As the Amazon Rainforest faces unprecedented threats from deforestation leading to desertification, sustainable tech company Vivo in Brazil joined forces with indigenous communities and environmental organizations to launch the groundbreaking “Amazon Desert Rally.”
To draw attention to the harsh truth of the Amazon’s plight, Vivo crafted a fake desert race that juxtaposes a wild fiction with an even wilder reality of vast environmental destruction. The effort, conceived with Vivo’s creative agency, Africa Creative, aims to shed light on the alarming rate of river drying in the Amazon basin and garner public support for urgent conservation efforts.
The Amazon basin’s rivers have lost a staggering 120 trillion liters of water in 2023 alone, with illegal logging emerging as a leading cause of environmental degradation.
A recent study published in Nature revealed that 40% of logging in the Amazon is illegal, resulting in the devastation of vast forested areas equivalent to the size of Denmark each year. Furthermore, indigenous territories designated for sustainable logging have been overrun, exacerbating the ecological crisis.
Vivo’s tagline, “Don’t sponsor this race,” urges consumers to consider the origins of the wood products they purchase and advocate for sustainable practices.
In response to this environmental emergency, the IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute) worked with the Paiter Suruí indigenous village and Stock Car, to develop the “Amazon Desert Rally” campaign for Vivo.
The Vivo campaign’s centerpiece is a fictitious rally intended to draw attention to the imminent threat of irreversible damage to the Amazon Rainforest.
Filmed on the Rio Branco in Roraima, the campaign’s launch film–directed by Andre Vidigal via production company Genco–portrays a dystopian future where indigenous people from the Paiter Surui village train for a race on dry riverbeds. Their message is clear: the rally symbolizes the potential disappearance of the Amazon as they know it, their ancestral homeland.
“Without water and without forests, humanity will lack the vitality to rally,” said Almir Surui, president of the Paiter Surui territory and UN-appointed Forest Hero.
As the Amazon Rainforest faces the prospect of irreversible degradation, the campaign aims to mobilize public support for conservation efforts. Indigenous leader Celso Surui made a symbolic appearance at the São Paulo stage of Stock Car, underscoring the urgency of preserving the Amazon’s biodiversity.
While the rally may be hypothetical, the reality of dried-up rivers in the Amazon is not.
