My travels: Ed Stafford in the Amazon
The former soldier who became the first person to walk the length of the Amazon tells of death threats, hunger, and loyal friends
My mission was to travel the length of the Amazon, from source to mouth. At one point, inPeru, I was in a totally closed off area of Amerindians. Few white people went in by river, and certainly none on foot – as I was with my guide Cho, a forestry worker who walked with me for 24 of the 28 months of my journey.
Some indigenous tribes in this part of the world consider themselves autonomous – they don't follow the laws of Peru. As we travelled, we used a high-frequency radio network to talk to the tribes as we approached, so we could ask their permission to come through. In this area, a tribe called Pensilvania said over the radio that they would kill any white people who came by. We were worried, but had no choice but to pass through this area. To try to avoid them, Cho and I paddled out to a shingle island in the middle of the river, then walked down it for two kilometres, hoping to avoid the Pensilvania. When we reached the downstream end of the island and were about to get back into our inflatable rafts Cho said, "Ed – look behind you". I turned and saw five canoes paddling up to us. The men were armed with bows and arrows or shotguns, the women with machetes.
I thought, this is it: we are going to be killed.
Luckily they weren't Pensilvania; they were a different tribe. But they were furious that we were trying to pass without permission and escorted us back to their community and made us take all our stuff out of our bags.
In general the tribes didn't want people walking through their land. This tribe was no different. They hadn't issued a threat, but they hadn't given us permission to pass either. They said they would only let us through if we hired the chief and his brother as guides. We pretended to be really put out by this, that it would be a huge inconvenience, but actually we were thrilled. We really needed local guides to help with introductions at subsequent communities.
Alfonso and Andreas walked for 47 days with us, and became really good mates. We could all speak enough Spanish to communicate. Cho and I were travelling with a pack raft – a small one-person inflatable kayak – each. With the extra company we had to double up, sitting in the rafts end to end. It felt like sharing a bath.
I was sharing a pack raft with Andreas and I accidentally dropped our last machete – which we really needed – into the water. Though not a disaster, this would inconvenience us greatly – but Andreas, the chief, and I had become good friends by this point and we just shared a guilty schoolboy grin. They ended up being really lovely, loyal friends: the same people that came out to defend their land and who were, I am sure, ready to kill us had we been aggressors. At the end of the trip we paid them, and were a bit worried that, like other tribesmen we had met, they would spend it all on alcohol, but these guys bought an outboard motor to take back to their community.
At one point we had been walking for 30 days through places with no human habitation, and I decided that we were eight more days from a community that was marked on our map. We worked out that we had just 450 calories a day to live on, so we walked for eight days, and on the last day there was nothing there. We had no food, we were in the middle of the jungle, our GPS had broken and we only had a compass and a map that was 1: 4m to navigate through Brazil. (That means 1mm was 4km – military maps are 1: 100,000.) We were really out on a limb. But the next day Cho found a tortoise. We'd made it a policy not to hunt, but that tortoise jerky saved us.
With food low and kit breaking, we had to increasingly live off our wits to survive. It became the part of the expedition that was the most memorable. Before I set off, everyone told me the challenge was impossible, but I was adamant it wasn't.
Britain needs shale – so it's time to get fracking
Exploiting our shale gas reserves should be an urgent national priority, argues Lord MacGregor
Impressed by the way in which the US has raced ahead with the development of shale gas and oil, the House of Lords' economic affairs committee, which I chair, began an inquiry last October into the potential impact of developing a shale gas industry here in the UK. The current situation in Ukraine and the urgent need to strengthen Europe’s energy security have given our conclusions importance way beyond the economic alone.
The shale revolution in the US has already transformed America's energy mix, cut energy prices, reduced coal use, paved the way for the US to become a major exporter of liquefied natural gas and strengthened energy security. The full effects on world energy markets are still to be felt, but will be multiplied as countries with large shale deposits develop their own resources.
We are convinced that development of the UK’s potentially substantial shale resources should now be an urgent national priority. We fully support the Government’s decision to "go all out for shale", but we are greatly concerned that here in the UK we’ve not yet left the starting gate. We are persuaded by the weight of scientific evidence that, with proper regulation, including the improvements we advocate, exploration and production of shale gas would be at low risk to the environment and public health. Our own shale gas would also strengthen the UK’s energy security and be a bridge fuel towards a low-carbon future. It is now vital to get on with the necessary exploration and appraisal to assess the UK’s reserves.
For now, there are only tentative estimates of the UK’s economically recoverable reserves of shale gas. They cluster around 130 trillion cubic feet, or about 40 years’ consumption, based on British Geographical Survey studies and on experience in the US. If these estimates are proved right, the economic benefits could be substantial, including new jobs, the creation of an exportable skills base, a boost to energy-intensive and petrochemical industries, extra tax revenue and a stronger balance of payments.
The industry is keen to get on with exploration and the Government appears to be too; the Chancellor of the Exchequer is putting forward tax measures he calls “the most generous for shale in the world”. Little, however, is actually happening on the ground. We heard that, since a moratorium onfrackingwas lifted in 2012, not one permit for fracking has been requested or granted.
There are two main reasons for this delay: a vocal anti-fracking movement and a complex regulatory regime.
Since last summer’s protests at Balcombe, anti-fracking groups have made their presence felt at any site where exploratory drilling for shale gas is envisaged. The industry is unwilling to proceed without what it calls a “social licence to operate”.
Much of the opposition to shale gas is based on a belief that the only legitimate response to climate change is to move immediately to a decarbonised power sector. This is unrealistic. Existing sources of renewable energy are too expensive and intermittent to meet all our energy needs; new nuclear will take time to develop. If we are to continue our progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050, a transition fuel is required to lessen our current dependence on coal.