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Joe Rogan · 2024-06-27 · 2h 42m

Joe Rogan Experience #2013 - Paul Rosolie

Conservationist Paul Rosolie on protecting the Amazon, giant anacondas, uncontacted tribes, jungle survival, and how Rogan's share saved his mission.

Joe Rogan Experience #2013 - Paul Rosolie
The guest

Paul Rosolie — Amazon conservationist, explorer and author who founded Jungle Keepers, an indigenous-led effort protecting tens of thousands of acres of Peruvian rainforest.

The gist

Paul Rosolie recounts how a high-school dropout's obsession with seeing the rainforest before it vanished turned into a life protecting the Western Amazon. He describes learning the jungle from local guide JJ Duran, catching record-sized anacondas, surviving solo expeditions, and the deadly conflicts with gold miners, loggers and uncontacted tribes. A 2019 video of the burning forest that Joe Rogan shared went viral, brought funding from Dax da Silva, and let Jungle Keepers hire former loggers as rangers. The conversation ranges across jungle medicine, survival skills, elephant intelligence, dark skies, and Rosolie's plea to protect the last wild places while there is still time.

Big reveals

  • A 2019 video of Rosolie screaming in the burning Amazon went mega-viral after Rogan shared it, leading to funding and the growth of Jungle Keepers.
  • Multiple people he knew, including a friend named Paul and a lawyer's father, were murdered by gold miners with no consequences.
  • Ranger Ignacio carries a scar from a 7-foot arrow shot by an uncontacted tribe that communicates using capuchin monkey calls.
  • On the Floating Forest, Rosolie jumped on a ~24-25 foot anaconda so large his fingers couldn't touch around its body.
  • His first anaconda nearly crushed him; he later caught the largest scientifically verified wild anaconda, an 18'6" female named Eleanor.
  • His team built what he calls the world's tallest treehouse (~110 ft up) in the Amazon, with solar power, running water and Starlink.
  • JJ healed a months-long tropical infection overnight with tree sap after New York City infectious-disease doctors failed.
  • David Good, son of an anthropologist and a Yanomami woman, reconnected with his jungle mother and now studies the tribe's gut health.

Things worth remembering

  • Coyotes respond to being hunted by expanding their range and birthing more pups, spreading into every U.S. city.
  • Jungle Keepers protects over 50,000 acres and aims to protect 300,000, which would create one of the largest protected areas in the Amazon.
  • Anacondas are more strategic than thought, staking out mineral licks rather than only ambushing prey.
  • Greenland sharks may live at least 250 and possibly over 500 years.
  • As much as 99% of medium-sized mammals have vanished from parts of the Everglades due to invasive constrictor snakes.
  • There are over 100 different uncontacted tribal groups across the Amazon.
  • The Keck Observatory in Hawaii uses diffused street lighting so light pollution won't disrupt the telescopes.
  • Humpback whales rebounded from about 5,000 after whaling to roughly 115,000 today once whaling was banned.
  • Elephants have been documented eating labor-inducing plants that African tribes also use before childbirth.
  • Elephants communicate over miles via low-frequency rumbles transmitted through the ground.

Recommended in this episode

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

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Guest’s ownBook

Mother of God (inferred)

Paul Rosolie

“first of all I'm in your book right now I just started it it's insane how the hell did you even get the idea to do what you did” — Joe Rogan 00:01:04
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“have you ever read Coyote America uh no it's a really good book by this guy Dan Flores he's been on the podcast a couple of times” — Joe Rogan 00:07:16
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“he wrote this amazing book on it now it's started a field of study at Harvard it's incredible” — Joe Rogan 02:11:44
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“there's a famous Vice series that we have referenced on this show a bunch of times it's called the vice guide to travel” — Joe Rogan 02:05:31
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