Janderson Silva's family struggles to sell bananas due to the drought-stricken Solimões River. Their boat is damaged and in need of costly repairs. The low water-level of the river forces them to carry their bananas over 1.5 kilometers to reach navigable water. Manacapuru, Amazonas, Brazil.
2025 Photo Contest - South America - Stories

Droughts in the Amazon

Photographer

Musuk Nolte

Panos Pictures, Bertha Foundation
03 October, 2024

Janderson Silva's family struggles to sell bananas due to the drought-stricken Solimões River. Their boat is damaged and in need of costly repairs. The low water-level of the river forces them to carry their bananas over 1.5 kilometers to reach navigable water. Manacapuru, Amazonas, Brazil.

Typically, water levels in the Amazon fluctuate between the rainy and dry seasons. However, this year's dry season has been particularly severe, causing critical drops in all major rivers across the Amazon basin. The ongoing drought is not merely a natural occurrence; it is closely linked to climate change.
According to Brazil's geological service, the Negro River at the port of Manaus measured just 12.66 meters at the beginning of October, far below its normal level of approximately 21 meters. This is the lowest recorded level since measurements began 122 years ago.

Declining water levels threaten the region’s rich biodiversity and disrupt vital river ecosystems. Local communities that rely on these rivers for fishing, transportation, and other livelihoods are facing severe hardships. Many have found themselves cut off, with their boats stranded on expansive sandbanks. As droughts intensify, many settlers face the difficult choice of abandoning their land and livelihoods for urban areas, changing the social fabric of this region permanently. 

This project makes the effects of climate change, which can so often be abstract or difficult to represent, appear as a tangible and concrete reality shaping the futures of vulnerable communities closely connected with the natural world.


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Musuk Nolte
About the photographer

Musuk Nolte (b.1988) is a photographer and editor born in Mexico City, Mexico. His work combines documentary and artistic photography to explore social issues, including memory and environmental degradation. He frequently collaborates with communities and cultures from the Andean and Amazonian regions. Nolte ho...

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Technical information
Shutter Speed

1/3200

ISO

500

Camera

GFX50S II

Jury comment

The jury felt this project was critical to highlight, as it documents unprecedented drought in the Amazon and its profound impact on communities connected to natural cycles. This work powerfully illustrates the consequences of climate change— landscapes transformed, livelihoods disrupted, and the urgent need for adaptation. The striking contrast of dry, desert-like scenes in the world's largest rainforest makes the absence of water hauntingly visible. The photographer captures the scale of environmental change while centering the human experience, offering a compelling visual narrative of a rapidly shifting reality.