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There are days when Ever Impicciatori thinks he has crazy. A while ago, when he realized that there were fewer and fewer species due to deforestation, the 50 -year -old farmer began to address whatS Shihuahuacos, IshpingosCaobas and Cedros. “I talked to those trees like crazy,” he says from his home, a Ecolodge Located in the district of Honoria, in the Peruvian region of Huánuco, on the banks of the vaporous and bubbling waters of the Hirviente River, the largest in the Amazon that can almost reach the boiling until now documented.
“If a tree is 500, 600, I tell you how I would like you to get to know you because you will be for life here, you will never get out of here,” he says. Taking into the trees how much you want them to survive devastation works like a kind of spell, wants to think Impicciatori. A manifestation for a future in which agriculture, livestock, illegal felling, land traffic – among other illegal or non -regulated activities – do not continue to deforest the forest of the boiling river he knows since he was a child.
Called by the locals as Shanay Tumpishka – or boiled by the heat of the sun – the river has waters that can reach 99.1 ° C. In addition, it measures 6.24 kilometers long, reaches up to 30 meters wide and 4.5 meters deep. It is a huge hot water snake in the middle of the jungle.
But despite its great magnitude, this river is not related to volcanic activity, as usually happens with other hydrothermal systems, groundwater systems with a heat source. Rather, Andrés Ruzo, Peruvian geologist and the main scholar of the Hirviente River, explains, is the result of the particular geology of the area: a series of subsoil failures that let the hot water emerge towards the surface.
All these unique characteristics, according to Ruzo, make “the Hirviente River and the forest that surrounds it according to the most important ‘natural laboratories’ in the world.” The geologist affirms that this place offers the ideal scenario to understand “climate change, evolution, the origin of life, the possibilities of life in the deep subsoil and extremophile adaptation”, organisms that can live in extreme conditions. And even life on other planets.
The Peruvian authorities, however, do not protect the Hirviente River from the threats that stalk it. “The possibilities for scientific development are exceptional,” insists the geologist. “But if the area continues in its current condition, careless and forgotten by the State, we estimate that we can reach a ‘point of no return’ in three years.”
From their homes in the surroundings, the most worried neighbors continue to work for their conservation. “We have no help from the government to protect this river,” says Impicciatori from his Ecolodge. “But in our way we will continue to take care of it.”
A threatened and unprotected river
“I like that nature is as it is,” says the Harry guide, an expert in crossing the stone roads of the hottest part of the boiling river. “If this stick is 40 or 50 years old, I like that it continues to live up to 100,” says the man, who was born and grew in the district of Honoria, in the Huánuco region. “I’m not going to cut it.”
Harry – who prefers not to reveal his real name for security – is one of the people who “took possession” of a land of the Hirviente River forest. He did not do it to prey it, he says and those who know him, but, on the contrary, to keep him safe from those who exploit him. “I began to organize and take care of the forest,” he says. Currently, Harry no longer possesses these lands: he sold them to people who later requested and achieved a legal concession for ecotourism activities.
According to Ruzo, invasion and land traffic involve a high risk for the river. But with invasions it does not refer to what Harry did some time. “There are people who grew in this area and in these forests and deeply regret that they are destroyed,” explains Ruzo. “They have invaded with the intention of putting order and caring for the forest. It would be good to formalize them and have them as allies.”
The real threat, says the geologist, are the invaders that depreate through illegal felling, livestock and the sale of land; Those who traffic land to demand payments to those who seek to obtain legally concessions, and the invaders who have built their homes there and do not want to leave.
Despite these risks, the Hirviente River does not have the protection of the National Service of Protected Natural Areas (Sernanp) of Peru. It could be if it is demonstrated that it is crucial for the conservation of nature, explains Rafael Pino, head of the reserved area Sierra del Divisor, of that organism. For example, if it houses any specific species of animal or plant. But the figure of the protected area is not so easy to get in this case, he adds. Some parts of the Hirviente River forest are private properties. This means, says the official, that Sernanp could not intervene there.
The inhabitants, alarmed, will not stop talking and insist. “The years passed, and the forest was predicting and predating, and now it is worrying not to find a tree on these banks of this hot river,” says the Harry guide. “That is what worries us.”
A tool against global warming
Sometimes, Impicciatori also thinks that, after all, talking to trees serves something. He says that every so much people are interested in helping him protect the river. Like that Swiss botanist who, last year, helped him count more than 80 species of trees in the forest that is his home. “I talked to the trees and what coincidence that I had such an immediate response that a Swiss, a botanist came,” says Ever, “Do you realize?”
Since 2011, according to Ruzo, a group of more than 120 scientists, academics, educators, disseminators and other national and international collaborators have worked in the ecosystem. “The Hirviente Río project has been studying every detail of this river and the forest that surrounds it,” he adds. Scientific studies published between 2023 and 2024, which were carried out in the midst of this place, indicate that the increase in temperatures is wreaking havoc on plants and trees. As many are adapting.
The information is also reaching school classrooms. A group of American educators who visited the river in June of this year has prepared lessons on the Hirviente River for their primary and secondary classes. “It is not necessary to be a scientist, everyone can influence,” recalls Julie Klipfel, educator in Massachusetts.
For Impicciati, these visits are an answer to their talks with plants and give you strength to continue working. But he also knows that his impulse and that of his neighbors remains lonely and progress, uncertain. “I don’t expect anything from anyone, I have to do it alone, I can’t wait and wait, because if I wait for someone, I delay.”
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