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Carter at FazendaEsperança, his Brazilianranch; below right,surveying the damagefrom a squatter’s fire

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O Ã O C A N Z I A N I

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texaschainsawperstop-

Expat conservationist John Cain Carter, a former eliteArmysoldierwhodid a tour in Iraq, is anythingbut typical.Same goes for his plan,which calls on ranchers to preserveBrazil’swildwest.Canhe have it bothways and still save—and survive—the Amazon? BY STEPHANIE PEARSON

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TTurner’snot interested,but formonthsCarterand Hall & Hall have been courting billionaireCEOs and iconic celebrities.

“We’ve seen less than a hundredth of thisplace,” says Johnson, taking a sip of beer. “Butyou just breathe the air here and it’s over-whelming.”

An hour ago, Carter fired up his Cessna totake us on a sunset cruise, showing us whatwouldbe lost if theranchweresoldoff formoreintensive agriculture.

“All that, that, that, and that would becleared,” Carter shouted over the engine,pointing to a ridgetop still lush with nativecanopy forest.

The ranch balances precariously betweenthe world’s largest wetlands—the 68,000-square-milePantanal—and theworld’s largestsoybean farm. While the property supports aherd of 23,000 grass-fed cattle and 7,500acres of tilled soybean fields, 89 percent of ithas beenmeticulouslymaintained in its orig-inal state, making it an island oasis for morethan420bird species, two recentlydiscoveredinsect species, and some of the most diversewildlife in Brazil.On aCarter-led high-speedjeep safari, we found a poisonous jararacasnake, a giant anteater vacuuming out a ter-mite mound, and a hard-charging herd ofwhite-lipped peccaries. Beyond the lazingcaimans, jabiru storks, roseate spoonbills,buff-necked ibises, jacana birds, and great

small empire of conservation-oriented enter-prises, including their own 11,650-acre sus-tainable ranch; Brazilian Adventure Travel, anecotourismcompanythatempowers locals;andAliança da Terra, a nonprofit that offers mar-ket-based incentives to ranchers and farmers.ButCarter’smost pressing project right now isto match Lutz’s high-profile property with awealthy American buyer who will prove thatranching andconservation really can coexist.

At the moment, he’s sitting on the tile ve-randa, his boots in the sand, drinking a Skolbeer, dipping Copenhagen, and speaking in adeep, clear twang perfected in San Antonio,wherehegrewup.Themanwho ispossibly thefutureofAmazonianconservationcouldalmostbemistaken for a redneck.

David Johnson, 55, tall, blond, and mus-tached, is on the couch with his wife, Suzie,64, a petite former tennis instructor turnedranchhandandexperthorsewoman.Thecou-ple live in Bozeman,Montana,where Johnsonworks as a broker for Hall & Hall, the U.S.’slargest resource-management firm dealingwithhigh-endrural real estate. Its clientshaveputmoreprivate propertyunder conservationeasement than almost any other brokeragefirm in the U.S. Johnson is here to size upFazenda SantoAntonio so that he canmarketit to a database of 25,000 potential buyers—moguls like Ted Turner, who bought most ofhis western holdings from Hall & Hall.

THE SAND UNDER thetoweringmangotreesin front of the yellow ranch house has beenraked into symmetrical lines. The cooks in thekitchen are searing filet mignon, fresh off aslaughtered 30-month-old grass-fed heifer.Andthewearypantaneiros,mountedonCreolehorses since 4:30 A.M., are herding their cowshome.LifeatFazendaSantoAntoniodoParaísoon this lazy April evening is sauntering alongat the same pace it has since 1944. That wasthe year the famousBrazilian generalMarinhoLutz bought this wild kingdom from the firstsonofColonelHenriquePaesdeBarros,amanwith enough sex drive to acquire 11 wives andsire 82 children.

Even with wild curassows squawking outfront, the old sede, or ranch house, full ofAfrican buffalo heads, feels like amuseum.Forthe first time since he took over the ranch fromhis father, in the sixties, and inherited the roleofpatrão, JoãoCarlosMarinhoLutzisnothometoentertainhisguests.Heisat thedoctor inSãoPaulo.At64,therancher iswornout fromrun-

ning this massive operation and is convincedthat he’ll soon drop dead of a heart attack if awhiteknightdoesn’tsurfacetobuyandsavehisexquisitelypreserved$74million,255,000-acrepropertyinMatoGrosso,thestateborderingthesouthern edgeof theAmazonian frontier.

“If JoãoCarloswerewith us,he’d be drink-ingwhiskey,” says John Cain Carter, the hon-orary patrão for the evening and themanLutzhas tapped to help broker the sale of theranch. The two met through Carter’s Brazil-ian wife, Kika, 12 years ago, and their mutuallove of wildlife and conservation cemented alasting friendship.

Carter, a dark-haired, sharp-featured 42-year-old expat rancher from Texas, is wearingWranglers and a 2006 Longhorns Rose BowlChampionshipcap.SinceflyingdownfromtheU.S. in his own plane in 1996, the former eliteArmy soldier has logged more than 500,000nauticalmiles, slowly building,with hiswife, a

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Carter and hiswife, Kika; left,Fazenda Santo

Antonio do Paraíso

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Hemaybe right.Fifteenyears ago,when most of Mato Grosso was stillintact Amazonian transition forest,you could hardly give land away.Today, ranchers and farmerswill payup to $737 per acre for cleared land.Therearestill 1.6millionsquaremilesof Brazilian Amazon forest, but it isbeing razed at a rate of more than3,000squaremiles per year.

Ranchers get the worst rap, forburning down trees to clear pasture.Since the sixties, worldwide beefconsumption has increased by 127percent. To keep up with demand,beef production has grown 711,000tons per year. In 2003, Brazil sur-passed the U.S. and Australia tobecome the world’s largest beef ex-porter. Countrywide production al-ready extends over 168 million acresand, according to an executive ofFrigorífico Minerva, one of Brazil’slargestbeefexporters,there’spoten-tial to expand to 806 million moreacres. Most of that land lies in theAmazonbasin.

But Carter believes that cattleranchers can help slow down Ama-zonian deforestation. The trick, heargues, is to build a market that fa-vors conservation. Four years ago hefounded his own “special-ops unit,”the nonprofit Aliança da Terra, withthismission: toprovideranchersandfarmers who agree to preserve and

rehabilitate their landanetworkofbuyerswill-ing topaypremiumprices for their products.

Before we flew off in Carter’s four-seatCessna for a weeklong, 1,300-mile tour of hismany projects in Mato Grosso, we stopped atAliança headquarters. In 2004, Carter startedthe nonprofit with $30,000 of his own moneyand$270,000instartupgrantsfromU.S.-basedBlue Moon Fund and the David and LucilePackard Foundation. Now it has 18 employeesand an annual budget of $200,000, which willtriple next year.

Here’s how Aliança works: Carter partneredwith Daniel Nepstad, a former senior scientistatMassachusetts-basedWoodsHoleResearchCenter andoneof theworld’s foremost experts

Herepresentsanewbreedofenvironmental-ist: a no-bullshit, consensus-building capital-ist who insists that the only way to save treeson productive land is to provide financial in-centives for keeping them in theground.

“Americanscomedownherewith theirhip-pie uniforms and say, ‘You’ve got to save theAmazon,’ ” Carter said our first morning inBrazil as he zipped Dave, Suzie, and me in hisToyotapickuptruck towardanairplanehangarin Goiânia, where he and Kika, 40, and theirtwo young daughters, Maria and Catarina,live part-time.“Well, the road tohell is pavedwith good intentions, andhugging a tree isn’tgoing to save theAmazon.Youneeda special-operations unit to save it.”

egrets, Carter spotted a 400-pound tapirgrazing a football field away.

“Howdidyou see that?” I asked.“Ah,you know,”he said.“I’malways looking

out for the enemy.”

AS AN EXPAT LANDOWNER in one of theworld’s last frontiers, Carter has had plenty ofopportunity tomakeenemies.Buthe’snot justanother gringo swooping in to save SouthAmerica. Carter’s got an approach that’s verydifferent from those of deep-pocketed prede-cessors like American entrepreneur DougTompkins. The founder of the Esprit clothingcompanyandtheNorthFace,andanavidcon-servationist, Tompkins bought up massivetracts of near-pristinewilderness inChile andArgentina.SomelocalshaveaccusedTompkinsofcreatinganenvironmental fiefdom—aplay-ground for those who can afford the luxury ofnothaving tomakea livingoff the land.Carter,on the other hand, has been hip-deep in cowmanure for12years,ranchingontheedgeof theAmazon in northern Mato Grosso, fending offsquatters trying to burn down his trees, Indi-ans trying to steal his cows, and corrupt localofficialswhodon’t like his foreign accent.

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Carter in the Cessna

“Americans comedownherewith their hippie uni-forms and say, ‘You’ve got to save the Amazon,’”Carter says. “Well, the road to hell is paved withgood intentions, and H U G G I N G A T R E E I S N ’ T

G O I N G T O S AV E T H E A M A Z O N . You need aspecial-operations unit to save it.”

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A year ago, thanks to a fire started by squat-ters on a neighbor’s property,Carter’s ranch litup like a gas tank, andmore than90percent ofhis land burned, diminishing his 2,100-headherdof cattle to 1,400.

“Out here it’s all landwars; it’s just a state ofanarchy,”Cartersaysaswedropontothegravelrunway.“Theguywith thebiggest gunwins.”

“Out here” is northern Mato Grosso, a fewhundredmilesnorthofFazendaSantoAntoniodo Paraíso, just east of the vast Xingu Indianreservation,and the regionon the front linesofAmazoniandeforestation.

Carter’s ranchmanager greets himwith thenews that his recently hired tractor driver haskilled an endangered alligator.Carter’s moodgoes as dark as the sky, but he can’t face offwith the offender right now because one ofhis neighbors, a young agronomist from SãoPaulo, has been waiting for Carter to buysome cows.

“Thisplacehastripled inworth,”saysCarter,exasperated, as we walk over to the house, acomfortable, well-manicured oasis. From the

“If the EuropeanUnion is demandinghighersocial and environmental performance, thenthat is probably the way the rest of the marketwill be going,” says Nepstad. “There are signsthat even China will begin imposing environ-mental standards.”

But can the market change quickly enough?AccordingtoAdrianForsyth,thevicepresidentforprogramsatBlueMoonFund,theU.S.non-profit that gave Carter his seed money, “Thecombinedpressureofagriculture,biofuels,andrapidclimatechangeisgoingtoultimatelyover-whelmthe region.”

Maybe that’swhyCarter is in suchahurry.

A BLACK CLOUD hovers overFazendaEsper-ança as we descend in the Cessna throughspackles of rain. We’re buzzing Carter’s ownranchsohecanpointout thesquatter trailsandburned-outplots ofmanioc and rice that infil-trate the forest like lice.

“Squatters are like a bad date,” he says, spit-ting Copenhagen into an empty water bottle.“Alwaysout there looking for opportunity.”

on the Amazon, and IPAM, the AmazonianEnvironmental Research Institute, to form aregistry of Brazilian ranchers and farmers whoare committed to good land stewardship. Sci-entists andAliança employees geo-reference aproperty, gathering stats and information onwildlife, fire hazards, erosion, riparian zones,and deforestation. Then the landowner signsa Recuperation Management Plan, which isput into an auditing system that tracks thelandowner’s complianceonayearly basis.

“Aliança is a groupof producerswhounder-standwhat producers’ problems are,” saysAnaLuisa Da Riva, a São Paulo–based operations

officer for the International Finance Corpora-tion (a member of the World Bank Group). “Itswork is recognized by all sectors: government,theprivate sector,producers, andNGOs.”

Currently,Aliançahasmore than 160prop-erties in its system, totaling 700,000 head ofcattle and nearly five million acres. Withinmonths, ABCZ, the world’s largest cattleorganization, with 16,000 members, and theXavante Indian reservation, a 412,500-acresprawl of degraded forest that’s home to 700Indians, will come on board. But the crownjewel in the system is Fazenda Santo Antoniodo Paraíso.

“Lutz’s property is thepsychological rallyingflag,”saysCarter.“He’smaintained it intact for70 years. He’s the Brazilian symbol of a goodland steward.”

The big unknown for Aliança is whether themarket rewards stewardship. The largest im-porters of Brazilian beef—Russia, Hong Kong,Egypt, and Venezuela—are hardly countriesthat have made sustainability a top priority. Inmarkets where it is, like the European Union,Brazilian beef exports are highly restricted. IntheU.S., freshBrazilian beef imports aren’t al-lowed because of concerns over foot-and-mouthdisease.

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“He’s a lightning rod.He’s not fromthat culture andhe never will be,”Carter’s brother says. “YOU STAND

IN FRONT OF A HOT STOVE LONG ENOUGH AND EVEN-

TUALLY YOU DON’T REALIZE IT’S HOT.”

João Carlos andMarinaLutz at Fazenda SantoAntonio; left, inside theranch’s main house

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110 Outside Map by Sjissmo

In 1991 in Iraq, Carter’s six-man team wasassigned a recon mission 93 miles into enemyterritory. As the helicopter took off, Carterremembers,thepilot toldthecrew,“Youarethecraziestmotherfuckers I’ve evermet.”

Carter earned a Bronze Star for his efforts.“The military taught me how to be a warrior,how to fight, how to turn adversity into aweapon,”he says.

After leaving the Army in 1992, Carter wasaccepted into Texas Christian University’sRanch Management Program, where he meta dark-haired beauty from Londrina, Brazil.Anna FrancescaCarvalhoGarciaCid—Kika forshort—was the granddaughter of Brazil’s twomost famous cattle breeders, Celso Garcia Cidand Rubens de Andrade Carvalho. In 1993Carter askedKika tomarryhim.

Beginning the day after the couple’s honey-moon,Kika’s fathercalledCartereverySundayfor twoyears to try toconvincehimto takeoverhis ranch in northern Mato Grosso. Carter fi-nally caved and the couple moved to FazendaEsperança in 1996.

Turns out, the Army was an ideal trainingground for the Amazon. Carter has acciden-tally snorkeled into a nest of baby anacondaswhile clearing tree stumps in a swamp, sur-vived a dog attack while hauling hunters inhis Cessna (which ended with a bite on theback of his neck), and had an armed face-off

withthechiefof theXavante tribe, whoauthorizedhispeo-ple to steal and kill12 of Carter’s cows.(Since then, Carterand the chief havebecome friends.)

“Psychologically,all this stuff scaresthe shit out of you,because ain’t no-body going to pullyou out,” says Car-ter, comparing hisRanger days to lifeonthefrontier.“Butwhat’s importantis the mission. Youmay be terrified,

but you still do it and complete it and itmakes you feel stronger—almost invincible.”

Carter’s optimismscares his brother back inTexas. “He’s a lighting rod.He’s not from thatculture and he never will be,” says Will Carter,52, who lives in San Antonio and runs his ownoil-and-gas-explorationcompany.“Youstandin frontofahotstove longenoughandeventu-ally youdon’t realize it’s hot.”

Shortly after Carter and Kika arrived atFazenda Esperança, a cattle thief made offwith their cows. Mad as hell, Carter grabbedhis rifle and hopped on his four-wheeler. Kika

couldmotivatepeople—thatwashis gift.Andhefeelsvery,verypassion-ate about things.”

After col lege, toEmma’s horror, Carterjoined the Army. AtAirborne school, on hissecond jump, his rightankle cracked as he hitthe ground. Carter lefthis boot on all night toreduce the swelling, ranfivemilesback to theairfield thenextmorning,then jumpedout of theplane again.

His intensity eventually earned him a spotas the senior scout of an Airborne Rangerunit, the long-range surveillance detach-ment team assigned to the 101st AirborneDivision, which pulled off dangerous mis-sions in the Persian Gulf War from August1990 to March 1991.

“Infantry quotes still rattle throughmyheadon a daily basis,” says Carter. “‘You gotta livehard tobehard’and ‘Hard timesdon’t last,buthardmendo.’”

veranda you can see forever toward a charredhorizon as flat and empty as the ocean.“For allthesweatequitywe’veput into it, it shouldhaveappreciated amillion times.”

“When you think of ranch life, you think oftheMarlboroMan,”Carter’swife,Kika,toldmewhenI first arrived inGoiânia.“But ranching ishard.This isnotTexas.WedothingsdifferentlyinBrazil.”

It’s been tough to get the Texas out ofCarter.His grandfather Walter Wilson Carterwas such a good stalker that he’d sneak upon a deer and smack it on the rump. Carter’sgeologist father, Walter Jr., who taught himmarksmanship and animal-tracking skills,would break up road trips across Texas toteach his son about fossils. By age six, Carterowned his first .22. By the time he was eight,he’d upgraded to a .222 rifle and a .410 shot-gun. Inhigh school,he’dwakeupbeforedawnto check his raccoon-trap lines. And by thetime Carter graduated from the University ofTexas, in 1989, he had climbed every notablepeak in the Rockies.

“Johnwasaveryeasychild,”sayshismother,EmmaRoy,a real estate agent inNashville.“He

A m a z o nRa i nf o r e s t

A m a z o nRa i nf o r e s t

Pantanal

AmazonRiver

On Carter’s ranch

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showers and toilets that Carter built to ac-commodate tourists, and an open-air hut onthe lakeshore,wherewe stringourhammocksto camp out for the night.

Carter first visited here 12 years ago. Hedecided to stay a month. “I wanted to figureout how to help them put value in their cul-ture,” he says.

The tribe, best known for its beautifuljewelry, didn’t know how to count, so Carterhelped them itemize their arts and crafts andcame up with a price list. Then he startedflying in small groups of high-dollar touriststo buy the jewelry. The program has been sosuccessful—the tourist fees ($450 per per-son), plus the income the Indians generateby selling their crafts, covers close to 30percent of the tribe’s total annual operatingcosts—that now nearby villages want a sim-ilar system.

“This is one of the best-preserved tribes inthe Amazon,” says Carter. “They live in themiddle of all these

ioc flatbread.The Johnsons and I don’t speakTupi or Portuguese, and the villagers don’tspeak English, so we mostly smile.

“Have you ever heard of global warming?” Iask Cotia, our thirty-something tribal guide,who has curly hair and zero body fat and is intraining tobecomea shaman.

“Thechiefknows,”Cotiatellsme,withCartertranslating.Butthenheadds,“Therainsstartedtwomonths lateandnowit’snotsupposedtoberaining,but it is.”

“Yeah, they know what global warming is,”saysCarter.

The Kamayurá live in the southern part ofthe seven-million-acre Xingu reservation,home to6,000 Indians from15 ethnic groups.From the air, the village is a two-hour flightmidway between Fazenda SantoAntonio andFazenda Esperança. By land, it takes 12 hoursvia river and jeep to get here from the near-est town. Ninety-five percent of the 500or so locals have never left the village, buttoday chief Kotok Kamayurá attended afestival at a neighboring village and hasn’tyet returned.

About a dozen thatched huts housing threeto six families eachcircle the sacredmen’shutin the center of the village. On the peripheryare a school, a clinic, tiled bathrooms with

jumped in front of Carter tostop him. He wouldn’t budge.SoKikahoppedonback.

“I remember thinking, Howon earth am I going to sendJohn’s casket back to hismother?” Kika told me. “Ithought, If he’s going to die, Iwant todie, too. I don’twant todeal with shipping his bodyhome in awoodbox.”

By 2002, with a one-year-old daughter, Catarina, Kikahad had enough of full-timefrontier. The couple kept theranch but moved to Goiânia,forcing Carter to get his fix ofdesperado life via Cessnacommute.

The day after we arrive atCarter’s ranch, we’re sched-uled to fly out after lunch, buthe has to finish firing his trac-tor driver. Dave, Suzie, and Ianxiously sit on the verandaand try to follow the heatedconversationgoingonoutbackin Portuguese.

“What do you think of allthis?” I askDave.

“I think it’s themost originaloperation I’ve ever seen,” hesays.

“Would you ever sell a ranchin a place like this to an Amer-ican?” I ask.

“The title’s solid, and the potential for ap-preciation is strong,”he says, looking around,“but it still has a few too many vestiges oflawlessness.”

WHAM!“This sucks!”Bang!“I hate it! It’s a pain in the ass!”Carter’s trying—and failing—tododgepot-

holes on a rain-soaked dirt runway. We’vejust dropped in on yet another Carter part-nership, with the Kamayurá tribe, which hebefriended in 1996.The remote village is nowa regular stop onBrazilianAdventureTravel’sitinerary, the ecotourism business Carter es-tablished in 1997withKika and anold collegebuddy,Dwayne House, 42.

A swarm of naked children and a few menwearing nothing but beaded waistbands,digital wristwatches, and a red dye thatmakes their bodies look like they’ve beendipped in cherry Kool-Aid tentatively ap-proach the plane.

The men and children lead us to a hut onthe shores of massive Lake Ipazu, where thefour of us devour the smoked peacock bassone of the men has served on a bed of man-

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A squatter fireon Carter’s land

OO

Formore photos of Brazil, go tooutsideonline.com/brazilianamazon

continued on page 150

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150 Outside

ranchers and farmers and haven’t been beatenintosubmission.Askanyvillagerandthey’ll tellyou that theydon’twant to leave.”

Justwhen I startgettingused to the idea thatthis may be a culture that can live withoutFacebook, the chief pulls up in a massiveflatbed truck.Kotok is about 50,has aBeatles-style bowl cut, and iswearing flip-flops, khakishorts, and aT-shirt.He’s smoking a cigaretteand looks like a surfer.

About five minutes after Kotok arrives, hestrips naked, but keeps the cigarette. Fourmembers of a Brazilian documentary filmcrew came with the chief in the truck. Thelittle kids pull up an assortment of chairsnear the tailgate to watch them unload theirgear. The crew is here for two weeks to tapevideo for a piece that will ultimately becomean art installation in a museum in Brasília.

When the director,ÁlvaroAndradeGarcia,finds out that the gringo in the Wranglers isJohn Carter, a man he’s been tracking formonths because he’s a rancher sympatheticto the plight of the Indians and a passionateconservationist, he sits Carter down for aninterview.

InPortuguesewiththecamerarolling,Carterspreads his soundbite to theworld: “Ranchersaren’tdevils!”he says.“The real responsibilityliesonthebacksof thegovernment,a task theyfail toshoulder.Butalongwithwhite landown-ers, Indians have an important role to play inAmazonianconservation.Twenty-fivepercentof it is in their control. But they, like whites,need financial incentives!”

Tacumã, the village shaman, who’s sittingunder a tree next to the film crew, slowly nodsin agreement.

OUR LAST STOP in Mato Grosso is RanchoJatobá, Carter’s fishing camp on the River ofthe Dead, about a 20-minute flight east ofFazenda Esperança. With guest cabins, anopen-air dining area, and a deck strung withhammocks and cantilevered over the wideand lazy river, the jungle camp is set up forguests of BrazilianAdventureTravel. But thisis also Carter’s favorite spot in Brazil, theplace he goes to get away from it all.

“The rancho is almost mystical to me,” hesays.“The smells of the cerrado, the soundsofthe dolphin blowing at night, the river otterscreaming, the jaguar calling on the island ...The wildness is overwhelming.”

After a morning spent casting for footlongcorvina,a silvery andquick-as-lightning fish,the Johnsons,Carter, and I drive the camp carinto town so Carter can negotiate buying apiece of property adjacent to Rancho Jatobá.Thenwestopoff at ahousewith a satellite In-ternet connection to catch a story on Aliançada Terra scheduled to appear in London’s Fi-nancial Times.Carter does aquick readbefore

wehustle back to the fishingboats todropourlines during the witching hour.

We roar downriver, then turn into a tinyinlet to snake throughdense thickets of flood-plain foliage,wherewe find theultimate fish-ing spot and crack a Skol. While Suzie’s busycatching a boatload of piranha, the conversa-tion turns back to the sale of Fazenda SantoAntonio and the Lutz family.

“I don’t even want to think about it, I wantit tohappen sobad,”Carter says ashebaitsmyhookafter I’ve casted,yet again, into the trees.

Before leaving Brazil, I have a chance tomeet with João Carlos Lutz and his wife,Ma-rinaMoraesBarros,whokeepanapartment inSão Paulo’s tranquil Jardín district.

João Carlos has perfectly manicured whitehair swept straight backoff his foreheadandasmall mustache.Marina, 46, is fit and tannedand wears a gold necklace with a tiny birdcharm. João Carlos doesn’t speak much Eng-lish, so Marina translates as she serves shotsof strong Brazilian coffee in porcelain cups.

“The real problem is thatwearenaturalists,lovers of nature,” Marina says. “Our dream isto continue like that, but with the pressure ofthewholeworldbegging for soybeans, it’s dif-ficult for us to continue.”

“It’s so rare and so special, what we have—cerrado, Pantanal, high land—that it needs tobe preserved!” João Carlos says. “In wars,governments don’t destroy museums, but inour country it’s difficult to find anyone con-cerned with conservation.”

“Conservation is in his blood,” Marina ex-plains.“His family,his grandfather,his aunts,his uncles—theywere all naturalists, all loversof nature.”

“My whole life is this country,” João Carlossays. “I’m 64, I have a small future. I want tostart other things.”

“Who would be your perfect buyer?” I askMarina and JoãoCarlos,whohave alreadyhadfive solid offers on the ranch, all at full askingprice, fromencroaching soybean, rubber, andsugar conglomerates.

“First, the buyer must be a real conserva-tionist,” Marina tells me.

“Then he would need to create a scientificfoundation,” João Carlos adds.

Their dream is turning out to be a tall orderfor Carter. It’s tough to dam ten million holeswith only ten human fingers.

“João Carlos was a spark of sanity in allthis madness,” Carter said, addressing themonstrous task at hand while casting forcorvina back at his camp. “I was neck-deepin mud here, and he was a shining light forme. If we can’t get this done, there’s some-thing really wrong with the world.” o

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR STEPHANIEPEARSON CAUGHT ONE PIRANHAWHILE REPORTING THIS STORY.

BRAZIL continued from page 112

France border not far fromGeneva.Theborder is our finish line,andour route to

it is all in-bounds groomers. The last chairliftremindsme of all the others in France: skimpy.I never lose the sensation that my large NewWorld ass is about to topple off. Crossing the7,469-foot Pointe de Mossette, we hoot half-heartedlyandraiseourpoles in triumph.We’vecrossed Savoy. There are no ticker-tape pa-rades,nokisses fromswell gals—just thesatis-faction of finishing a quest that involved 59trams, gondolas, chairs, and drag-lifts andthousands upon thousands of vertical feet.

The beer in Champéry, our final stop, is coldand big and worthy. As I hoist one, my mindgoes back to Peclet, with the static electricityand the Belgian snowboarders and the joint—which, like most in Europe, contained mostlytobacco anddidnothingbut induce a cough.

With the sky short-circuiting all around us,our hair standing utterly on end, what exactlywouldaguidehavedone?Onemighthopethat,at $400 a day, he’d have raised his ice ax highandactedas a lighting rod.Butmore likelyhe’dhave anticipated the quickly closing storm andrefused to attemptPeclet in the first place.

That would have been a bummer. Peclet’swest face is a 3,000-vertical-foot test pieceguarded by seracs and riddled with crevasses.Authoritiesrecommendcrampons,a30-meterrope, and to “avoid falling at all costs.” Weinched around rock and onto a sketchy 45-degreeface.Jammedouriceaxes intothesnow-packtill steady.Anchoredbackpacksbyloopingstrapsover theaxheads.Hoped tohell our toe-holds, on rime-crusted schist, were secure aswe gingerly extracted our skis and lay themacross the exposed fall line. Stabbed, withdental precision, boots into bindings. Slowlysheathedtheaxandshoulderedthepack,sens-ing how badly gravity wanted to suck gear andflesh down its maw. Exhaled nervously. Con-templated thedreary, foggy light below.

A pang of vertigo struck, then weirdness.TheBelgiansnowboarders,onaridgeaboveus,were trying to coax the sun out by singing.“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine ...”Between us, Lee, Beej, Lance and I carriedavalanche transceivers, cell phones, binocu-lars, ice screws, belay devices, headlamps,climbing skins, knives, and, if I’m not mis-taken, someequinepainkillers.Wewere readyformostanything.ExceptBelgianstonersatopa French peak crooning Louisiana’s Depres-sion-era state song.

We were happy just to be traversing Savoyonourownpower.Doing so removedour am-ateur status. When the going got weird, theweird turned pro. o

TELLURIDE, COLORADO, CORRESPONDENTROB STORYWROTEABOUTNEWZEALANDSKIINGANDSURFING INAPRIL.

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