Paul Rosolie

Rosolie recalls that at 18 he went alone to work at a research station in Peru’s Madre de Dios region, where he met Juan Julio (JJ) Durand of the Ese-Eja Indigenous community of Infierno; Tamandua Expeditions, which he started with the Durand family, has operated since 2007, running trips to the Las Piedras Biodiversity Station.⁠[1]

In March 2010 the 22-year-old Rosolie was a full-time environmental studies major at Ramapo College who spent his breaks leading tourist and volunteer expeditions into the rainforest near the Tambopata River with Durand and the Infierno community.⁠[2]

He described how the community sent him and Durand to a lake where a floating mat of vegetation supported a dwarf forest; there they met a female anaconda he estimated at 25 feet or more, which pulled them toward the water when they tried to hold it for measurement.⁠[2]

On April 10, 2013, at the tenth session of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF10) in Istanbul, Turkey, he was among the winning filmmakers honored for his AmazonAmazonAmazon is a publicly traded U.S. technology and retail company founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, with its principal corporate offices in Seattle. Its businesses span e-commerce, logistics and fulfillment, digital advertising, membership and entertainment services, consumer electronics, and Amazon Web Services cloud computing.Open the full entry wildlife short “An Unseen World”; the awards drew nearly 600 entries from 68 countries.⁠[3]

Then 25, Rosolie had grown up in New Jersey and became interested in forests as a young boy; one juror called the short “nature filmmaking at its most raw and innovative.”⁠[4]

In 2014 he founded Junglekeepers, which protects the Peruvian rainforest by employing rangers to guard tracts of land.⁠[5]

Junglekeepers says the organization was born of Durand’s partnership with Rosolie and has trained former loggers as rangers.⁠[6]

In 2014 he published his first book, the memoir Mother of God, which Jane Goodall called “gripping.”⁠[7]

Released in March 2014, it covers western Amazon wildlife amid logging and poaching and was selected for Barnes and Noble’s 2014 Discover Great New Writers series.⁠[1]

In November 2014, Discovery Channel announced that he would attempt to be swallowed by an anaconda while wearing a snake-proof suit in the special Eaten Alive; he grew up in Wyckoff, New Jersey, and attended Ramapo College.⁠[8]

He said a crew of about a dozen spent 60 days hiking and camping in the Peruvian rainforest to find their target, a roughly 25-foot female anaconda he first came across in the floating forest in 2008, and that he wanted the stunt to reach people who would not otherwise know what was happening in the Amazon.⁠[9]

When it aired he was constricted and the snake’s mouth closed over his helmet before he called a halt, and many viewers complained that the title had misled them; Discovery said in a statement that after the snake had constricted him for over an hour and gone for his head, continuing would have seriously injured him, and that his and the anaconda’s safety had always been the priority.⁠[10]

PETA senior vice president Lisa Lange said in a statement that the program had removed a captured wild green anaconda from its water habitat and tricked it into spending energy constricting a human, tormenting the animal for publicity.⁠[11]

He responded that in dozens of pre-show interviews he never said he would be eaten, only that they would try; the special drew 4.1 million viewers, Discovery’s highest-rated nature telecast since Life in 2010.⁠[12]

In September 2019 his novel The Girl and the Tiger was published by Penguin Random House India (and in the United States by Owl Hollow Press), drawing on a true episode in which an Indian girl wrote to him for help after finding tiger cubs; he was then director of Tamandua Expeditions and of Junglekeepers, which protected more than 12,100 hectares of primary rainforest.⁠[13]

On December 12, 2022, Dax Dasilva’s Age of Union Alliance announced a $3.5 million pledge to Junglekeepers over five years for land concessions, ranger programs and partnerships with Indigenous communities such as Puerto Nuevo and Monte Salvado along the Las Piedras River, expanding its 2021 investment of $625,000; the release said the group had conserved close to 50,000 acres of primary rainforest in 2022 and aimed to protect up to 200,000 acres.⁠[14]

In December 2022, the Templeton World Charity Foundation introduced him as wildlife director of Junglekeepers and operator of Tamandua Expeditions who had traveled to Madre de Dios every year for nearly half his life; Junglekeepers was then working to expand its protection from 50,000 to 250,000 acres.⁠[15]

On April 4, 2023, he appeared on episode #369 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, introduced as the founder of Junglekeepers; topics included the Amazon rainforest, anacondas, Eaten Alive, surviving in the Amazon, uncontacted tribes, black caiman, climate change, hunting and ayahuasca.⁠[16]

By December 2023 Junglekeepers protected about 55,000 acres (22,258 hectares) of rainforest in the Las Piedras corridor of Madre de Dios; Rosolie said the area was “past where law enforcement goes” and described working with local and Indigenous communities to recruit loggers as conservation rangers.⁠[17]

On May 15, 2024, he returned for episode #429, discussing bushmaster snakes, black caiman, anacondas, piranhas, aliens, a deep jungle expedition, Jane Goodall, Theodore Roosevelt, protecting the rainforest and uncontacted tribes.⁠[18]

On November 12, 2024, Junglekeepers issued a release celebrating a TIMETIMETIME is an American newsmagazine and media brand founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, which published its first issue on March 3, 1923; it is headquartered in New York and known for its Person of the Year selection and the TIME100 list. Since 2018 it has been personally owned by Marc and Lynne Benioff; its current Chief Executive Officer is Jessica Sibley, and its Editor-in-Chief is Sam Jacobs.Open the full entry feature on co-founder Durand, saying the partnership had safeguarded more than 97,000 acres of rainforest toward a long-term goal of 300,000 acres.⁠[6]

On January 13, 2026, he made a third appearance, on episode #489, covering uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, never-before-seen footage of tribe warriors, cartels, narco-traffickers and assassination attempts, climbing a giant tree, a giant anaconda and rescuing a spider monkey.⁠[19]

The high-definition footage shown in the interview depicts members of an uncontacted tribe emerging onto a beach through a cloud of butterflies; he called its release “a world first” and described the moment as among the most significant of his career.⁠[20]

On January 20, 2026, Convergent Books published his 336-page Junglekeeper: What It Takes to Change the World, recounting two decades of building Junglekeepers with Durand, confronting logging and illegal mining, and the story of “first contact” with the uncontacted Mashco Piro; the publisher lists it as a New York Times bestseller.⁠[21]

Kirkus Reviews said the book covers record-size anacondas, encounters with the Mashco Piro and a climb to the top of the canopy, as well as setbacks and narco-trafficker threats, calling it an “eloquent and valuable contribution.”⁠[22]

In February 2026 he said Junglekeepers had protected 47,000 hectares of the Las Piedras watershed and aimed to protect about 121,000 hectares as a national park; the group is Indigenous-led, buys land before loggers can log it and hires the loggers as rangers.⁠[23]

He said drug traffickers had recently moved into the area and threatened to kill opponents, that Junglekeepers now supports Peruvian police with boats, fuel and information, and that members of the team had been killed.⁠[23]

As of October 2026 his website describes him as director of Junglekeepers and Tamandua Expeditions and says Junglekeepers protects more than 135,000 acres of Amazonian habitat.⁠[24]

The site says he has spent 19 years specializing in threatened ecosystems and species in countries including Indonesia, Brazil, India and Peru, has traveled extensively with poachers to document the illegal trade in endangered species, and is an award-winning wildlife filmmaker.⁠[25]

He has also spoken at the COP-15 United Nations biodiversity summit and has written for outlets including USA TodayUSA TODAYUSA TODAY is a national general-interest daily newspaper and news brand in the United States. Founded under the leadership of Allen Neuharth and first published on September 15, 1982, it is known for its color pages, short stories, and abundant graphics. It is now published by USA TODAY Co. (formerly Gannett) and is the national flagship brand of the USA TODAY Network, and its brands also include the sports brand USA TODAY Sports.Open the full entry, National Geographic, HuffPost and The Guardian.⁠[26][7]

Personal website: Public link: https://paulrosolie.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[18]

X: Public account: https://x.com/PaulRosolie (opens in a new window)⁠[16]

Instagram: Public account: https://www.instagram.com/paulrosolie/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]

Junglekeepers: Official website: https://junglekeepers.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]

Tamandua Expeditions: Official website: https://www.tamanduajungle.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[24]