Description: This documentary showcases life in the Peruvian Amazon and highlights the controversy surrounding the government’s proposal to dredge the Marañón, Ucayali and Huallaga rivers to facilitate boat traffic. This proposal has generated opposition, particularly from indigenous communities who consider river water to be sacred. The video also sheds light on the challenges of transportation and daily life in the region.
Teaching ideas: Before watching, students can locate the Marañón, Ucayali, and Huallaga rivers on a map and discuss what they already know about the Peruvian Amazon, building geographic and environmental vocabulary. The documentary presents a clear conflict between the government’s development priorities and the positions of indigenous communities who regard river water as sacred, which makes it an ideal text for identifying how different speakers frame the same issue: students can analyze the language each side uses, noting how word choice, tone, and rhetorical strategies reflect different relationships with the territory. This analysis can then feed into a structured class debate about the dredging project, with students assigned to represent different stakeholders (government officials, indigenous community members, environmental organizations, or river transport workers) practicing the subjunctive to express doubt, emotion, and recommendation and the conditional to argue about consequences. Finally, students can write a short opinion piece or open letter from the perspective of one of these stakeholders, consolidating the vocabulary and grammatical structures practiced in the debate.