Rise for the Amazon Day: One Woman is Helping Protect the Amazon’s Headwaters

August 28, 2026

The water that sustains the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil begins its journey thousands of miles away, high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Rain that falls on the highest peaks, and glacier waters that melt and filter through fragile wetlands called bofedales, slowly make their way down into the rivers and streams that feed the entire Amazon Basin, sustaining its biodiversity and climate along the way. Protect that water at its source, and you protect everything downstream: the forest, the wildlife, and the millions of people who depend on it.

This is the work to which Marlene Mamani has dedicated her career.

 

Meet Marlene

Marlene Mamani Solórzano is a Peruvian biologist and a Specialist in Andean Restoration and Community Relations with our sister organization Conservación Amazónica–ACCA. For years, she has worked shoulder to shoulder with highland communities in Peru’s Cuzco Department to restore degraded bofedales and high-altitude grasslands, the very ecosystems that store and regulate water for the Amazon below.

Marlene was honored as a 2026 National Geographic Explorer, one of the most significant honors in conservation science, in recognition of her years of work restoring degraded ecosystems in Cuzco and building community capacity to prevent and respond to fire events. It’s a distinction that celebrates people developing real, innovative solutions to understand and protect the planet, and it comes with new funding to expand the work Marlene is already leading alongside Andean communities.

 

Restoration That Starts With Community

For Marlene, conservation only works when it’s rooted in partnership: between science, traditional knowledge, and the communities who live closest to these ecosystems. That partnership is already producing results. That work includes restoring degraded land and training community fire brigades for the prevention and control of forest fires so that communities are prepared to respond quickly when they’re needed most. 

That preparation matters more than ever. With El Niño conditions expected to bring even more severe weather this year, the fire risk in these high-Andean ecosystems is rising, and the communities on the front lines need to be prepared to respond. Thanks to funding from Marlene’s National Geographic Explorer recognition, nine community fire brigades from seven communities across Cuzco are being trained and six hectares of high-Andean bofedales and grasslands in the community of Japu are being restored. 

These may sound like small numbers, but bofedales and grasslands punch far above their weight. They store and regulate water, shelter unique biodiversity, and protect sustainable livelihoods for local communities, all while feeding the rivers that sustain the vast Amazon biome. 

Marlene says that true conservation happens hand in hand with communities. They know their land; they face its challenges firsthand; and they are essential to finding lasting solutions.

 

Why This Story Matters for Rise for the Amazon Day

The Amazon gives us so much: clean air, stable climate, unmatched biodiversity. But none of it is possible without water, and that water begins in places like the highlands Marlene works to protect. Her story is a reminder that safeguarding the Amazon means safeguarding it at every level, from the source of its rivers to the depths of its forest.

This September 5, you can help carry that work forward. Thanks to a generous donor and our Board of Directors, every gift made for Rise for the Amazon Day will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $20,000, so your support goes twice as far for people like Marlene and the communities she works alongside.

 

Make a secure gift today and DOUBLE your impact!

 

 

Rise for the Amazon Day. September 5.
Protect the Amazon, and all that it provides.