Bruce Barron (born Long Beach, California) is a professional expedition guide, explorer, and photographer. [1] [2]
Bruce Barron (born Long Beach, California) is a professional expedition guide, explorer, and photographer. [1] [2]
Barron began guiding backpacking and mountaineering trips at the age of 15, and has since led explorations to the remote jungles, mountains, forests and deserts around the globe. He has explored uncharted areas in the Andes, Himalayas, Amazon Basin, and West Papua New Guinea.
Most notable is the Barron Pickard Heath River Expedition [3] [4] in 1996, which discovered the source of the Heath River [5] in the Peru/Bolivia Amazon Basin. The Heath River delineates the border of Peru and Bolivia for 350 kilometers from the Amazon basin lowlands into the Amazon cloud forest. The expedition's objective was to follow South American explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett's 1910 Expedition [6] route and then continue on to discover the unknown source [7] of the Heath River and make the first river descent. Barron worked with the Royal Geographical Society in London researching Fawcett’s original maps [8] and journals and in Peru with biologists, anthropologists and the Ese Ejja native tribe. [9]
Following a lifelong interest with the lives of indigenous peoples and their connection with the natural world, Barron spent time or lived with the Huaorani, [10] and Quijos-Quichua of Ecuador’s Amazon over many years and with the Dani, [11] Lani, Sentani and Korowai [12] tribes of West Papua, New Guinea, Gurung, Tamang, Newar and Sherpa of Nepal, Ngalop of Bhutan, Ladakhi and Tibetan of Northern India, Maasai of Tanzania and Kenya, Berber of Morocco, Quechua and Ese Ejja of Peru and Bolivia, Maya and Lacandon of Central America.
He established Barron Adventures, an expedition, adventure travel guiding and adventure leadership training [13] company in 1985. He has guided ascents to many peaks, including Denali, Aconcagua, Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, Kilimanjaro etc.. Along with expedition guiding, Barron developed and implemented leadership and team training programs for organizations in the United States and internationally, including a leadership program in the early 1990s for the Russian Federation Education Committee with Dr. Evgeny Velikhov, chief science advisor for the Russian Federation, providing leadership training to leaders and educators throughout the country. [14]
Barron’s adventure photography has been published in Esquire [15] and Reader’s Digest. [16] Barron's photo documentary book, HUAORANI: An Amazon Tribe in the 21st Century, [17] about the Huaorani tribal people of Ecuador’s Amazon Basin was published in 2013. A 2012 documentary, Amazonia: A Perilous Journey, [18] was produced about the Barron Pickard Heath River Expedition.
The Amazon rainforest, also called Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km2 (2,700,000 sq mi), of which 5,500,000 km2 (2,100,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 formally acknowledged indigenous territories.
The Korowai, also called the Kolufo, are the people who live in southeastern Papua in the Indonesian provinces of South Papua and Highland Papua. Specifically their tribal area is split by the borders of Boven Digoel Regency, Mappi Regency, Asmat Regency, and Yahukimo Regency. They number about 3,000 people.
Madre de Dios is a department and region in southeastern Peru, bordering Brazil, Bolivia and the Peruvian departments of Puno, Cusco and Ucayali, in the Amazon Basin. Its capital is the city of Puerto Maldonado. It is also the third largest department in Peru, after Ucayali and Loreto. However, it is also the least densely populated department in Peru, as well as its least populous department. It has one of the lowest poverty rates in Peru.
John Henry Hemming is a historian, explorer, and expert on the Incas and indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin.
Percy Harrison Fawcett was a British geographer, artillery officer, cartographer, archaeologist, and explorer of South America. Fawcett disappeared in 1925 during an expedition to find an ancient lost city which he and others believed existed in the Amazon rainforest.
Uncontacted peoples are groups of indigenous peoples living without sustained contact with neighbouring communities and the world community. Groups who decide to remain uncontacted are referred to as indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. Legal protections make estimating the total number of uncontacted peoples challenging, but estimates from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the UN and the non-profit group Survival International point to between 100 and 200 uncontacted tribes numbering up to 10,000 individuals total. A majority of uncontacted peoples live in South America, particularly northern Brazil, where the Brazilian government and National Geographic estimate between 77 and 84 tribes reside.
The Heath River, which runs from the Andes surrounding Lake Titicaca northwards to the Madre de Dios River, marks the natural border between Peru and Bolivia.
Benedict Colin Allen FRGS is an English writer, explorer, traveller and filmmaker known for his technique of immersion among indigenous peoples from whom he acquires survival skills for hazardous journeys through unfamiliar terrain. In 2010, Allen was elected a Trustee and Member of Council of the Royal Geographical Society.
Paititi is a legendary Inca lost city or utopian rich land. It allegedly lies east of the Andes, hidden somewhere within the remote rainforests of southeast Peru, northern Bolivia or northwest Brazil. The Paititi legend in Peru revolves around the story of the culture-hero Inkarri, who, after he had founded Q'ero and Cusco, retreated toward the jungles of Pantiacolla to live out the rest of his days in his refuge city of Paititi. Other versions of the legend see Paititi as an Inca refuge in the border area between Bolivia and Brazil.
The Xingu Indigenous Park is an indigenous territory of Brazil, first created in 1961 as a national park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Its official purposes are to protect the environment and the several nations of Xingu Indigenous peoples in the area.
Joseph A. Kane is an American author and journalist who writes for publications such as The New Yorker, National Geographic, and Esquire.
The Lost City of Z is the name given by Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett, a British surveyor of the early 20th Century, to an indigenous city that he believed had existed in the jungle of the Mato Grosso state of Brazil. Based on early histories of South America and his own explorations of the Amazon River region, Fawcett theorized that a complex civilization once existed there, and that isolated ruins may have survived.
The Oriente is a region of eastern Ecuador, comprising the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes and the lowland areas of rainforest in the Amazon basin.
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon is a non-fiction book by American author David Grann. Published in 2009, the book recounts the activities of the British explorer Percy Fawcett who, in 1925, disappeared with his son in the Amazon rainforest while looking for the ancient "Lost City of Z". In the book, Grann recounts his own journey into the Amazon, by which he discovered new evidence about how Fawcett may have died.
Kuhikugu is an archaeological site located in Brazil, at the headwaters of the Xingu River, in the Amazon Rainforest. The area around Kuhikugu is located in part of the Xingu National Park today. Kuhikugu was first uncovered by anthropologist Michael Heckenberger, working alongside the local Kuikuro people, who are the likely descendants of the original inhabitants of Kuhikugu.
Mark Anstice is a Scottish explorer, adventurous documentary reality television film maker and writer. He is best known for appearing in the Travel Channel's series Mark & Olly: Living with the Tribes with Oliver Steeds.
The Sepik is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun and East Sepik, with a small section flowing through the Indonesian province of Papua.
Loren McIntyre, was an American photojournalist who worked extensively in South America. His photographs and writing appeared in National Geographic and hundreds of other periodicals. He has numerous books to his credit, including The Incredible Incas and Their Timeless Land (1975), Exploring South America (1990), Amazonia (1991), and Die Amerikanische Reise (2000)
The Brazza River is a river in Papua province, Indonesia. The Brazza River has its source at over 3000 meters of elevation in the Jayawijaya or Maoke Mountains of central Papua in Yahukimo Regency and flows south to the lowland rainforests of Asmat Regency before meeting the Pulau River, which flows southeast to the Arafura Sea.
South Papua, officially the South Papua Province, is an Indonesian province located in the southern portion of Papua, following the borders of the Papuan customary region of Anim Ha. Formally established on 11 November 2022 and including the four most southern regencies that were previously part of the province of Papua and before 11 December 2002 comprised a larger Merauke Regency, it covers an area of 117,849.16 km2, and it had a population of 522,215 according to the official estimates for mid-2022, making it the least populous province in Indonesia.