was no people, people up there. You knew that it was just pristine jungle that had been growing for 30 million years. Now on our river, it's like everything is coming to a head, right? And then recently, this is not like public knowledge, but, you know, someone came back with pictures from way out in the Amazon and there was a mass grave where apparently the narcos had rounded up the uncontacted tribes and just shut shot dozens of them. And so now the narcos are realizing just. Just kill everybody. And so they're the. The thing is, the. The wildest place on earth now has pressure from the narco traffickers, the loggers, the illegal gold miners. There's roads coming in. We are literally. We have this, this diamond. We have this beautiful emerald thing that we're trying to protect that's filled with millions and millions of animal heartbeats. It's the most incredible, interconnected, complex wilderness. Wilderness on earth. And we're begging the world to help us protect it. And the only thing we need is the funding to finish it. We've already shown that we can do it. And so it's just a race against time. Can we beat the bad guys to save the animals? It's basically Avatar.

[Julian Dory]

Can, can you. Dave, can you just pull up a map of Peru right now with like a topography map so we can see like the green and everything. Do you roughly know the general area where that mass grave was?

[Paul Rosolie]

Was?

[Julian Dory]

Because I got some questions about this.

[Paul Rosolie]

You can ask me questions about. I can't tell you where it was. I can't point it out on map on public.

[Julian Dory]

Fair enough. All right, never mind on that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Let's not do that.

[Julian Dory]

That's fine. I'm almost shocked that, that they found that because, like, out here, the mob wax a guy, they take him to the meadowlands, they can find those bones and, you know, three, four, five, six, seven years later if they have to. But you think about out in the Amazon where everything, the. The jungle literally Eats itself. If someone whacks someone out in the midd Amazon, they could leave the body right there. And how long would it even last before it's completely gone?

[Paul Rosolie]

Not long. But I think that the thing that what they. Not like a day, like a two days, right? Your body's gone. The vultures, the, the dung beetles, the flies, the maggots, the things I've seen it I've watched like a dead porcupine. I've watched a dead taper which is almost the same weight as a human. Same amount of flesh to digest and bones gone. Taper went to bones I would say in three days, like no flesh left on it in the middle of the jungle. And then you give it another week and those bones are gone with the rain and the mycelium get into it.

[Julian Dory]

So why did the narcos build a mass grave? And how did the body stay there long enough to even be discovered?

[Paul Rosolie]

I think it's the turtle tracks principle. So when you, when you, when you people want to eat turtle eggs and you're driving up river in your boat, they. The only way to find the turtle eggs is to look for the footprints of the mother turtles. And you can see these, these, these little footprints going up the beach to the point where you can see the turtle eggs. And then the only time you're going to find those is when the tracks are fresh. So once it rains, it's wiped. So either you're finding new turtle eggs or you don't find turtle eggs. But you're never going to find turtle eggs and have there be baby turtles in there. They're either fresh, right? And so with the mass grave, I think that what they did was they piled up so many bodies that there were so many vulnerable vultures flying over that thing. You'd have king vultures, yellow headed vultures, black headed vultures. And so some native person probably saw this thing of vultures, tornado of vultures like they've never seen before and went, I want to know what's over there. These native people are so smart, they probably went, I want to know what's over there. And they probably went and invest. That's the only thing I could think of because it would be so far out, but at the same time it would cause such a reaction in the forest to have that much material that can be digested. So I don't, there's not this, I mean, I don't know anything about it. Somebody, somebody very reliable told me that this had happened. But the important thing is this. I mean you Know the reason, Paul? I don't. I mean, he said mass grave, so you're talking at least over 20, I would assume. This is not. These are not. These are not. This is. I'm at this point reaching deep into what I don't know. But the, the thing is, you know, people keep going. Why did you release the footage of the uncontacted tribes? And. And it's like, because they can't tell their story on a podcast. They can't go to the United nations, they can't go post social media posts. So either they're going to go extinct and no one's going to know about it, or we get the power to protect their forest and get the narcos out and save all the wildlife, and they continue to live there as long as they want. But in order to protect them, we have to tell their story, and we need the support of people wanting to protect them. And so for that, we have to publish what's going on. And that is, you know, most people have gotten that, that it's only like, you know, every, every hundred comments or so you get somebody that's just like, leave them alone.

[Julian Dory]

You can't.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, we are leaving them alone. They're coming out of the forest and asking us for help.

[Julian Dory]

Yes, you can't worry about that. No, that's you, you know, you're doing the right thing and you're an expert on it, so I'm not worried about that. What the other thing I keep thinking with the narcos, though, is like, they're doing this five, six hours up river, obviously growing the stuff and then transporting it out of there. They don't even really need to think about how they smuggle it, though, because there's no one out there. There's no one stick it on the, the boats. Right?

[Paul Rosolie]

Stick it on the boats.

[Julian Dory]

And you don't know where it ends up. Like, you don't know where the boats end up.

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, we do. The boats end up on the Trans Amazon highway, and then the Trans Amazon highway leads all the way to Lima, okay?

[Julian Dory]

So you don't know who the hell.

[Paul Rosolie]

And there's, there's, there is a police checkpoint on the road, but they stop you and they, you know, they do that pointless baggage search thing where they unzip your bag and they look into it and they touch a few things and then they zip your bag. They're too, they're too late, lazy to really search it. And so, I mean, you could have all the cocaine you want in that bag and they're never going to find their dogs. It'd be a little bit more efficient. But again, you're talking about a police force where the people are good, they want to do their jobs more effectively. They don't have the resources, they don't have the training, they don't have the funding and they're trying the best they can. They also have too much land and too few officers. Same thing with the gold mining and that. You can look up, you can look up madhya of Peru. If you look up the Madre de Dios of Peru and you zoom in on that on Google. Google Maps. You can like get the maps up. Yeah. And if you look satellite. If it's on satellite, it should be on satellite.

[Julian Dory]

I think you have to go to after. Yeah, open a maps. Exactly.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And then go to satellite view. So it's the real thing.

[Julian Dory]

Layers on the left.

[Paul Rosolie]

There you go. Yeah. So see that right above your cursor? See that yellow at the bottom that zoom into that. That's all gold mining.

[Julian Dory]

That's all gold.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's all gold mining. That's hundreds of thousands of acres of gold mining.

[Julian Dory]

Now you and I in episode 124 talked about that at like the 29, 30 minute mark. So you've talked about this before, but for people who haven't seen that or haven't heard this, like who runs these operations?

[Paul Rosolie]

Wait, hold on. I literally want to take a picture of, I just want to take a picture of the screen because the, the. That's kind of funny. Who runs these organizations? Yes, like, like gold mining mafias. There's mafias of gold miners. So actually some of the security people that I work with, with the police have worked for because they don't, you know, security doesn't care where they work for. They've worked for legal miners. There are some legal mining happening, not illegal mining. And this dude was telling me a story where he was working for the legal miners. So these people are working up to their chests and in the sludge, pulling the gold out of the soil. They'd already cut the forest, burned the forest and now they'd irrigated the soil and they're sucking it up and they're using mercury to bind the gold. And they finally get, after weeks of effort, they get this tiny little golf ball sized piece of crap gold. It's not even high quality gold. And now they have to move this family of artisanal gold miners has to move this gold from here to the city where they can sell it. Now you have this Very, very valuable thing concentrated in your hand. And everybody knows you have it because you're a gold miner. So what happens? They get in their car and they start driving. They actually were able to hire security to go with them. And he said, as they're going down this little dirt jungle trail and there wasn't trees this time, they'd used a parked pickup truck just to block the road. Everybody came out, everybody started shooting. I said, well, what happened on that day? He said, well, me and my team killed six of them. Of the attackers. He said, but we only lost one. He said it was my friend right next to me said he got shot. And he said his neck exploded, hit the artery and he died right there. And so this is all so that these people can get one piece of gold to the selling point. They've destroyed acres and acres of a priceless ecosystem. They've risked their lives. And so you have to look into the fact that these people are so desperate nobody would do this if they had another option. Option.

[Julian Dory]

There's you just pointed out though, also there's legal and illegal ones. So the legal ones that obviously goes through the Peruvian government gets permission. Are there guardrails on ecologically what they're allowed to do there?

[Paul Rosolie]

No, it's very unregulated. And in those areas they call this la pampa. And you, we, I, I've driven up to the gates of that area and there's gates and that is where you find your guy with the AK47, right? That's where you see a guy in sunglasses with a machine gun. And you don't go past there, he won't let you pass there. And there was one time that I got to go into the gold mining areas and I had Matt Gutman with me from ABC News.

[Julian Dory]

Shout out, Matt.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, and we, we, we got to go. We went, we, we met these Russian gold miners and they were Russian gold miners and they had come and they had legal permits to try and they were actually trying to make gold mining less environmentally devastating. They're trying to improve upon this, cut it, burn it, suck it all up. And they were like that maybe there's more, more sustainable way maybe. And so we walk, we go in there, we're on like dune buggies going across this, this wasteland. The sand, it looked like the bottom of the ocean. And this is where the Amazon rainforest used to be. In the distance, there's a sandstorm blowing up. It looked like dune. And we're in these dune buggies with sand all over us. And I'M going, this is where the jungle used to be. This is the apocalypse of nature happening all around us. And we're standing on a. On a. On a dune, watching the sandstorm spread across the land. And the Russian guy comes up to me and goes, you are Paul Rosalie? Yes. And I said, how? Yes. And I'm going, does he know my name? And he goes, they are gold miners and they know your name. And I want. They know my name. He said, that's how I know your name. He said, because I heard them saying your name. He goes, I'm just telling you they know your name. They know that you raise money to stop this. Them. And he's like, they're all talking about the fact that you're here right now. And he was like, you might want to be careful. And then days or a week later, I don't remember, but the. I was walking in the city just like, like you see there and on the sidewalk. And a little tuk tuk pulled up and drove up on the curb and two guys jumped out and pushed me up against the wall. And they said, no more, no more talk in Spanish. They said, no more talk. Talking about gold mining. And there's a few other threats that they were spitting out at me, but I was. That time I fully thought that that was it. I was up against the wall and I said, this is they. There's no reason that they can't deep.

[Julian Dory]

Can you pull up a picture? We've done this before, but I want people to see this Amazon gold mine wasteland. Let's try that search like you've shown me this before, Paul, where it's just totally blown out and. Yeah. Which one do you want, Paul? One on the far right.

[Paul Rosolie]

Any of these? These? Yeah, I mean, that's those. It's pretty bad. That's where the jungle used to be.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah. And then actually that one. You're scrolled over right now. De hit that cuz you can literally see it where it's cut off. That was all trees.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. You honestly just add my name to the end of that search thing right there and I'm pretty sure my picture will come up. I. I wonder.

[Julian Dory]

Okay.

[Paul Rosolie]

I just am curious. Let's see. Y. Right there. Top result. That's it. That's that day.

[Julian Dory]

I'm talking about like the Sahara in the middle of the Amazon.

[Paul Rosolie]

See the sandstorm in the. The background of that photo? That's. That's just such a horrific picture. And that pipe coming out the front, that's what they use to suck The Earth up. It was one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. The complete annihilation of nature on earth. The devastation of millions of years of evolution to nothing.

[Julian Dory]

And how much is this type of destruction growing? Like, do we know a rate it's growing at or has it been somewhat contained at this point?

[Paul Rosolie]

Growing. And the problem is that the military is scared to go. The Peruvian law enforcement is scared to go in there now because the miners are more numerous than they are.

[Julian Dory]

What about the military?

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, the military can be called in. A few years ago, they came in with, with helicopters and commandos and they came in and they blew up a bunch of shit. They arrested everybody. And then they, they had a few problems. One, they had hundreds and hundreds of people they just arrested. And most of them are artisanal, you know, small scale people. They're not bosses. They don't have anything. So what do you. Eventually you have to let them go. Next. They just blew up all this mining equipment and the damage is already done. And half the people ran off into the surrounding jungle. And so within a few weeks, everybody was back at it, doing the gold mining again. And then so you go, well, what do we do? Another huge. But the problem is if you don't have a better alternative for these people, just like the loggers, if you say, stop logging, they're going, I'm going to stop logging. I got to feed my daughter. Not going to stop logging. But if you go, hey, I have a better job for you. You, you can work as a ranger. We'll give you a T shirt, we'll give you some binoculars, you can drive a boat, right? They go, yeah. They go, well, we're happy. You don't have to run from the law either. Well then they're happy to do that. But now you have to find a way to replicate that for tens of thousands of people that are destroying this ecosystem because they're desperate and they don't have any money and they're willing to risk their lives for a couple of nuggets of gold and then try to get that to the place where they can sell it before they get shot. It literally is like the Wild west. And then people are coming with masks on and pistols and taking that gold from them. They're the poorest people on earth being robbed by the slightly poorer people on earth. It's just, it's, it's horrible. It's no country for old men.

[Julian Dory]

It's just, it's just dark above that. Like above the level of these Mafias. Yeah, like I'm just thinking about the logging we've talked about in the past where the funding can be traced back to America, China, different countries around the world. Like enemies are like all doing the same damage and shit and then all the countries are buying the product that they get there. Do we also see like nation states funding some of the gold mining as well?

[Paul Rosolie]

I don't, not in this case. I think that most of the, most of the logging that's, most of the gold mining that's happening here is such low grade gold that it's not going towards like jewelry is not being exported to Europe it's, or America. This is, this is like gold you use in like electrical work. It's not. Yeah, this is all that risk for just that. What's the most valuable thing out there? But again these people, there's so much they could, they could literally, if education was the prevailing or the head of the line out there, these people could learn how to do all kinds of complex agroforestry and, and actually make products that make them more money as sustainable living. And they could be exporting Brazil nuts and small amounts of tropical timber and caring for their kids in an environment that's thriving, whereas this is now wasteland. Nothing can grow there or will for decades. And so we're, we're fighting this. When I say that we're fighting this existential threat, I mean this for everybody on Earth. It's if a fifth of our fresh water is contained in the Amazon and one fifth of our oxygen is coming out of this system system and all of this biodiversity and endangered species and undiscovered medicines and tribal indigenous knowledge is contained in this. We're literally on the cusp of losing it. And so it is this thing that right now we need people to, right now we need to figure out how to save this river so that we can prove that it can be done. And again and again and again across the Amazon. Indigenous territories are the largest, most prevalent way of protecting the Amazon. They're the most effective. Then there's the national park, park systems and then there's other things but it's like we have to also as a, I think as a country, I think it would be helpful if America was putting pressure on South America or carrot in the stick, you know what I mean? Incentivizing Latin American countries. Even better incentivize them and say look, we're going to hook you up with trade. Yes, we are going to hook you up, but we want to see zero deforestation let's help these people to rise out of poverty and then we don't know what's going to go out and start shooting, shooting jaguars and cutting down trees. If they have a real job, sure, yeah.

[Julian Dory]

If you were given control of one of these gold mine wastelands tomorrow, how would you fix this and how long would it take? Obviously you can't regrow ancient trees in 10 years but like what could you do to salvage what's happened?

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean you would have to talk to a ecosystem restoration expert. I focus in, in saving primary rainforest and old growth rainforest. When you look at the, the, look at the thick jungle that's on there, I, I'm about saving this. Once you get down to that level stuff that's tough, that's like how do you bring back a dead body? And that's going to be the mercury contamination that's there. The fact that the sun beating down on that, on that sand is going to prevent anything but maybe grass from growing there. You'd have to find a way of getting some initial cover. You'd have to wait for the pioneer species like cecropia and balsa and the grasses to take over there and to begin to build a layer, layer of some sort of soil and topsoil and some shade. Otherwise it really is just scorched wasteland and it's not going to grow back.

[Julian Dory]

What is the current, you mentioned the current like national park system out there. What is. Let's just focus on Peru for a second before going to other countries. What does that even look like at the moment? Because you had said earlier your threshold for your stuff would be like 300000 acres. So what do they already have in existence and who runs, runs it?

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, it's really good. I mean in our region you can look up the, they have Alto Purus national park. There's the Tambo Pata reserve. There's Manu national park which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There's different indigenous territories. There's something called the Amari Kairi Americaire. I always, I was kind of choke on that word. Americaire Indigenous territorial reserve. There's the uncontacted indigenous reserve of. There's. There's so much that's protected. And then you go up to the north, north of Peru there's more area protected. And even Smithsonian published a map where they showed that if we can protect from Ecuador down through the, through Peru, the Andes Amazon interface, that this could be a contiguous protected area that would protect the most biodiversity on earth. So there is there's, There's. There's massive amounts of hope out there. It's just that. It's just that we need. We need more people. We need more action. We. And that's why this has been so great with the book is like. Yeah, we've, We've. This is. It's like the right time and the. It seems like the story is reaching people. And I think the message of the book is. Is understanding that. I think a lot of people feel like they individually don't have the capability to do something. And I think that what this proves on a number of levels, whether it's jj, me, Jane, that you absolutely can. Can. And there's different levels of it. You know, you don't. I'm. You shouldn't. Nobody should do what I did. What I did was sort of suicidal.

[Julian Dory]

Suicidal?

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I mean, in the sense that, like, I would never tell anyone to go do what I did. You know, go out on Solos for 15 years, live out of your backpack, have no plan B, Fish with your.

[Julian Dory]

Skin on the bottom of your foot.

[Paul Rosolie]

Develop crucial jaguars, like fishing with the bottom of your foot.

[Julian Dory]

That's why there's one. Paul, Rosalie.

[Paul Rosolie]

Amen.

[Julian Dory]

Now, what about. You mentioned about 60 of the Amazon is in Brazil.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

And there's been all kinds of political going on with their government there. What. Where. What's the current standing of, like, the job they're doing in protecting the Amazon? Obviously that's different than where you are. You're in Peru. But how much do you know about that?

[Paul Rosolie]

It's not great. And the last administration, the Bolsonaro administration, he actually encouraged people to go into the Amazon and settle it. It was like manifest destiny. Settle it, settle it. It said cut roads. He actually provided funding for people to go out, cut roads, deforest, set up farms. It was like we. He said, we have all this territory in our country that we're just not using. This is unutilized potential that could be having economic output and an ecosystem just standing there there isn't actually putting dollars in our pockets. So he went, get out there. Do that. And then if I'm not wrong, and this is one of those ones disclaiming I'm saying that I. I believe. I believe I'm not wrong. He actually said something to the. To the effect of, like, get rid of the indigenous people, get rid of the tribes.

[Julian Dory]

What is it? Like, kill them. What is that? Yeah, can we pull that up?

[Paul Rosolie]

Tribes, something. He. He was. It was something very extreme.

[Julian Dory]

He's referring to all of them. The ones known and the ones uncon.

[Paul Rosolie]

I don't.

[Julian Dory]

I don't.

[Paul Rosolie]

I remember just watching it and going, that is. That is. I mean, people talk about, like, racism. It's like, this is. This is. Yeah, that's crazy. This was wild.

[Julian Dory]

Bolsonaro wanted to exterminate us. Claims indigenous leader Rayon met tapo Chief tells in memoir of seeing former president in his dreams and of warning Lula not to repeat past mistakes. Okay, let's.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's his dreams. I'm saying there's a. There's a. I know that. I think saw a video of Bolsonaro saying something where it's like, he's like, we don't need these. Like, you know, something very dark.

[Julian Dory]

Okay, I could. I'm. I'm trying to see if there's anything that mentions that in here. Can we just Google Bolanaro quotes on eliminating indigenous tribes, see if that's okay. The air. Bolsonaro has a long history of controversial and widely condemned remarks regarding indigenous tribes in Brazil and advocating for their assimilation, the exploitation of their lands and expression. Admiration for the historical eradication of indigenous population in other countries. A frequently cited quote from a 1998 interview published in 2015, 2016 shows him praising the actions of the U. S. Calvary. He stated, it's a shame that the Brazilian calvary slavery hasn't been as efficient as the Americans who exterminated the Indians.

[Paul Rosolie]

There you go. That's a blatant statement. So you have a guy like that who. Who can say that it's unfortunate that we are not able to exterminate indigenous people more than we have. You have that guy running the country that has some of the most sensitive, pristine cultures on. On earth. And so you think of all the endless miles of smoky jungle and all the toucans and the spider monkeys and the macaws and all the raindrops and leaf cutter ants and these complex biological processes and the fact that everything's interconnected and that the rain in the Amazon is caused by the sum total of all of these interconnections. And then you have China and the World bank and the IMF and guys like Bolsonaro who just want to make money. Money, and they want to use it as space and they want to clear aside that. I mean, just imagine if it was a town of people and you said, we're literally going to bulldoze the town with the people in their houses and then burn it. That's what we're facing. And so I live this. This life where, you know, it's funny when you watch Mission Impossible. Right. We had the ancient forest. We found out that there was 10,000 acres of the Amazon rainforest that was going to be bulldozed and chopped down and burned. Burned. And we were able to go online. We told the world about it. We found a donor who gave us half of the money we needed. We went to Instagram. The word spread around the world. And we were able to raise 300, $350,000. We protected the ancient forest. Saved. Right. But that was two weeks of, like, psychotic work and expedition up there, meeting the landowners, using our indigenous wisdom, sending JJ out, talking to the police, signing with the lawyers. I mean, monumental efforts. You get across the finish line, you fall on your face, but you pick your face up and you go, but there's more smoke. It's the next one. So it's like, even if you can ride the motorcycle and jump off the mountain and land it on a train and then parachute down and stop the bomb from going off, but that's great. But then you got to do it again tomorrow. Yeah. And you're only going to get lucky so many times. It just. Yeah, it just. It just doesn't stop. And so we've. We've had this. You know, this is the story of win after win after win. But it's like, it's also. There's so many losses. The first chapter in here, I'm taking. Talking about J.J. teaching me how to track.

[Julian Dory]

Also. I looked at the titles of the chapters right before you got here.

[Paul Rosolie]

Sick, bro. Yeah, I.

[Julian Dory]

They're sick.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. The first one is the Rivers in our veins. And it's like, that's just JJ. That when JJ, the early days where JJ would just take me on these little streams in the forest and teach me everything. And then that first stream that we used to explore for years and years and years that then they burnt it down.

[Julian Dory]

They burnt it down.

[Paul Rosolie]

The stream burnt it down. Settlers came in, took it as a farm. They burnt it down. They planted yucca there for a couple years, and now they're gone. So they ruined the ancient forest that used to be there. Killed every single animal that was living in that forest. I mean, this stream used to have, you know, emerald stained glass ceilings and these giant trees and vines going across. And there'd be jaguar tracks on the rivers and clouds of butterflies. It was massive, magical. And they came and they just cut all the trees with chain individually. You know, the amazing deliberation, deliberateness here. You have to go and cut each tree for it to fall over. That's the other thing people don't realize with the environment is that if you stop killing it, it will live. It's been there for millions of years long. This is The Amazon, formed 30 to 55 million years ago, millions of years ago ago. And so this system has been complexifying for millions of years. It existing right there, all the trees. And if you look at some of the millennium trees that stand there, you look at a thousand year old tree, you see that tree was there when they were painting the roof of the Sistine Chapel. That tree was there In World War I, that tree was there in World War II. That tree has been there my entire life. It's been this sentinel of the ages, of the centuries and then they cut it over so that story's over. And think of how many millions of animals have lived on the branches of that tree tree over the course of the centuries that it was alive. And now that story's over. And the fact that in another thousand years we may not have a tree like that because if we break the moisture cycle of the Amazon, we're not going to have an Amazon rainforest. And so that it becomes then that every day is mission impossible until we save this ecosystem. And that ecosystem happens to be the size of the lower 48 and we're the last generation in history because once we cut too much of the Amazon and it out came, can't produce the rain that makes it the Amazon rainforest and it's going to dry out and become a wasteland. And then you're talking about post apocalyptic panic on this planet because everything is going to change and then our weather is going to go crazy. And it's like you're messing with all the dials. And so the fact that we can protect this, I don't think it's a very big ask. If you're going to go the Jane Goodall route, the Gandalf route, you go, hey, there's still time to do this, this. So it's not a big ask. I mean to protect the rest of our river, we need $20 million to protect the rest of our river. I just met somebody that spent, who was working. I just met somebody who spent $20 million putting in a new cafeteria at their company. And I was like, easy. So this, this, this, this money's out there? Yeah, here's some, some, some, some chairs and a counter and a few Coke machines and a roof and it's $20 million right there. We could save, I mean we're already protecting land that's half the Size of Singapore, it's nine Manhattan Islands.

[Julian Dory]

One less building in New York could make a big difference.

[Paul Rosolie]

There you go. Yeah, yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Make a huge fucking difference. You've talked about before how you don't know where the percentage cutoff is, meaning you don't know when it gets to. Whether it gets to 30 or 35% or 40, the Amazon cut down where it's the point of diminishing, like, no return. Diminishing returns. Do you feel like we have, I don't want to say halted, but done enough good over the last three years to kind of keep things, it's even just status quo of losing the Amazon or are we still statistically losing too many trees?

[Paul Rosolie]

We're still losing too many trees every year. But again, it can't. You know, you're watching. You're watching the. You're watching the water slide out of the box bucket. And it's like we're. We're slowing it, we're stopping it, but it's still leaking. It's still leaking. It's still going. And it's only one admitted one bad administration away from being devastated. Right. And the thing is, we just. You don't want to go close to that. You don't want to, you know, how close can you go? How many, how many. What is it? Rivets can you take out of the, the wing of an airplane before, you know, you take 1, 2, 3, 3, 100, you're fine. Big plane. And how many does the wing come off?

[Julian Dory]

That's right.

[Paul Rosolie]

You don't know. We don't know. Someone knows. But with the Amazon, nobody knows because it's never been done before. And why would you want to push it to that? And so I think that, you know, I think that more and more people are understanding that you need healthy ecosystems for human life to thrive, that these things come standard, they're free, these ecosystem services are free. Life on Earth comes standard where with. With fresh water in the streams. It comes standard with fish in the ocean. There's food everywhere. There's sunlight, there's plants, there's ecosystems. People understand. People start talking about, oh, we should, you know, we're going to go to Mars. Great. You know, it's Bill Maher. Fam. I loved Bill Maher's thing about where he goes, Mars, and he's, he's going, you know, he goes, there's things that, that are not on Mars that are on Earth. You know, one example is, is air. He's like, you don't understand. We have ecosystems here that Create the environment you live in without oxygen in the air. That is because of the ecosystems. This doesn't work. And so I think people get very cavalier with their ideas of what's possible. We live on this tiny little crust of the Earth. That's it. And that's very, very delicate. And something like a hole in the ozone layer or. You hear that when Krakatoa went off, that glow global like the entire globe cooled because of the, the smoke from Krakatoa actually.

[Julian Dory]

When was that?

[Paul Rosolie]

When was that? I. It was like, I think it was.

[Julian Dory]

Like the whole world cooled because I.

[Paul Rosolie]

Believe there that, that you can see it when Krakato. No. All right.

[Julian Dory]

Krakato's most famous and catastrophic 1883 eruption occurred from a series of massive explosions, culminating on August 27, 1883. Though activity began in May and ended in October that year, with the final basis causing immense tsunamis and killing tens of thousands. In Indonesia, the explosion destroyed over 70% of the island, collapsing it into a caldera collapse. Wow. It generated colossal tsunamis, some reaching 120ft high, leading to over 36,000 deaths, primarily on Java and Sumatra. The eruption ejected vast amounts of ash and gas, causing global climate effects that the sun colored sunsets and a temporary drop in world temperature. There you go.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, so like a single volcano affecting global temperature. And talk about something like the Amazon rainforest. That's pretty much the defining feature of our planet. It's like the face of Earth. It's a big nice green thing. As you're coming in. I, I just, it just, it's. This is what I don't, I don't think there's anything more important right now than, than making sure that we survive this period of adolescence. Everyone's very, very concerned with the future. But it's like until you can, until you can show that you can manage the things that you've been given for free.

[Julian Dory]

That's right. Where, where else in the world, Paul, besides the Amazon are you most concerned about right now? Now from an environmental perspective?

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean any river that has. In the U.S. i mean we've damned like 90 something, 97% of the waterways in the, in the U.S. i mean just think of that. There's millions and millions and millions of waterways and they all have a dam and to the point that now that was, you know, hundreds, 100 years ago, people thought that was a great idea. They're starting to take down the dams now because salmon fisheries, you know, Whereas we're at 5% of the amount of, of salmon that Used to be in a river. River. 5% in a lot of rivers. Yeah. We've devastated so many animal populations, they've come down to barely viable populations.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, 5% is crazy.

[Paul Rosolie]

Where we used to have billions of salmon coming out of these rivers. And so what's more valuable, a dam to make a little bit of electricity or having salmon that bears and people in the ecosystem can all depend on the salmon.

[Julian Dory]

Right.

[Paul Rosolie]

And I think that at this point it's like even the people that used to be the destroyers are under understanding that this is just not. It's not going to work like this.

[Julian Dory]

You weren't kidding, bro. More than 550000 dams are located in the United States indicating that nearly every. Every major ridger river in the country has been damned diked or diverted. The national inventory of dams lists over 90000 significant structures. But total dams, including smaller non federal ones, may exceed 2 million, causing widespread habitat fragmentation.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

How's that even possible?

[Paul Rosolie]

It's incredible. The. There's a. There's a documentary that'll make you cry called Damnation. It's an amazing documentary. And it's like they interview all these people that are fighting to protect waterways. And it's like you meet these beautiful. There's a guy whose job is to monitor salmon and you know, you see him talking about this, you know, he takes you under the water and these clear pools, pools and talks about how these fish come here and how they're just trying to get up river and they're trying to do they spawn and their whole life is connected to the river from the sea upwards. And then as if this wasn't bad enough, as if we didn't dam the rivers that stop the salmon, then you have farmed salmon in every store. You can get wild car, you can get farmed farmed salmon. They're genetically engineering the salmon. They're filling them with antibiotics. They're keeping them in pens that are in the ocean. And so when the farmed salmon gets out, what do they do? They go breed with the wild salmon. And this is catastrophic because a wild animal. I say this every time I eat a piranha or the big paco, which like the vegetarian piranha in the Amazon, that animal has for millions of years been swimming in those waterways and generations and generations and generations and that they've been surviving. And it's the strongest of them have been surviving, escaping predators and surviving against the elements and finding food. And so when you are. When you have the incredible luck again, the. It's almost supernatural to be able to get this fish out of the Amazonian river. Because if somebody brought you to the edge of the river and you didn't have any tools, you were just a human. It's completely impossible. And 15 foot deep water that's racing by at 12 miles an hour, you have zero chance of ever getting this powerful fish out of the river. You never even know how to find it. But if you have a fishing line made from plastic that comes from somewhere else and a piece of metal that comes from somebody's else, both somewhere else, both that somebody else made for you that you bought, now you have this special thing that you tie to a rope and then you need a piece of meat from an animal that somebody grew on a farm. So now you have all these things that your society helped you get and somehow you're able to pull this fish out of the river and you feel like you did it yourself, but really you had a lot of help. And I the, the incredible sacrament of, of eating something that came out of a wild river. You are incorporating into your physical system something that has been forming for millions of years. You're taking part in this great natural cycle. And to do that, you have to do that with the deference and respect of this great, great, great story. And so the thing of building a dam across a river and stopping the lives of millions or billions of migratory animals that depend on this river for a life life and ruining it for future generations is, is one of the greatest acts of terrorism that you could possibly imagine. And so you can imagine that when I do leave the jungle where it is wild and where I can drink from the rivers and I come back to the world, I'm horrified by what I see. I mean, even upstate New York, I know where the endangered American eels live. And I actually have gone and seen them.

[Julian Dory]

The endangered American.

[Paul Rosolie]

There's an American eel. They're beautiful. They're bright yellow. They are beautiful. I go look at them at night in the pools where they live. They come up the Hudson and they're trying to move up the waterways because they want to go up the streams. And that's where they, that's where they spawn. They're beautiful. But there's all these dams and you look just below the dam, all the eels are sitting there. All the eels are just below them. There's no way of getting over a six foot dam. Stupid concrete six foot dam is ruining it for an entire speed species as part of the entire ecosystem that's part of the Hudson Valley. That provides the clean water that goes to New York City. And the reason New York City has clean water is because the Catskills are protected. But the Hudson river is part of that. And so even that, like who's advocating for the eels? I mean the fact that there's still sturgeon. I think they found a 13 foot sturgeon in the Hudson river not that long ago. These are dinosaur fish. I mean, these are ancient fish.

[Julian Dory]

Wait, actually, I think I remember that. Yes.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, that where it washed up on the side.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

And like the cops are out with the lights and there was this giant fish on the side of the rocks.

[Julian Dory]

Got it. Dude, they're catching bull sharks out here now.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, well, the water's getting healthier and so the wildlife is coming back. I mean again, look at California. There it, the water is so much cleaner and so there's more fish. There's elephant seals and sea lions and whales. And it's amazing what happens when you just stop polluting the nature.

[Julian Dory]

Unbelievable, right?

[Paul Rosolie]

You would never think it's like, man, the tree has been standing there for 150 years. If just don't cut it over.

[Julian Dory]

Oh my God.

[Paul Rosolie]

Somehow. Keep standing there.

[Julian Dory]

Do we have it?

[Paul Rosolie]

Thief.

[Julian Dory]

This. They found this one in Maine this year too. Nice. Oh, that's a big no.

[Paul Rosolie]

But you type in like New York City. Sturgeon, rocks. Yeah, I remember, I remember that one. It was nuts cuz everyone's walking by being like, damn.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, that was right out by Maxwell park, right up here. I'm pretty sure if my memory served me right. Let's see if thief can find it. It's not coming up.

[Paul Rosolie]

Like we all have it.

[Julian Dory]

I think Hoboken girl had it like back then on Instagram. I don't know when that would have been though. But it's all good. We know what happened.

[Paul Rosolie]

We know what happened. Big fish on the edge of the city and everybody was losing their minds. Yeah, it's one thing when you see out in the middle of nature, but like seeing it like in the guanis.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, right here.

[Paul Rosolie]

Like a 10 foot fish with spikes coming off of its back.

[Julian Dory]

Some dudes eating a fucking bee alley three feet away.

[Paul Rosolie]

Jesus Christ.

[Julian Dory]

You know, Paul, now it's. It obviously like you're able to have a profile and you go talk about this stuff and you're seeing the fruits of many years of work actually go into helping you do that work and get it way farther. But like we were saying earlier, there were a lot of years there where you were like kind of yelling out and a lot of people wouldn't listen and you couldn't get the proper attention on it. And you were fighting, fighting, fighting down there to do what you did do and you stuck with it. And I always admired that so much because I, I can't even imagine, like when we met, you'd been down there for like 16 and a half years or something like that. And I tried to think about my life that was, well, more than half my life at that point. You know, how did you, how did you keep like such a, I don't want to say like upbeat mentality, but how did you keep a day to day mentality of, of focusing on the mission when so much time would pass without any real progress happening despite all of your efforts?

[Paul Rosolie]

I think that the thing that sent me down to the Amazon in the first place was panic over what I saw happening to the environment. And so when I got there and I discovered that this place was more beautiful and more complex than anything I had ever imagined, imagined reality surpassed my wildest dreams for the first time in my life. And so that place made me happy. It was a selfish thing. And then over the years, it's not that I was upbeat at all, it's that I was running away from the depression of being told that we're living at the end of days and that all the rivers are damned and all the rivers are polluted and all the species are going extinct. And so as a young person, as a kid, I mean, I remember crying, crying, crying to my parents at night because I was worried about the, the turtle, Lonesome George, who was the last of the pinto island Galapagos tortoises. Or hearing that elephants are going to go extinct. Or the horrible videos they played you at the Bronx Zoo where you hear that sound of the chainsaw, like a nightmare and you can see the trees going over. And so when I finally got to the rainforest and it was like, it was like in the adventure stories when you, you know, they reached the island where every, everything's possible and there's these incredible species, these beautiful snakes and rainbows of macaws flying across it. And for a while there was this beautiful play period. There was like the age of innocence where for the first few years was, you have to go two years, two, two days. You'd have to get on the boat and go two days from the nearest city to reach this remote research station. There was no one else out there. And you're all alone out in the Amazon with, surrounded by life, the antithesis to the millions of miles of frigid space, this glowing, beautiful, complex carnival of life all around you. At all times, you could jump into the river, you could drink it, at it with your hands. And then seeing that get destroyed changes you, because the thing you love the most gets annihilated in front of your eyes. And then you come back. And I would come home and go, why aren't. Why isn't everybody freaking out about this and everybody be worried about whatever was on the news that week? I go, guys, wait. No. We're losing something that's irreplaceable. And at that time, you're right. I had no. No platform, no vehicle by which to communicate the destruction I was seeing. And so I just went back and spent more time, because I said, maybe my job is to witness the destruction of this great thing. Maybe that's. It is to bear witness to the. To the loss of something beautiful. I mean, that's what Peter Beard was doing in Africa when he saw these. He wrote the end of the game, where he just saw this vast wilderness destroyed and sort of domesticated and ruined and denatured. And so I said, maybe this is dark. And so I think, actually, when people have asked me, what is it that allows you to take some of the risks that you took? And so a lot of the risks that I took, I was able to take because I thought there wasn't much point to it. I figured I was just going to see a lot of bad stuff, and I didn't think I was ever going to have a life that integrated with the world I had come from, like, society, New York, America. I had gone to this very, very foreign place, discovered something that altered the chemical composition of my soul. And now I was inherently obligated to protect these animals that had given me so much that. That. That made me feel this feeling of warmth and life and beauty and. And. And then when I went. And then it got easier once I realized that if. If I didn't do it, nobody else was going to. Right the day that we saw the smoke on the horizon, and JJ said. I said, there has to be somebody we can call to do something about this. And JJ looked up river, and he looked down river, and he goes, do you see anybody? He goes, do you see anybody here? And yet there's a little bit. Bit of. You know, there was an attitude there, too, where he. He went, what are you talking about? You still stupid, or have you been here for a few years? He goes, there's nobody else. There's no help coming. And so he goes, if anybody's going to do anything, you have to figure it out. And I went. He didn't say, we have to figure. You have to figure it out. So that's where, you know, Jungle Keepers. It's. What's so crazy is that right now, as we're talking, there's people driving up and down river in boats with a jungle. The Jungle Keepers logo. There's rangers wearing shirts with the Jungle keepers logo. There's 136,000 acres of rainforest protected because Jungle Keepers. Because people from around the world have joined us in this fight. But what it started out with was just an idea. Two guys standing barefoot with machetes on the side of a river who said, we should just protect this thing. We should be the Jungle Keepers. We made it up, and now it's become a movement. Now it's become a book. Now it's. I mean, I certainly never thought. Thought that it would get to this point. And so now I did. After you. I got to give you credit for that. You did. I. And I. You'd always. You'd always sort of pump me up and you know that there were periods where I was like, man, I'm dying. I mean, all of last year, I would say all of once. Once the. Once the narcos hit and then all the way through till, like, September, I would say I was. I would say I was. That was probably either death. Yeah. Because that was probably. It was. You know, that was dark times. That was like PTSD times.

[Julian Dory]

I think about this. Like, there's moments, obviously, like, anyone's career out there that, like, stick out to you, that you just remember you can put yourself right back into place. And I remember when we first wrapped filming for the first time in October.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

2022. And you. It was funny because you were likes, was that any good?

[Paul Rosolie]

I was like, that was fire.

[Julian Dory]

I knew it was gonna happen. But you were just. You could see it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

You were exhausted. And we. I remember it came full circle because you and I had a conversation the last night in the Amazon about this, and it was, like, amazing to see where you were at that point in May 2024. But, you know, I said to you, like, I can. I can see you're tired, but it's about to get a lot better. And then obviously it did. But even in that exhaustion, you were going back and maybe, like two weeks or something like that. This, like, when you would. When we change the subject and be talking about, like, when we went to dinner afterwards, like, what you were going to do when you got back, of course, shit's burning. Like, in that way, it's miserable. But like that light, that spark. I think. I don't know from the outside. I think for all those years, that's what kept you going. Like, if I were guessing, like, you're extremely upset at the destruction. Cynically, you're thinking, am I just here to document this, as you just said? But you are so in your element and in such a beautiful place that is like your life's calling, that your efforts to protect it as. As putrid as. Or not putrid, but like, as barren as they were for a long time because you couldn't get the support that you wanted. It's like the battle of still doing that. There was some. There had to be something exciting.

[Paul Rosolie]

Purely love. I mean, you just love. I love seeing these places. I loved exploring these things. I loved expanding my knowledge. And I mean, at this point, you know, I've gotten to see and do things that were that. That are. That are far beyond what my wildest dreams would have been. I mean, when I went to the first. To the Amazon, I wanted to see the Amazon, just see it, just see the jungle. I never thought I'd get to explore the deepest parts of it. We never thought we'd find me. That's what this book is about. I mean, it's about how, you know, meeting jj, who unlocked the Amazon for me, finding the biggest anacondas, going on the solos, all these things, and then realizing that we had to protect it. Finding your. Your calling. I never thought any of that was possible. I mean, we've. There's. The. The. The highest peaks that we could see at the beginning are things that we look down on now as quaint and cute. It's like, you know, this.

[Julian Dory]

Keep that perspective, though, man.

[Paul Rosolie]

You got to keep that. But also, again, and from the Barefoot Machete days, from the days of the inception of the thought that we could possibly do this, I would tell everybody, yeah, okay, so. So we just got on the field at the World cup, we could still lose. And if we lose, everything dies. It's not like we get a second shot at it. And so all of this, the 20 years that are in this book, the 20 years that I've put in right now, it's still, like, get great, like, congratulations. Me that I've gone on a few talk shows doesn't mean shit. The fact that more people are coming in, the fact that we're getting a little bit closer to the large donors and the thousands of small Donors getting us past that point where we get the extra. It's $20 million. We got $20 million tomorrow, save the rest of the river, story over. Then we make a documentary about how we save the wildest place on earth, inspire other people, use that blueprint to save tons of other places. So we're on the cusp of doing something, something historic. But it doesn't. Just because you're at the end of your walk on the high wire doesn't mean you're going to make it. You got to finish it. We do have to finish it. And so I'm very aware of that. Where it's like, none of this, none of this is going to mean anything until it's safe. Because until then, it's all just an idea.

[Julian Dory]

It's well said. Who, who inspires you besides conservationists? We've talked a lot about, about Jane Goodall. We've talked a lot about Steve Irwin, we've talked a lot about the greats and the people who, for obvious reasons, you look up to. But you know, over the years, like, while you've been down there, are there, Are there other people that you're like, God damn, I, I love this person because they do this or they think like this or they talk like that.

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, there's definitely people outside of conservation, I don't know. I don't, I don't really. I don't lift my head up so much to look. The, the people that inspire me are the people that I know in real life who are just. Who are, who are good at it. Whether those are people who are just raising amazing families or people who are the people I know who are really good at the art that they do, whatever that may be. I think people who know how to live life well, who are good at the art of living are the people that I respect the most. There's not many people that I truly. It's not like I have a mentor or something at this point where we're. I have a team of people. I have a team of people working with me, though, that, you know, it's. It's not just jj. It's like me, Mohsen, jj, Stefan, Roy. It's like. And it's like this team of avengers of people that, you know, everyone's doing a job that nobody else can do. And so, yeah, there's, there's other, there's, There are other conservation projects, though, like the. All over the world, there's people saving elephants and there's people working on cheetah populations. There's people trying to free whales from nets. And so I look now and, and that's, that's the cool thing. People say social media is toxic. I go on my Instagram, that shit is curated. Every time I go on, all I see is good stuff. All I see is. I mean, again, sometimes an elephant got poached, but like last week I was watching somebody remove a snare from an elephant's foot, that the elephant would have died if there wasn't people to go tranquilize it and veterinarians to go fix it. And now that elephant's gonna live. And it's like. So I see these things happening. I go, okay, it's not just us. We're fighting here, here, but there's people fighting all over the world and they're.

[Julian Dory]

Making progress on the elephantation front was bleak a decade ago. And it's, it's better. It's still got ways to go.

[Paul Rosolie]

And tigers have gone up From I think 3,000 to 5,000. Like tigers are going up and that's, that's good. You're talking about from India through China. Like, you're talking about a huge area where, where Asia. With the population of Asia, they're still managing to, to get some wins, like to protect the species set aside to create connectivity through the, through the protected areas. That's tremendous. And there's hope to be found in that. We have sturgeon.

[Julian Dory]

Oh, Joe found the sturgeon. Yeah. This was right by Maxwell Park. Going back to this.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's wild.

[Julian Dory]

That's. It's crazy. It was right there. I walk there like every day. This is where I take calls when I talk.

[Paul Rosolie]

Get out. What was gonna happen? Get the.

[Julian Dory]

Out of the way. There's a hundred million year old fish there. Look at that thing. Whoa. Wow.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's awesome. That is a big.

[Julian Dory]

Right here in Hoboken. People see. All right, that's good.

[Paul Rosolie]

I love that there's always that one person. Leave it alone. Shut up, lady. The cops, like, because it was dead, we didn't want a bum to eat it.

[Julian Dory]

Could you see yourself raising a family in the Amazon someday?

[Paul Rosolie]

I think it'll always be a half, half thing. Especially now that I'm getting, you know, it's more valuable for me to be spreading this message and then the team on the ground doing it. This, this is just a new development. After 20 years in the Amazon, I think it'll become more of a 50, 50 thing.

[Julian Dory]

Right?

[Paul Rosolie]

My kids will grow up in the Amazon 100. They're going to be disgusting. They're going to know how to, they're going to have the callous to off their feet by the time they're three years old. I'm going to start them off on bullet ant stings.

[Julian Dory]

You know, just let them put bullet ants on them.

[Paul Rosolie]

Well, I want them to learn, I mean the, the, the, the babies that, that like JJ's family, like you know, his brothers are constantly having babies and, and, and you know there'd be like a one and a half year old sitting right there and you know, they would, they hold up their arms and a wasp lands here and then they put their arm down, a wasp stings them. And so these babies were getting stung by wasps like five times a day. And you watch them as they grow up and the first few times they cry. This first time you see the same kid six months later and he gets stung by a bee and he's like, whatever. They just don't care. So the jungle makes you tough. I mean, I mean I have pictures of this five year old, one of the. We turned a gold miner into a eco tourism operator. Which is an amazing story.

[Julian Dory]

Love it.

[Paul Rosolie]

But, but his kid at like 5 years old, I mean he was great with a machete, but he would also use this huge kitchen knife and he knew how to keep his fingers away from the piranhas mouths and he would work with a bucket of piranhas and he get all the scales off them and cut them down the belly and remove the guts. And he just. This kid was an expert within knife and handling fish that could remove the tips of his fingers. Five years old. And so yeah, of course the jungle different. No. And so, and so the. I want, I would definitely want my kids to be, you know, have a little bit of that.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, we got to evolutionarily study the Paul Rosalie spawn.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, they're gonna have wide feet from walking barefoot. I mean I just, I see parents helicopter parenting and like, you know, like every time, every time I'm babysitting it's always, you know, do you want to climb that tree? I'll be here. If you fall, I will catch you. We're gonna have responsible adventures. But you're going to try it.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, I got good hands.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, I got great hands.

[Julian Dory]

Just keep them away from the uncontacted tribes. So we got to get to that now. We haven't talked about that yet today. Don't let those. If there's little Rosalies running around, don't take your chances with 300 fucking yard 7 foot arrows. That's, that's Next level.

[Paul Rosolie]

That is next level.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah. So you obviously have gone public with this video you alluded to earlier. If you just pull up Paul's Instagram again, it's in the last 25, 30 posts or so. But this tribe is. This is the original one we talked about the first time we were together. The Mash Kapiro tribe.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Just for people out there who are unfamiliar with the background, are we talking about a tribe here? When we say uncontacted tribe, obviously they're not part of society. But how are they? Are these like pre Stone Age kind of people?

[Paul Rosolie]

Again, if you think about the fact that the Egyptian empire was what, 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, and the Stone Age was something like 3 million years ago, these people are pre Stone Age. They're in the Bamboo Age. And there's certain anthropologists that get incredibly upset when you say that because they go, no, they're modern people, they have their own technology. But there's also a lot of anthropologists that just acknowledge it. There's tribes all over the Amazon that have way more sophisticated societies where they have traditions and they have carved out boats and they have more complex societies. These are still living a nomadic, hunter gatherer life, which is why they've been so hard to understand. And for the first 20 years that I worked in the Amazon, this was always a mythic thing. When I wrote Mother of God, where I'd been out on the solo and I. And I caught a glimpse of them across the river, I ran for days and I knew for a fact that nobody believed me. I just could see it on people's faces. I would tell that story and people would be like, yeah, okay, sure, like where? Deep in the forest. I had gone 10 days deep into the most remote part of the forest because I was trying to have this incredibly wild experience with the deep part of the Amazon. I wanted to commune with the. With the deepest of the heart of the jungle. And then it turned out that I went so deep that I came out the other side into their territory and they had happened to be moving through the same area. Area. And I saw the smoke and I ran for my life and I left them alone. Now, on this day, you saw the smoke from their fire. On this day, the thing that makes it historic is it they contacted us.

[Julian Dory]

Wait, what, what's the context here? How did that go down?

[Paul Rosolie]

We work with the indigenous communities now that are inside the Jungle Keepers Reserve. A lot of the people in the indigenous communities that are our friends, our boat drivers, our guides, our rangers, they live in the indigenous communities. They fish out of the rivers. They hunt monkeys.

[Julian Dory]

They hunt monkeys?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, of course. That's what they eat. And so, no, no, I mean, again, you know, you can't see in the videos, you can't get mad at us for eating deer. They like monkeys. There's lots of monkeys. We got word that the MASH copyright were going to come out of the forest. Forest?

[Julian Dory]

Are they like, very close to the Brazilian border? Is that where we're talking or we're.

[Paul Rosolie]

Talking about the southeast of Peru? Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Okay.

[Paul Rosolie]

And so, but the, the. The indigenous community said to us, you as directors. They said you as. As our neighbors who want to help us protect this watershed. You need to be here for this because we are sick of being attacked by these people.

[Julian Dory]

Wait, the Mash Kapiro were attacking?

[Paul Rosolie]

The Mash Kapiro come out and do raids. They want children, women, crops, whatever. They guess they do raids.

[Julian Dory]

When was the last raid?

[Paul Rosolie]

I think in 2013. They came out and they sacked the village. The men were all fishing. It was like a holiday. And the men had all gone out of the village fishing. And the Moscow came in and they surrounded the village. They corralled all the women and children into one hut. And so everyone assumed they were going to burn it. And then they were all in there crying, dying, as these naked male warriors walked around the village and they cut up the beds, stole the machetes, took a few pots, and murdered every animal that was in the village.

[Julian Dory]

But not the people.

[Paul Rosolie]

They actually left the people living that day.

[Julian Dory]

How many of them? How deep are they? Like, how many people did the Moshkos have?

[Paul Rosolie]

We don't know. Because from Manu national park over to our river and down and then over to the Brazilian side, there's a few. Few thousand clans of nomadic, uncontacted, you can say voluntarily isolated nomadic people.

[Julian Dory]

So not. So the Moscows are just one.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. And so, yeah, I would say volunteer. I think this is a very accurate word. Voluntarily isolated nomadic people. Because they are shunning contact with the outside world. The term uncontacted right away leads people to be cool. How uncontacted are they? You know, are they contacted now that you've seen them? It's like, shut up. Who cares? They're very, very, very wild people. And so on this day they came and you can see them coming down the beach with the bows out. Seven foot arrows.

[Julian Dory]

How did they. You said that they contacted the. The indigenous tribe.

[Paul Rosolie]

You know, indigenous tribe started seeing footprints on the river. They knew they Were coming. They got the sense they know the jungle. They said, there's people out there walking barefoot. They start to find an arrow on the side of the river. They go, they're. They're here. They're around you there. And they said, if they show up, it could become violent. They might have the communication. We don't know. They said, but you. Until you see it, you won't believe it. And they said, so you get here, and we were. This was a little over a year ago, okay? And so we ended up there. And you see in the video, they come with the bows out. You see them walking very cautiously, looking at us, pointing at us, scoping us out. And for everyone that you saw on the beach, beach. There was 10 more in the forest, in the shadows, tracking us with arrows.

[Julian Dory]

So when you say in the forest, I'm seeing is that river behind?

[Paul Rosolie]

That's river behind them. But this is because it's at the bend of a river. So off to the right is forest.

[Julian Dory]

And so where are you guys? You guys?

[Paul Rosolie]

We're on one side of the river there on the other side of the river. And so they came out, and the local indigenous anthropologists, again, we're just there as observers. We're there as directors, because the indigenous people want help dealing with this problem that they have, that they share territory with this tribe that has no rules. This tribe will take your crops. This tribe will take your. Take you or kill you. It doesn't matter. They don't have the same rules that we have.

[Julian Dory]

What language do they speak?

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, the. Some derivation of yine. And so they. They actually, the. It seems like they call themselves the nomole. So mashkopiros means the wild pirro. And so that's what the people in the countryside call them. But it seems like when they came to the edge of the river, after we convinced them to put down their bows, they held up their hands and they said, no mole, which is brothers. So they said, no mole. And we said, no mole. And everybody kept saying, no mole back and forth across the river. And it was this acknowledgment of, like, we are brothers. We are brothers. But they were scared to put down their bows and arrows, which means. Means, you know, many of the theories with the uncontacted tribes. Some people say they've been out there for thousands of years, and other people will say they haven't always been this wild, that these are splinter factions of tribes that got scared during the rubber boom when people went down to get rubber and they they just decimated the local populations. And so that's part of the reason they're living such basic lives with this minimalist technology where they just have bamboo and rubber rope because they used to be part of larger groups and clans and societies and then they got split off. So whether they've been out there for hundreds or thousands of years or whether they've just been out there for a century, doesn't. It's not really relevant. The point is they're extremely wild people that speak a language that almost no one else speaks. And we know nothing about how they reproduce, where they reproduce, what they do with their old people, what their creation myths are, are. We know a little bit about what they eat because we find turtle shells and monkey skulls next to their fires on the beaches. We know that on trails if they leave an X made out of sticks, you don't walk down that trail if you want to continue to breathe because they will fire an arrow through you. And I say fire an arrow through you because a lot of their arrows are so long, seven foot arrows that when it goes through you will pass completely through you.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

And so you'll be, be. You'll just feel the impact. You'll have a machete sized cut going straight through your body. And so you have a few seconds before you bleed to death.

[Julian Dory]

So are they leaving the ex to tell you not to be there or is that their ex? Because they're hunting back there and if.

[Paul Rosolie]

You go in there they're telling you this, don't go further. This is our territory. So people have disrespected that and wound up dead. The New York Post report reported on it, I think in 2024, in August or September, remember that two loggers were killed. At least two loggers were killed by the MASH copyright. It was like global news because their bodies were found. But for everything that makes the news, there's 20 other things of course, or 50 other things, incidents that happen out past the scope of what anybody's ever going to see and it just decomposes out there. One of the things on sort of the backwoods WhatsApp network was a few years ago they, my friend turned to me, he goes, yo, the Moscow's got some lagers. And I went where he goes up on the river and he showed me his phone and it was just pictures of the loggers that other fishermen had found. And the loggers just had arrows sticking out of them and they were bloated from days of being on the edge of the river and all the vultures had picked out their eyes and you could see half of their skull. And it was like. It was just the most terrifying thing in the world. I mean, even though they were loggers, they shouldn't have been there. They were told not to go there. There. And the boogeyman got him.

[Julian Dory]

When you have this moment of contact, though.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

With them. So you said, there's the river between you guys. How far away did you say it was again?

[Paul Rosolie]

I mean, at this point, they're about 100 meters away.

[Julian Dory]

So they're in range.

[Paul Rosolie]

Okay, they're in range.

[Julian Dory]

When they. First of all, who. Who's everyone that's there with you and how many of them?

[Paul Rosolie]

Entire indigenous community. Community, which is probably like 35 people at this point. They evac'd a bunch of people. We have an indigenous anthropologist with us, someone that has communicated with uncontacted moshco piro groups before. He lives out there. JJ had introduced him to me years ago.

[Julian Dory]

What's his name?

[Paul Rosolie]

Rommel. JJ had been like, this guy is incredible. He actually one time communicated with those people, and he was like, this man is the leading expert on these people.

[Julian Dory]

He speaks their language.

[Paul Rosolie]

He speaks the. The yine, which is the closest to what they. So it's like, when I go to Italy, I can speak Spanish and kind of get by. I can speak Spanish and we can get there.

[Julian Dory]

Got it in.

[Paul Rosolie]

Cuanto cuesta? And they're like, oh, they're like, I see in the grazi. And like, okay, cool. We get there a little bit and they're like, I understand a little bit of Spanish. It's close enough. They do that. But as these people came out, he said, I've never seen any of them. He said, this is a completely new tribe. He said, this is first come contact. These people are coming out of the jungle and whatever they want. This is the first time they're seeing the outside world. So we're standing on the beach, and he was the one standing out in the front in the river, up to his waist, hands up, saying, I am. I am not a threat. No mole brothers. I do not want violence. Please put down your weapons. And he's saying this in a language that half translates, but they listened and they put down their weapons. So we're all standing there. There. That's me and the other two directors, Mohsen and Stefan, who are both professional photographers. And here's the other thing. Tradition. All this footage is shot by them.

[Julian Dory]

By the way, we're going to look at the footage in a couple of minutes. I want you continue that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Wherever I go, everyone keeps saying, paul, Rosalie, you know, Paul, Rosalie's talking about it, Paul, Rosie wrote about it, but it's not the Mohsen. Stefan. Both professional photographers on my team and directors of Jungle Keepers were the ones on either side of me shooting this with photos and video. And what we knew was that, you know, if you Google uncontacted drives in the Amazon, my whole life, I had always done that. And everything you see is like, looks like Bigfoot footage. It's blurry. It's from far away. It was crappy. It's unclear. This is the first time in history that we are getting a view into what it was like when people were living in the Stone Age. It's like an aperture back in time. And these people have been stuck in a time capsule because they've been living this life in the jungle where they don't even know that there's parts of the world that aren't jungle. They may not even know that water. I mean, they certainly have never seen water freeze because they live in the jungle. So they don't know about ice. They only know about metal because they've stolen machetes from loggers. They do have. One thing that we discovered is that they do have some paracord. So they've either either found it on the side of the river or they've gone and raided loggers. They do have some modern rope that they've managed to steal. But, I mean, I've been in villages where, where you're sleeping in a little thatched hut and in the night the dogs start to bark, and you're in a village that's way out in the jungle, like deep, deep jungle. And you're in this tiny little village and around you is just this ocean of green jungle. And at night the dogs start to bark. And, you know, in this country, people have dogs as pets and they treat them like one of the family. And out there, dogs are an alarm system. That's why you have have dogs. And the dogs start to bark in the middle of the night. And then we were missing shirts in the morning off the clothesline. And there was bare feet, tracks on the ground. And so the tribe comes and walks through the village in the night, which, if you think about getting up, if you get up in the middle of the night, there's no indoor bathrooms. You're in a village, you have to walk outside and go piss in the grass. And so every time you wake up in the night, night and walk outside, you Run the risk of shining your flashlight onto a six foot tall person with a face painted red with whose first reaction is going to be to shoot you so you don't make noise. So he's going to shoot you right in the neck.

[Julian Dory]

I took a lot of pisses off the side when I was there now, thinking about that, Luke.

[Paul Rosolie]

So, yeah, we were scared.

[Julian Dory]

So the. So how did. What, How. The one part I'm still unclear on, I couldn't really tell. They knew that they were coming because they had seen the footprints. And so they say, you guys got to be here. And then Rommel goes out into the middle of the river and. And does this signal. Yeah, but how did you know? Like that day at that time, they were.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, we didn't know that day. At that time we had gotten to the village and had been days, it had been like two days that we were waiting there. And then, you know, we said, look, we have a lot of stuff to do. We have land that we have to protect. We have office work to do. I was like, I have to. And we were like, we got to go. And they kept saying, please stay. They said, do not leave. And then I was actually sitting there writing the chapters of this book. I was sitting there just working on the book on my laptop in the middle of the community, in the middle of the Amazon. And they all started screaming, Moshko. And everyone started lifting kids and putting them away, and chickens were going crazy and dogs were barking. And then we looked across the beach and we saw this. And it was just. Everyone was. Was running. I mean, you just heard people loading shotguns, getting ready, because you don't know if this is going to be a friendly encounter and they're going to want to talk about things or if this is going to be a massacre. So no idea.

[Julian Dory]

Rommel goes out into the middle of the river. How long of a process is it from him going like this.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

To them. To him backing off and then them walking over to where we're going to see.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, he. He went out into the. Into the first third of the river. And this is the dry season, so the river is very, very low. You really could walk across the entire river. You could, in fact. And then gradually they came slowly, they put down their bows. They came to the edge of the river and then they all huddled up and they were pointing at us and they're looking at us. And then we realized also that we couldn't have the big cameras up. Mohsen and Stefan were shooting on professional cameras with like Eight.

[Julian Dory]

They even know what.

[Paul Rosolie]

They don't know what they don't. And so they were actually saying. They're saying, you have guns on. On us, even though we didn't have guns. And it was the cameras. So we had to put down the cameras because they didn't know what a camera is, but they know what a gun is.

[Julian Dory]

They do know what.

[Paul Rosolie]

They do know what. Or at least some of them know what a gun is because the loggers and the narcos have fired on them. And so they. They are aware that. That the outside world can pose a danger. And so then what you can see in the videos that then when he was out there, the other people present prepared a boat covered in plantains. And the first thing we did was push it across and give them an offering. And so Rama walked in it out, pushed it to them. And then that's when you see them rush across the river and grab those plantains. And the terrifying thing was that it wasn't like they were going to share them. You can see them in the video pulling and mine or mine and his or his. And that's it. And so it makes you wonder what kind of. Of society or ranking they have within their own culture.

[Julian Dory]

Because, Paul, were you able to make eye contact with them. Them, like, and. And it's close enough that you can. You both can understand. You're looking into each other's peoples.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, yeah. No. And they. There was. At first. The first two hours were very tense.

[Julian Dory]

Two hours.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, yeah. They were there communicating for long because they were. They got one thing of bananas. And they wanted more bananas, they wanted more plantains. And then they got. They got. They got a load of sugar cane. And then they were like, well, while you're at it, give us some rope. And the community's being friendly. They're going, well, you can have. Have more bananas, you can have more sugar cane, you can have some rope. And then at some point, Rommel's standing out in the middle of the river and they point at him and they were like, give us your shirt. And so he takes off his shirt and he hands him the shirt. And they're like, well, we'll take the pants too. And he's like, well, sure, why not? And he gives them the pants. And then they come forward with this incredible necklace. And they gave him a necklace that they put over that they. No, how did they give it to him? Somehow they gave him a necklace. Now, again, at this point, I'm running around, we're either taking pictures, talking to different People staying behind trees. At some point I got. Was became aware though, that they had given him a necklace in exchange for that. He never physically touched them, though. He always had a boat length between him. And he would stay. He would keep the boat in such a way that if anybody did raise an arrow, that he could kind of go under the boat and protect himself. There was a little bit of strategic for two protection there for two seconds, or at least he could like, float down river. And the boat's pretty big, right? So. But again, an arrow cuts through the river. He. He kept the boat in between. The other thing is, you don't want to. Physical contact with people that are living this wild out in the. In the rainforest, because they don't have any immunity built up to outside pathogens. And so they. They could be very devastated by the common cold. And so Rommel knows this and was being careful of this. And yes, we were close enough that. That after the first two hours, after we've given them everything we could give them, you know, they started right away on the beach. They started breaking down. We have lots more footage than what we were able to release. We, you know, we tried to. We worked with anthropologists and ethicists and. And the Peruvian government to make sure that we were doing best practices that everybody understood that we did not contact them. They came out and presented themselves and had questions to us.

[Julian Dory]

What did the government say?

[Paul Rosolie]

Government doesn't know what to say. Government hardly believes it's true.

[Julian Dory]

Then they see the footage, and then.

[Paul Rosolie]

They see the footage and they go away. We want to understand what's going on here, you know, and of course, because I'm not a Peruvian, they're interested in, you know, is this being done in an ethical way? And that's why the book is so important, because it's like it takes people through the exact story and the context and why this happened, because this is such a historical thing. Never before has there been HD footage of an encounter from the uncontacted tribes coming out to the modern world and this type of exchange where they were asking, why are you cutting down our forests? Where they're asking, asking, why do you cut our ancient trees? They're asking, who are the good guys and the bad guys? And how do we tell the difference? They're scared.

[Julian Dory]

They're asking Rumble, all this stuff. What's he. What's he saying?

[Paul Rosolie]

He was answering them as best he could. And then, of course, they just wanted more and more and more plantains. And so we literally gave them all of the Plantains that the community had, which is their main source of carbohydrates. So they. They gave them all of their food. Food. And of course, as you know, I said, just keep going. I'm, you know, as jungle keepers, I was just like, we'll call back and dispatch a boat. We'll make sure you guys have food. Give these poor people food. And then. Do you remember who Ignacio is? The guy that got shot in the head with the arrow?

[Julian Dory]

Yes. Yes. He's got the big scar.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yep, he's got the big scar. So he had previously been shot by the Mash Kapiro. Same tribe in 2019. Not the exact same thing.

[Julian Dory]

Swam away, right?

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, yeah. The scar on his face like that. Yep, Yep. And so, yeah, that scar. You ring. Move your ring finger up a little bit. You got it, right? Nope. Up. There you go. Yeah, he was there. And then, you know, he looked at Rommel and he. He took off his. He. He showed his shirt, and he was like, can I. And I watched them do this, and he looked at me, and he was like. And I was like, I don't. I don't. I was like, he's the boss. I don't care. And then he took off his Jungle Keeper shirt. Shirt, and he threw it to Rommel. And then Rommel was holding the Jungle Keeper shirt, and the tribe was like, come on, give it over. And so then Romul throws the Jungle Keeper shirt, and it lands in the water, and they grab it and they throw it over their shoulder. And then, as the day ended, a few things happened. One guy walked up, picks up his bow and arrow, and they're all starting to leave now. They all have piles of bananas on their back. And he shot one arrow in our direction across the river, landed in the sand. He just smiled. Smiled at us. He just.

[Julian Dory]

This is such a long period of time.

[Paul Rosolie]

Three hours at least, maybe more.

[Julian Dory]

Are you scared?

[Paul Rosolie]

In the beginning, we were very scared. In the beginning, we were going, what's going to happen? Is this going to turn into a massacre? What if somebody fires a gun? What if somebody fires, you know, the arrows? What if this. And then. And then it became known that we were having a communication, that they were talking to them. And this community was saying, we are your brothers. You don't have to be scared. Scared of us. We'll give you whatever you need. And the tribe was saying God knows what. They all speak at the same time. There's. They're like a flock of parrots. They're all speaking at the same time.

[Julian Dory]

At the same time.

[Paul Rosolie]

They all speak at the same time. It wasn't like there was quiet and one man would speak. They all were speaking at the same time. There's a cacophony of voices at all times. So for us watching, we were. What are they saying when they speak?

[Julian Dory]

Are they speaking with their hands a lot, too?

[Paul Rosolie]

Speaking with their hands a lot. A lot of them were doing this. This thing where they put their finger under their nose. I don't know what that means. They also to have the same haircut. It was. There's just this. Some. And then some of them are carrying this. This large necklace that seems to be made out of Brazil nuts, and it has teeth all around it. And two of them were carrying the same necklace, and it was made the exact same way. It seemed to have, like, half of a Brazil nut. And then this. This part would be all teeth coming out straight out, straight out like this. And then the other side looks exactly the same as this side. But what I'm thinking is that.

[Julian Dory]

Hold that up a little bit. Bit. Just.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. So like. So this is almost a perfect representation of it, except more round, where they had probably a piece of Brazil nut and then some piece of leather or something that had. That had looked like cayman teeth all stuck into there. And then on the other side was the. The same as this. It would be. And they were wearing that as a necklace. And it's a huge necklace. It was a big ball the size of a softball, and they were wearing it, and they made sure to never get it wet, which makes me think that it was probably smoldering embers so they don't have to make a fire from scratch every time.

[Julian Dory]

Smoldering embers. Yeah. On the.

[Paul Rosolie]

So that's a picture of the necklace. Look at that.

[Julian Dory]

Holy. That's like. That's like Flavor Flav's clock.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's like some Indiana Jones.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, obviously, like, from the thief. Can we see it clear?

[Paul Rosolie]

That's nice. That's nice and clear. Yeah. And that's the moment that they rushed across and we're getting at the plantains. But that thing right there, I don't understand. That's this. This right here is the moment that he shot the arrow across at us. So, you know, that's the thing. Back in the old days, there's a lot of stories where people like, oh, that sent. That's. That sounds like it never happened. It's like, well, this. We happen to have two professional photographers there. So it's all caught on video. And Camera. There's a lot of footage that we haven't released yet. We just. We just. We released like two minutes of footage of hours of this interaction. Action. Because we're saving it for the documentary, of course, but.

[Julian Dory]

As you should.

[Paul Rosolie]

As we should. And also we wanted to. We were very, very conflicted about whether or not we should release this footage because we said, are people going to understand this? Are people going to. To, you know, think that these. This tribe is, you know, noble savages and we need to be like them and we should need to go find them and study them and. No, these people have indicated for decades, if not centuries, one single thing, and that is that we want to be left alone. And so the only thing that we can do is protect the forest they live in. And so not only is jungle keepers protecting 130,000 acres, and not only is Jungle Keepers doing that with the leadership of the indigenous people and then through the help of people around the world, but we're protecting this incredibly pristine ecosystem where if you imagine a folk football field, think of a football field and how tremendous it is. If you just take a handful of coins and sprinkle it across the field in about that much area, you have these tiny clans of people surviving in this vast, vast, vast wilderness. That is the whole 300,000 acres that we're trying to protect. So most of it is pristine, untouched jungle with just wildlife. And then living out there is this tiny population of indigenous people. And when you think of what happened to the Comanches and the Navajo and the Iroquois and the Cherokee, Cherokees, all of these indigenous cultures that were devastated in the last several hundred years, this is a chance to take history and change the narrative where we actually just protect their environment and leave them alone. And if they want to contact the next closest tribe, the indigenous communities that we work with, if they want to learn how to plant bananas, and maybe they think it's fine, but that's none of our business. The thing that they've asked for, the way that we respect them, them, is all we have to do is leave the jungle alone and this tribe remains safe. And so, for the sake of the animals and the heartbeats and the ancient trees and the undiscovered medicines and the uncontacted tribes, that is why I am on this mission to protect this river.

[Julian Dory]

Now, when he went to shoot that arrow, you didn't yourself, though. I can't. No.

[Paul Rosolie]

The way he did it, he walked out with a swagger and a smile, and he walked right up to the edge of the beach. And he held the bow nice and high. He made it clear he wasn't aiming at anybody. Fired off the arrow, and then took a big smile at everybody and was like, what are you gonna do about that?

[Julian Dory]

And then how did they leave it? Did they, did they back away, like looking at you or.

[Paul Rosolie]

No, no, they all turned away at that point. One guy had a machete and there's. We have a great video. My friend is going, oh, they help me machete. He's gonna put down my machete. And the they, which they don't understand Spanish, which is hysterical, but because he's speaking to them in Spanish. But it didn't matter what language he was speaking in. He was going, hey. And yelling at the guy, and the guy had a machete and he just looked back over shoulder and it's like, yeah, come over here and get it. How about that? And even then they were smiling. They were like, yeah, you want to come get it? Nuts. Isn't that amazing that across culture and language and a thousand year gap, a.

[Julian Dory]

Lot more than that. Yeah, sure, yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

But that we could still, you know, or like human. Yeah. And then there was moments where, you know, towards the end, they were all spread out on various parts of the beach and we were all spread out and everybody got comfortable by then and, you know, like, Ignacio raised his hand and went like this, and they would raise their hand and go like this. And then, you know, I mean, he did like a little, you know, he kicked his foot and like did like a little dancing and they do the same thing. And we were all just like, we started playing with each other. You know, I raised my hands like this, and they'd raise their hands like this. And it was like, it was just, it was just kind of like both, Both tribes, shirts versus skins. Both tribes were like, this is wild. Like, because they were. Them too. They're going, okay. These people were. This is interesting, you know, and we're over there thinking, I mean, if a Tyrannosaurus rex walked out of the, the jungle behind them, I could not. I wouldn't have been more shocked. This is the uncontacted tribes, and they're in front of us. This is something that, I mean, you, you, you, you hear about people. Someone's brother, uncle, cousin, whatever in the jungle saw a glimpse of them. I'd caught a glimpse of them. But the fact that they came out and, and asked us, us what's going on, that's. We want an update on why our forest is disappearing. You know, the fact that the, and then like the odds, the odds. I know I've been there 20 years, but the odds, the human odds of being there for something like this and it happened at the perfect time. Because you know, the, the, the global news of this happening has helped. Yes. With the launch of the book. And the book, it helps explain this to everybody and it's getting in front of more readers. And so everything has sort of come together at the perfect time. Just like me going to the Amazon and I met J.J. the perfect time. And so it's like you just, you keep hoping that we keep having that serendipity of just maybe we came to this river at the perfect time and everyone is going to swell and that enough people are going to hear about this that we are going to protect it. And if we can do that, I think that the hope shockwave that that's had that, you know, we're in the hope business now and the, the amount of excitement and the sense of accomplishment that can be said that this wasn't done by some wild institution or some, you know, some, some out of touch scientists. This was done by the people because this place should be protected. And I think that's, that's what makes it so exciting.

[Julian Dory]

When you were, I. I just can't get over like what it must be like when you actually come upon them and they recognize you and you recognize them, even though you're literally from different times zones, you know when you are having that moment, I don't know how long it is where you are eye contact, eye to eye with this other person right here, like from a human perspective, like, was that one of those things where time kind of stops and you realize like you talk about the laughing and all that and you see the humanity and those things as the time goes on. But when you're first just eye to eye, staring at each other, like what is it? Can you describe that feeling?

[Paul Rosolie]

No. That's why I write, because I can't put it into words. You have to spend the time to, to try and get it out of yourself onto the page. And you try, you try and explain to someone some semblance of it. And that's the beautiful thing about writing is you can, you can, you know, when you read, you're sort of magically inside someone else's brain. And as a writer, that's your job is to take that moment it. And in that moment that they were shooting, they had their cameras out and they're shooting video and they're shooting photos and they're making sure, they get everything and documenting. I literally was sitting there with my eyes open going, as a writer, I need to drink in every moment of this. I'm holding on to the tree and pinching myself going, this is fun. This is real. And so all of those moments, you know, I mean, the moment that they left, I was like, notebook, notebook is open. Just everything, everything, everything. Just downloading everything that was coming out. Anatomy. And just. And then there's a video of me from the. The following day as we're going down river. I literally have the laptop open because I was like, this is too insane. I was like, I just. The first draft is just going to come out, and it's like, I have no shirt on. I have noise canceling AirPods in no roof, on the canoe for nine hours down river, and I'm just. I'm just typing on a MacBook Air. I'm just like, this is. Has. This has to come straight out of my brain to fingertips into this, because it had to come fresh. That was. That was the wildest thing. And, you know, the. The thing that I always think with. With this, anytime I get something that means a lot and that could, again, it can be an amazing day of. Of fun with friends or. Or something historic like this, where you go, I kind of love the next day because you go, it happened.

[Julian Dory]

Adrenaline.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, Adrenaline. No, but also that. Because now that it's happened and it's. It's over, it can't be taken away. I remember the first time I caught a big anaconda, and I kept that. That classic picture of me and JJ with the anaconda over us, and I kept. I kept turning on my camera. Even though at that time I had no way to recharge my camera, I kept turning it back on and I kept going back and looking because I was like, this was so incredible that I can't. I would. I would go, I hope it was real. And I just think that up. And I'd go back and check, and I'd be like, wow, look at that snake. And when this happened, you'd wake. I woke up the next day and turned to my friends and went, that did happen, right? Like, that didn't just dream that. And they were like, no, yeah, we had arrows at that point. There was arrows that they had. You know, we'd found multiple different arrows.

[Julian Dory]

Did you have a. Did you put a picture of the arrows in here?

[Paul Rosolie]

There must be a picture of the arrows in there. I don't know.

[Julian Dory]

I mean, they've been. Well, he's holding it.

[Paul Rosolie]

Maybe not.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, I want to see that. I remember that video right there. I can't show that one on camera. That's. I mean. All right, let's play the video because we haven't done it yet. Def. And we got to make a note. Just because there's some nudity in here, we gotta.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh yeah, you gotta, you gotta bleeps.

[Julian Dory]

Over that area on the post to.

[Paul Rosolie]

Bleep out the balls.

[Julian Dory]

But let's, let's take a look at this for people who have not seen it. Okay. Is there sound on? So they're like, they're pointing at you.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh my God.

[Julian Dory]

How tall were they? Like 5, 3, 6, 5 7?

[Paul Rosolie]

They were pretty tall. They're taller than. Look, listen to them as they go.

[Julian Dory]

Natural.

[Paul Rosolie]

Interestingly, that's not.

[Julian Dory]

That was.

[Paul Rosolie]

This is the second boat. That was some. Let's see how they are rushing.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah, the ones in the back. What's he holding? Who's bent over right there? See him holding that thing?

[Paul Rosolie]

Do you know what that is? I'm not sure. I can't talk on this video.

[Julian Dory]

Is this when they're about to leave?

[Paul Rosolie]

This is them moving up off the beach and you can see people carrying little backpacks and they have, you see there's still arrows and stuff stuck in the beach. And so the community goes and collects those things. They have a little collection of artifact.

[Julian Dory]

Like you said. The next day you're, you're feeling it, but in that moment you, you're totally aware you're living through insane history.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah. Oh yeah. In that moment it was good. That was three hours. It wasn't like a 10 minute thing. It wasn't a five second thing. With wildlife encounters, I'm very used to, you know, you, you see a jaguar, you draw one breath and the jaguar vanishes back into the forest. And you're like, God, that was incredible. But it was so fleeting. This was like for hours we were there. There was multiple layers to this. There was moments of communication, there was moments of beauty, moments of fear. There was so many questions that we have unanswered and. And then they went back out into the jungle.

[Julian Dory]

And there's a thousand more tribes like that down in their area that we've never seen.

[Paul Rosolie]

That we've never seen.

[Julian Dory]

No contact. The indigenous. Some of the indigenous tribes who do have contact, though they have contacted those other tribes too.

[Paul Rosolie]

They have limited contact with them, but even they're scared to do that because there was a. There was a guy by, by Manu national park who did kind of befriend them for a while and he started giving them, leaving them bananas and he left them some shirts and time went on and he would talk to them. And then one day they found him. Porcupined arrow sticking up him, land flat. And no one knows why.

[Julian Dory]

That was the first intro I ever edited for 124. People want to hear that story. It still hits so hard these days.

[Paul Rosolie]

It just sucks because it's so scary because you go, he did everything right.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah.

[Paul Rosolie]

He only wanted good for them. He only wanted to help them.

[Julian Dory]

So didn't work out.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

You come any closer to finding those.

[Paul Rosolie]

Pyramids, we're not going to talk about that.

[Julian Dory]

We're not going to. Wait a minute. You can't just say that.

[Paul Rosolie]

Oh, I certainly can. I got a heart out at five o'.

[Julian Dory]

Clock.

[Paul Rosolie]

We're not talking about the fear.

[Julian Dory]

You can't just. You have found something.

[Paul Rosolie]

And then he dropped both of them.

[Julian Dory]

No, hold on.

[Paul Rosolie]

Give me the hard drive.

[Julian Dory]

Have you found something? Something?

[Paul Rosolie]

There's nothing that we found. There's nothing. There's nothing there.

[Julian Dory]

Will you blink twice and tell me off camera?

[Paul Rosolie]

I would be remiss if I wasn't honest with my best Hoboken friend. That, that's, that's a.

[Julian Dory]

That's a shot in the boat. God damn.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, no, I. There's no, no pyramids that we know about down there. I mean, the Amazon, as, as our, as our, our dear scientist colleagues have made public. There's more geoliths in the Amazon than we previously thought.

[Julian Dory]

But that doesn't mean the Amazon's man made.

[Paul Rosolie]

But that doesn't in any way mean the Amazon is man made. And every person that says that needs to be slapped in the face. The Amazon is formed in 30. What, 30 something million years ago, if not 55 million years ago in the Eocene and has been developing since then. And the fact there's a couple of bits of terra preta and some, some, some earth sculpting under the forest does not mean that the whole thing was man made.

[Julian Dory]

So do you think El Dorado's still out there somewhere?

[Paul Rosolie]

I don't think the El Dorado was ever out there. Ever. I can't believe those dumb motherfuckers went looking for it and killed themselves over. I mean, really, they're like the Percy Fawcett and all the other conquistadors who showed up and they were just like. You have entire civilizations of people that came out to meet you and give you textile and food and clothing and they were so friendly that they. All of their original. If you go back and read Pizarro's original journals, they were friendly, the people, when they showed up. If you read Columbus's journals, where he says, I'll give a gift to the first person that sees land, and the men were having an argument over who saw it first, and he goes, I told him, screw them. And I go, see, I gave the gift to myself. And then the first person that they found they caught hauled him on board and started interrogating him, asking him about gold. And of course, he didn't speak their language, so he didn't understand what gold was. And they're, like, showing him, and they're like, you know, it was like Sam Jackson interrogating the guy in the beginning of Pulp Fiction English. Do you speak it? No. I got a piece of gold. Damn it.

[Julian Dory]

It's out there, though. I'm telling you, it's out there.

[Paul Rosolie]

The Golden City. Come on, grow up.

[Julian Dory]

The remnants of it are somewhere. They're gonna use lidar. They're gonna find it. Graham Hancock will find it.

[Paul Rosolie]

I hope he finds it. He should go find it.

[Julian Dory]

That's right. I love that thumbnail you sent me. That was very good, and I took that personally.

[Paul Rosolie]

That's good. Yeah.

[Julian Dory]

Paul, Rosalie, it's always a pleasure, brother. I'm really proud of all the work you're doing. Congratulations on having a number one New York Times bestseller. I'm not surprised at all. Can't wait for the next book already. And I also can't wait to go down there again.

[Paul Rosolie]

Yeah, you got to get back down there, man. Dude.

[Julian Dory]

Yeah. Thank, brother. We'll do it again soon. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me.

[Paul Rosolie]

Me.

[Julian Dory]

Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and smash that, like, button on the video. They're both a huge, huge help. And if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.