I have chosen the Amazon River Dolphin as my focus for an awareness campaign. My goal is to create a comprehensive social media campaign that not only raises awareness but gives both the general public and corporations the opportunity to contribute either financially or invest their time in the success of the species.

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Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this semester is the enormity and importance of life that exists in our rivers and oceans. While we have explored most of the terrestrial earth - even the incredibly biodiverse Amazon Rainforest still leaves a great deal to be catalogued by scientists and conservationists. 

 

    That is to say we need to learn more about the rainforests and maybe the most important thing we need to learn is to not take our natural resources for granted. For generations people have looked at the Amazon on the map and said “Its so big, the bounty it provides will never dissipate.” This naïveté led to irresponsible commercial fishing practices, clear cutting vast swathes to make room raising crops and cattle farming, bio-piracy & smuggling, poaching, damming and logging.

 

The Amazon’s rich biodiversity and expansive store of carbon has a sizable impact on the local and global climate. Sweeping fires ravaged the Brazilian Amazon in 2019, a very visible reminder that humans certainly can impact even large ecosystems. While native populations rely upon the Amazon for food and its other resources - a variety of marine mammals also rely upon the health of the Amazon River.