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In the heart of the Amazon Basin, where the borders and cultures of Peru, Colombia and Brazil converge, a tiny, shape-shifting island has become the unlikely setting for a diplomatic tug of war.
“If God wanted, the river would change and even Santa Rosa could disappear,” said Gladys Hari Leiva, a hotel owner who has lived on the island for 21 years.
The island’s mercurial geography makes it a difficult place to settle; families adapt season by season, walking across sandbanks in the dry months, then paddling canoes through flooded streets when the rains come.
Santa Rosa’s fragility has not stopped Peru and Colombia fighting over it. In fact, its shifting shoreline has made matters worse.
Yet despite these limitations, the island is coveted by the countries around it. Peru and Colombia have argued over who the island belongs to for decades. As the Amazon River moves, so too does the international boundary between the two countries.
The main channel of the Amazon River constantly erodes existing land and deposits new earth. Each year the river carries roughly 1.2 billion tons of sediment from the Andes toward the Atlantic, reshaping its banks and islands as it flows. During high-water months, water spills over and settles across the floodplain, leaving behind up to 12 inches of fresh soil annually.
Residents who have lived in the Basin for a long time are used to the seasonal ebb and flow of the water and land, but it’s becoming less predictable.
Read more at the link in our bio.
📷: Santiago Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images; Luid Acosta/AFP/Getty Images/File
