Parsons Green Prep School are coming together to take part in a whole school challenge to try to reach the 8,260km distance to Manaus, Brazil, in 28 days of May before half term. The catch is that there will be no carbon fuel means of transport and all activity will be by foot! 

We will also be dressing up one day as animals from the rainforest as well as trees and anything else we can think of!

PGP want to raise money for Rainforest Concern who work to protect threatened natural habitats and the biodiversity they contain, together with the indigenous people who depend on them for survival. PGP want to help to protect 2.2 million hectares of threatened forests.

In Brazil, they have working with the charity Tribes Alive for many years now. Currently, we’re supporting the Xingu Indigenous Reserve on the Xingu river (a tributary of the amazon river and one of the largest rivers in amazon basin). The indigenous people within this reserve are the best people to protect the rainforest as they’ve lived in harmony with the rainforest for thousands of years.

Reforestation can be a very inefficient form of conservation and so the best way of conserving the Amazon rainforest within this Reserve is by protecting and conserving what is already there. Indigenous people in Brazil have been hugely affected by Covid-19 (Brazil has the second highest death count in the world). The other major issue within Xingu reserve is gold mining and mercury poisoning/pollution. Mercury is used in gold mining. The gold is then washed in the Xingu river, washing the mercury into this water source. The mercury travels through the river and food chain, poisoning the people and environment. As the Xingu river joins the Amazon river, this pollution has the potential to affect ecosystems and species far away from the Xingu.

There are no limits to how far we can walk, run, skip, swim or anything else! Time to get competitive, time to get fit, time to help the Amazon.