The photographer who captured the Amazon as a desert: 'It was dystopian, a moment of radical transformation for the plan

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https://english.elpais.com/climate/2025-04-08/the-photographer-who-captured-the-amazon-as-a-desert-it-was-dystopian-a-moment-of-radical-transformation-for-the-planet.html

The photographer who captured the Amazon as a desert: ‘It was dystopian, a moment of radical transformation for the planet’

Peruvian-Mexican Musuk Nolte won this year’s World Press Photo in the South America stories category for his coverage of the drought in Manaus, Brazil

FRANCESCA RAFFO
Madrid - APR 08, 2025 - 07:02 EDT

Three fishermen walk back to their homes in the Vila de Pesqueiro area from Manacapuru, 100 kilometers upriver from Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas, Brazil. They tread on sandbanks for two kilometers. The temperature is 40 degrees Celsius. The path they travel resembles a desert, although it should be anything but. They walk along the Solimões River, but not along its banks. They walk along the bed of a river that, in October 2024, when Peruvian-Mexican photographer Musuk Nolte took the photo that depicts the scene, was completely dry.


Nolte, 37, has just won a World Press Photo award in the South America stories category for his project Drought in the Amazon. “That image shows them walking on the bed of a river they usually navigate,” says Nolte. Before the drought, the Solimões — which corresponds to the stretch of the Amazon River in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and the city of Manaus — reached the fishermen’s homes, but due to the lack of rain, it had shrunk and retreated two kilometers. The water level was progressively decreasing. “So they were getting farther and farther away,” says Nolte in a telephone interview with EL PAÍS. “They had to walk 45 minutes to get home, under difficult circumstances.” The Brazilian Geological Survey indicated at the time that the river was experiencing daily drops of 19 centimeters on average.

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Before arriving, he had seen images and monitored the river’s decline. However, once in Manaus, he felt very confused. “It looks like a desert, but when you put it into context, it’s the Amazon, something doesn’t add up and it doesn’t fit with our imagination,” he explains. “It was dystopian. It seemed like I was living through a moment of radical transformation for the planet.”

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