Pictures of the Year International

Jhon Criollo throws a cast-net, a traditional way of Cofan fishing, on the Aguarico River near Zabalo, in the Ecuadorian Amazon on August 27, 2022. The Cofan people depend extensively on the rivers within their large rainforest homeland, and both harvest from it and protect it from deforestation and other threats. The homelands of the Cofan within the Ecuadorian Amazon hold the world's highest biodiversity, but have been under assault by resource extraction interests for seventy years. The Cofan people have resisted fiercely for that entire time, and have managed to maintain their rainforest exceedingly well, despite widespread deforestation and pollution just outside the border of their homelands. Additional Metadata in Headline title: Cast Netting on the Aguarico River