Walking the Amazon

An Adventure with Purpose

On April 2nd 2008, Ed Stafford started his attempt to walk over 4,000 miles from the source of the Amazon River in southern Peru to the mouth in Brazil. The expedition will be uninterrupted and is expected to last 26 months.

The aim is to use the expedition as an educational tool to raise empathy for local attitudes by collecting and broadcasting the different "Voices from the Amazon". These are the environmental views of the very varied people who Ed meets on his journey. This structured survey will be done with the latest mobile satellite transmitters and broadcast with each blog.

Although there are many tribes that live close to the river, human habitation is more scarce the further from the river Ed travels. This is particularly pertinent to the early Brazil leg when the annual floods will see him pushed up to 80km from the river itself. Ed will have to use sustainable survival practices to live off the jungle. If he completes his journey through one of the most amazing and threatened eco-systems left on Earth, then he will be the first man ever to walk the Amazon.

The expedition also aims to attract enough attention to raise both money and awareness for the charities that it is supporting.

The Amazon River is the world's largest and longest river. Its drainage basin occupies half of South America and represents one-fifth of all the fresh water on the planet.