{"id":22673,"date":"2020-05-27T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T19:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=22673"},"modified":"2020-11-12T10:58:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T18:58:13","slug":"river-warriors-ben-webb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2020\/05\/27\/river-warriors-ben-webb\/","title":{"rendered":"River Warriors: Ben Webb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soft morning light bathes the streets of Jaen, Peru in a warm orange and a tall man ducks through the too-short door of a hostel. He gives the impression he\u2019s a local as he pads down the bustling street in flip-flops and a faded tee, but his 6\u20193\u201d stature, fair skin, and dusty blonde hair give him away. He casually greets friends on the street, saunters up to the nearest food cart and orders in fluent Spanish. After he eats, he sits down at the desk in his rudimentary hostel room and opens his computer.<\/p>\n

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Ben Webb came to Peru six years ago because of one river: the Mara\u00f1\u00f3n. The Aussie kayaker traveled halfway around the world not just to kayak, but to help protect the headwaters of the Amazon. Today, Ben is part of a small but dedicated group of river defenders. Ironically, that means he spends a lot of time far from the impressive rivers that snake through the Andes, his days in front of a computer screen in busy cities helping keep Peru\u2019s rivers from being dammed, diverted or flooded. He\u2019s not just paddling, he\u2019s paddling with purpose.<\/p>\n

Ben\u2019s path to Peru was a meandering one. It started with an old fiberglass canoe and some river trips with his dad. \u201cWhen I was a kid, Dad bought a big old fiberglass canoe and a kayak and we would go and run some class II whitewater on the Yarra River,\u201d Webb says. \u201cI was 10 years old and the grade II river looked massive! I would ask Dad, are we really gonna run that?!\u201d After a few trips with his dad, Ben was hooked, and he quickly learned where a boat and paddle can take you\u2014all the adventures (and misadventures) with friends and that same fiberglass canoe in his \u2018backyard\u2019 beyond the city limits of Melbourne.<\/p>\n

When he got in a plastic boat for the first time it was with the Melbourne University Mountaineering Club. The club introduced him to the basics of kayaking through some mellow surfing and sliding on the Goulburn River. \u201cIn uni I was learning more about kayaking than I was about engineering,\u201d he says. \u201cI found a cool group and we had a lot of fun going out camping and kayaking on weekends. The sport kind of grew on me from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ben paddled all over Australia, where his trajectory into river conservation continued. \u201cKayaking and rivers became important to me; great times with friends appreciating the wilderness,\u201d he says. And one trip specifically\u2014exploring and paddling the Dennison River and Franklin River in Tasmania\u2014inspired him to create his project to take action and contribute to the protection and preservation of rivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the Denison, you get into this valley and it\u2019s a prehistoric wonderland with thousand-year-old huon pine trees, some of the only stands that remain in the world.\u201d It was paddling through this World Heritage Site and part of the Franklin Gordon Wild Rivers National Park that Ben learned more about the history of river conservation. There he read some deeply inspiring words from those who took part in the Franklin River Blockage of 1983, one of the largest river conservation protests in history. Because they were successful in protecting the river from being dammed, Ben and his friends were now able to enjoy the canyon. \u201cIt was the most amazing ecosystem I had seen up until that point in my life,\u201d Webb says. \u201cAnd I thought, what could I do with my time that would be more useful and more important than protecting an area like this?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ben participating in a protest in Tirana, Albania as part of the Balkan Rivers Tour. Photo: Katja Pokorn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After graduating in 2011, it only took Ben one day to realize that a career as an engineer wasn\u2019t for him. With lots of free time in the office, Ben spent a lot of time Googling. This is how he found the Mara\u00f1\u00f3n. It wasn\u2019t long before he was on the road with his kayak.<\/p>\n

First, Ben spent some time on the technical rivers of neighboring New Zealand, then traveled solo to Chile in 2014. \u201cI bought a little van and drove around for six months before selling the van and bussing up to Peru to paddle rivers like the Colca, the Cotahuasi, and the Mara\u00f1\u00f3n.\u201d His trip sparked a love for adventures in Latin America, but he wanted to do something more than just travel and kayak. \u201cWhen I learned more about the Mara\u00f1\u00f3n, I was like, this sounds like a pretty damn important river, maybe there is something I can do to help there?\u201d So, Ben dreamed up a conservation project, named it Paddling with Purpose<\/a>, and did some fundraising. Then, he quit his job and went to the Mara\u00f1\u00f3n.<\/p>\n

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The Mara\u00f1\u00f3n River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Mara\u00f1\u00f3n flows more than a thousand miles, drawing an upsidedown L from the eastern base of the Andes near Lima. Flowing north toward the Ecuador border, it cuts through tropical dry forests lined with cacti before merging with the Ucayali River and the Amazon Basin. It\u2019s home to ancient indigenous tribes who have depended on the river for centuries and fauna and flora yet to be discovered by scientists.<\/p>\n

As Ben paddled and learned more about the Mara\u00f1\u00f3n, he also learned about threats to the river, including plans to build 20 massive hydro dams. The Chadin II and Veracruz dams alone would inundate over\u00a07,000 square kilometers, putting uncounted endemic species in peril and displacing indigenous people. The dams also put Peru\u2019s natural heritage at risk<\/a>, flooding many ancient pictographs and sacred sites.<\/p>\n

Paddling with Purpose was born first from a desire to show locals their home river, before it was destroyed, which was expected to happen within that year. \u201cMy thinking was, if I take these young Peruvians down the river, at least there would be some living memory of their river.\u201d<\/p>\n