LAST WILDEST PLACE is a decade-plus-long, ongoing project based on a simple fact: The Amazon Matters. At over a billion acres, the Amazon Basin is bigger than the next two largest tropical forests combined. It alone accounts for half the planet’s remaining rainforest, 30% of all terrestrial species, 20% of our world’s freshwater, and 20% of the global oxygen. It provides climate stability for the entire planet and the carbon stored in its forests— and released by its deforestation— affects us all.

Within the Amazon, the Purús/Manu region in southeastern Peru is one of the most remote and inaccessible, where still-intact and uniquely biodiverse ecosystems provide sustenance for settled indigenous communities and is home to perhaps the highest concentration of isolated “uncontacted” tribes on Earth. While still largely undeveloped, this last wildest place is increasingly threatened by logging, illegal and unregulated gold mining (Peru is the largest gold producer in South America and in the top ten globally), coca farms and processing, land trafficking, oil and gas development, cattle grazing, agricultural expansion, Christian missionaries, pharmaceutical exploitation, extreme fires and drought, and the legal and illegal road construction projects that open access to previously inaccessible forests with devastating— often irrevocable— impacts on the ecosystems and all who depend on them.

I first visited the Upper Amazon in 2013 and have returned many times spending more than a year in total in the jungle. The pandemic, which limited legitimate expeditions as well as enforcement patrols, left the region especially vulnerable to increased illegal activity. As we have emerged from this restrictive dynamic and now into the reality of an increasingly uncertain and unstable socio-political global environment, the extent of new unregulated and illegal activities in this unique ecosystem makes raising awareness more critical than ever.

Awards & Recognition:

  • 2024, MontPhoto (Finalist/Honorable Mention in Portfolio category)

  • 2024, Muse Photo Awards (Platinum, B&W/Photojournalism)

  • 2024 Muse Photo Awards (Platinum, Editorial/Documentary)

  • 2024 Muse Photo Awards (Platinum, Editorial/Photojournalism)

  • 2024, FSTOP Magazine #125

  • 2023, Red Cross International

  • 2022, Siena International Photo Awards (Remarkable Artwork, Storyboard category)

  • 2021, South Orange Performing Arts Center, South Orange, NJ

  • 2020, ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography (first place)

  • 2020, Photoville New York, NY

  • 2020, Bridge Gallery, Cambridge, MA

  • 2020, Wildscreen Film Fesitval, Bristol, UK

  • 2019, Redsecker Response Fund grant

  • 2017, Adventure Film Festival, Boulder, CO

  • 2016, Jonny Copp Foundation’s Jonny Copp Award

Aerial view of an approaching storm over the vast roadless forests of the Alto Purús region in Peru. The Purús/Manu complex in southeastern Peru including two national parks, multiple Indigenous reserves, and other protected areas is one of the most

Aerial view of an approaching storm over the vast roadless forests of the Alto Purús region in Peru. The Purús/Manu complex in southeastern Peru including two national parks, multiple Indigenous reserves, and other protected areas is one of the most remote, inaccessible, and important areas of the Amazon, where still-intact ecosystems provide sustenance for Indigenous communities and is home to some of the last isolated “uncontacted” tribes on earth. Photographed from a low-flying, single-engine airplane.

Workers loading lumber on a truck at the port in Pucallpa on the Ucayali River in Peru. Pucallpa is well known as one of the centers for trafficking illegal lumber out of the Upper Amazon and a few weeks before this photograph the local paper reporte

Workers loading lumber on a truck at the port in Pucallpa on the Ucayali River in Peru. Pucallpa is well known as one of the centers for trafficking illegal lumber out of the Upper Amazon and a few weeks before this photograph the local paper reported that 4 million board feet of illegal lumber was confiscated at eight Pucallpa sawmills.

A jaguar pelt selling for S/.300 (approximately US$90) found in Mercado Dos, at the port in Pucallpa, on the Ucayali River in Coronel Portillo Province, Peru. May 5, 2017. Pucallpa is the capital of the Ucayali region in Coronel Portillo Province and

A jaguar pelt selling for S/.300 (approximately US$90) found in Mercado Dos, at the port in Pucallpa, on the Ucayali River in Coronel Portillo Province, Peru. May 5, 2017. Pucallpa is the capital of the Ucayali region in Coronel Portillo Province and a main hub for many things passing in and out of the western Amazon. We saw other pelts in his stall and asked what else he had for sale.

Miluska with pet howler monkey in Nueva Victoria II, Yurúa River, Ucayali Province, Peru. Miluska's Chitonahua tribal group lives in initial contact in their own community of Nueva Victoria II. named after the Ashaninka community of Nueva Victoria wh

Miluska with pet howler monkey in Nueva Victoria II, Yurúa River, Ucayali Province, Peru. Miluska's Chitonahua tribal group lives in initial contact in their own community of Nueva Victoria II. named after the Ashaninka community of Nueva Victoria where they first settled after contact.

The Catholic church in Puerto Esperanza has adopted effigies of local 'natives' including a mostly naked altar server and a baptismal font in the shape of a canoe. Fr. Miguel Piovesan, the Italian priest at the local Catholic Church, is an outspoken

The Catholic church in Puerto Esperanza has adopted effigies of local 'natives' including a mostly naked altar server and a baptismal font in the shape of a canoe. Fr. Miguel Piovesan, the Italian priest at the local Catholic Church, is an outspoken and controversial proponent of road development through the Alto Purús National Park—activities that are often illegal and almost always open pathways to destructive land invasions. The church even has its own radio tower from which he broadcasts his religious and social proselytizing messages that some say perpetuate the 'ethnocide' that has followed European involvement throughout the Amazon for the last 500 years.

Baby caiman caught in a local lake are offered for sale. Puerto Esperanza is the isolated capital of the Purús region. No roads connect it and there are no regular commercial flights -- access is by river or the occasional government or charter plane

Baby caiman caught in a local lake are offered for sale. Puerto Esperanza is the isolated capital of the Purús region. No roads connect it and there are no regular commercial flights -- access is by river or the occasional government or charter planes.

A man searches for his keys dropped in the water and mud at the port on the river in Puerto Breu, Ucayali region, Peru. The 500 people in Puerto Breu connect to their nearest neighbor, the also mostly-unconnected but slightly larger Marechal Thaumatu

A man searches for his keys dropped in the water and mud at the port on the river in Puerto Breu, Ucayali region, Peru. The 500 people in Puerto Breu connect to their nearest neighbor, the also mostly-unconnected but slightly larger Marechal Thaumaturgo in Brazil, via 9 hours by boat down the Yurúa. It’s where most of the goods that stock the 5 small stores here come from as it’s easier—and a lot cheaper—than flying goods in on the couple-times-a-week flights from Pucallpa.

Evening traffic in front of some small shops in Puerto Esperanza, Peru. The larger of the remote towns like Puerto Esperanza are the weak bridge between the even more remote indigenous villages and the rest of the world. They have mediocre healthcare

Evening traffic in front of some small shops in Puerto Esperanza, Peru. The larger of the remote towns like Puerto Esperanza are the weak bridge between the even more remote indigenous villages and the rest of the world. They have mediocre healthcare, remedial education, infrequently replenished and limited provisions, few economic opportunities, and usually at least several western religious denominations vying for their souls. Some connect to the outside world by incomplete roads, others by rivers so long and so winding that travel on them is measured in days or even months, and distances determined by 'turns' instead of kilometers. The 1500 people in Puerto Esperanza connect to their nearest urban neighbor, Santa Rosa in Brazil, via several days by boat down the Purús River. Some of the goods that stock the few small stores here come from Santa Rosa, though most come in on the much more expensive (and are more expensive because of it) chartered flights from Pucallpa.

Want ads in La Pampa, Peru for women to work in the service industries. In the unofficial town of La Pampa, crime and illegal activities beyond the illegal gold mining destroying thousands of acres of forest include black market goods, prostitution,

Want ads in La Pampa, Peru for women to work in the service industries. In the unofficial town of La Pampa, crime and illegal activities beyond the illegal gold mining destroying thousands of acres of forest include black market goods, prostitution, slavery, and human trafficking. Want ads like these are often used to lure in women in search of work to remote locations where they can be coerced or abducted into prostitution.

Butchering a tapir in a canoe on the Curanja River in Balta, Ucayali region, Peru. Remote indigenous villages in the Alto Purús region in southeastern Peru rely on the wild diversity of the forest for everything from food and traditional medicines to

Butchering a tapir in a canoe on the Curanja River in Balta, Ucayali region, Peru. Remote indigenous villages in the Alto Purús region in southeastern Peru rely on the wild diversity of the forest for everything from food and traditional medicines to building materials.

Linder Miques Viquia, Sepahua Community Vigilance Committee Member patrolling the upper Sepahua River, Peru where illegal land trafficking schemes are leading to rapid deforestation threatening the Indigenous communities and unparalleled biodiversity

Linder Miques Viquia, Sepahua Community Vigilance Committee Member patrolling the upper Sepahua River, Peru where illegal land trafficking schemes are leading to rapid deforestation threatening the Indigenous communities and unparalleled biodiversity of multiple critical protected areas.

Carlitos (name unverified and likely false) and his family are new arrivals from the coca-growing highlands to the west and are moving in on land illegally trafficked and freshly cleared for agriculture on the upper Sepahua River, Peru. These plots,

Carlitos (name unverified and likely false) and his family are new arrivals from the coca-growing highlands to the west and are moving in on land illegally trafficked and freshly cleared for agriculture on the upper Sepahua River, Peru. These plots, increasing in numbers almost daily, are illegal, unknown and unrecognized by officials, and mostly for small farms that appear to be fronts for growing coca deeper in the forests.

Aerial drone photograph of deforestation for agriculture near Santa Isabelle de Sepahua, Sepahua River, Peru. In the past year, new deforestation has been showing up in satellite imagery along remote tributaries in the Urubamba watershed in southeast

Aerial drone photograph of deforestation for agriculture near Santa Isabelle de Sepahua, Sepahua River, Peru. In the past year, new deforestation has been showing up in satellite imagery along remote tributaries in the Urubamba watershed in southeastern Peru.

A family from the valley of the three rivers Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro (aka, VRAEM or VRAE)—one of the main areas for cultivation of coca in Peru—arriving to establish a new settlement on the Sepahua River. Families such as this one are driven out of

A family from the valley of the three rivers Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro (aka, VRAEM or VRAE)—one of the main areas for cultivation of coca in Peru—arriving to establish a new settlement on the Sepahua River. Families such as this one are driven out of VRAEM as authorities crack down on illegal drug production and are moving into the remote lowland jungles, often staking claim to plots of land through illegal land grab schemes.

Coca leaves for sale at the port in Atalaya, Peru. Coca is a familiar traditional medicine chewed to relieve hunger and fatigue and to enhance physical performance, as well as for stimulating stomach function, treating asthma, colds, and other ailmen

Coca leaves for sale at the port in Atalaya, Peru. Coca is a familiar traditional medicine chewed to relieve hunger and fatigue and to enhance physical performance, as well as for stimulating stomach function, treating asthma, colds, and other ailments. The leaves are found for sale in many small shops and markets in Peru from the Andes down into the upper Amazon basin. Cultivation for cocaine production also drives a powerful and environmentally destructive (i.e., clearing remote forests for crops) and illegal industry.

Boy with toy gun in Colombiana, Ucayali Province, Peru. The remote indigenous communities of Alto Purús region live at the difficult crossroads of traditional culture and Western progress.

Boy with toy gun in Colombiana, Ucayali Province, Peru. The remote indigenous communities of Alto Purús region live at the difficult crossroads of traditional culture and Western progress.

A monkey skull found in a mud bank on the Mapuya River, Atalaya Province, Peru.

A monkey skull found in a mud bank on the Mapuya River, Atalaya Province, Peru.

Sarita Rengifo and her daughter Mia join other women in Sinchi Roca, Peru making masato, a traditional naturally fermented drink made from chewed yucca root. The Kakataibo community of Sinchi Roca is geographically located on the edge of Peru's agric

Sarita Rengifo and her daughter Mia join other women in Sinchi Roca, Peru making masato, a traditional naturally fermented drink made from chewed yucca root. The Kakataibo community of Sinchi Roca is geographically located on the edge of Peru's agricultural frontier and culturally located directly in the middle of western and Indigenous influences. Less well-known than their popular Shipibo neighbors (famous for their ayahuasca tourism), the Kakataibo actively struggle to be recognized for their Indigenous identity and sovereignty in the face of myriad influences including land invasions for agricultural expansion and growing coca, cheap processed foods, technology, and evangelizing Christian missionaries. Comunidad Nativa Sinchi Roca, Ucayali, Peru. April 13, 2023.

Jovita Rengifo Cobos's from Imaculada on the Inuya River in Peru tells how her parents grew up enslaved in the rubber and agriculture booms of the early 1900s that spread across the Amazon, forced to work growing barbasco—the common name of several p

Jovita Rengifo Cobos's from Imaculada on the Inuya River in Peru tells how her parents grew up enslaved in the rubber and agriculture booms of the early 1900s that spread across the Amazon, forced to work growing barbasco—the common name of several plants that contain poisonous chemical compounds used for fishing by indigenous populations and that became important to the pharmaceuticals industry. From gold and the earliest Spanish and Portuguese explorers; to rubber and animal skins in the early 1900s; to oil and gas, timber, cattle, and cocaine today, access to and the extraction of natural resources at the expense of the indigenous populations and the ecosystems they rely on has defined life in the Amazon.

Waiting on the plane in Puerto Esperanza, Peru. Located in a remote southeastern corner of Peru against the border with Brazil and surrounded by protected areas, Puerto Esperanza is both isolated as well as a hub for goods and services for the even m

Waiting on the plane in Puerto Esperanza, Peru. Located in a remote southeastern corner of Peru against the border with Brazil and surrounded by protected areas, Puerto Esperanza is both isolated as well as a hub for goods and services for the even more remote indigenous communities in the Alto Purús region.