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The river, people tell us, is not as it was. It's meaner. It's ripping out land along its banks.
他們告訴我，這條河已經(jīng)跟以前不一樣了。變兇狠了，沖走了岸邊的土地。
Houses here are constructed to accommodate rising water levels, like those in the flooding forest, but even stilts and elevated first floors are not enough when the ground beneath them washes away.
這邊的房子在蓋的時候就設(shè)計成可以應(yīng)付高漲的水位，像在洪水森林里的一樣，但當(dāng)他們腳下的土地受到洪水侵襲時，就算底下架高，一樓的位置加高也還是不夠。
The empty place Felipe and I are renting here in Vila Progresso, the archipelago's biggest village, has a back porch maybe 50 yards from the water's edge.
費利佩和我在群島上最大的村子“進(jìn)步村”租了一間空屋，后陽臺距離水邊大概50公尺。
A decade ago, we're told, that porch's view was of another row of houses that stood between ours and the river.
他們告訴我們，十年前從后陽臺看出去，會看到我們和河之間的另一排房子。
All collapsed. Terra caida, the Bailique people say: fallen land.
全都倒了。貝利克的居民說：Terra caida（崩毀的大地）。
The sorrowful young mother I talked to yesterday knows her family's riverbank house is doomed.
昨天我訪談的那位悲傷的年輕媽媽，知道她家在河邊的房子已經(jīng)沒救了。
Her work is in Bailique, helping run a fishermen's cooperative, but her husband has taken the children to live in crowded Macapá -- the nearest city, a 12-hour boat ride back up the river -- where schooling is more reliable.
她在貝利克工作，協(xié)助經(jīng)營漁民合作社，但她丈夫帶孩子搬到擁擠的馬卡帕去了，那是距離最近的城市，要搭12個小時的船溯河而上，但那邊的學(xué)校教育比較可靠。
There are a few schools on the islands, but attending them now is a challenge.
群島上是有幾個學(xué)校，但現(xiàn)在連去學(xué)校都成了難題。
Riverbank damage is undermining the campus grounds of the one K-12 school, which is here in Vila Progresso.
河岸的崩壞掏空了進(jìn)步村這里一座K12學(xué)制學(xué)校的校園。
And with the river the only real roadway, motorboats can't pick up and deliver schoolchildren when high water wrecks a dock or an access channel unexpectedly fills with riverborne silt.
而由于亞馬遜河才是唯一的真正交通管道，當(dāng)高漲的河水沖壞碼頭、或是連接水道無預(yù)警灌滿了河流帶來的淤泥時，汽艇也無法接送上學(xué)的兒童。
Some school days, even when kids do make it to class, are only two hours long.
就算孩子成功抵達(dá)課堂，有些上學(xué)日也只有兩個小時的課。
Terra caida is not the only slow-motion catastrophe we hear about again and again.
我們一再聽人提起緩慢加劇的災(zāi)難，崩毀的大地還不是唯一一個。
The piped-in fresh river water, traditionally brought up for Bailique's household needs, now tastes salty many months of the year.
傳統(tǒng)上，貝里克家庭都會抽取河里的淡水以滿足家用需求，但現(xiàn)在每年有好幾個月抽上來的水都是咸的。
It's only a bit of salt sometimes, but enough to make the water undrinkable and problematic for cooking and washing.
有時候只是有點咸，但也已經(jīng)不能喝了，連用來做飯和清洗都有問題。
Think of it, Felipe and I exclaim to each other: living here, surrounded by the world's greatest expanse of river, and forced to buy bottled water from a delivery boat or a village shop.
想想看，費利佩和我對著彼此高呼：住在這個被全世界范圍最大的河流包圍的地方，卻被迫要向貨運船或村子里的商店購買瓶裝水。
Salinization upends so many people's work lives here. We hear about it in every conversation.
鹽化作用打亂了這里許多人的工作生活。所有談話中都聽得到過一點。
The acai cultivators are wondering about the small groves of trees they manage and climb to harvest berries.
巴西莓農(nóng)會在他們照顧的小樹林里爬上樹采摘莓果，他們有一些疑問。
Will saltier soil damage the roots, they ask us. Will it change the harvest?
變咸的土壤會不會傷到根部？他們問我們。會不會影響收成？
The fishing families are watching freshwater species they depend on -- fish from the mato, the jungle -- thin out or vanish during the salty months.
漁民家庭看著他們賴以為生的那些淡水魚--來自mato，也就是叢林--在水變咸的那幾個月數(shù)量減少、甚至消失不見。
One second-generation fisherman told Felipe that he has learned how to see when the salinization is high: The water shines differently, he said.
有位二代漁民告訴費利佩，他學(xué)會了要怎么看出水的鹽度升高：水閃爍的樣子不一樣，他說。
Bailique receives steady news from beyond the archipelago.
貝利克穩(wěn)定地接收著群島以外地區(qū)的新聞。
Solar panels and satellitecarried internet access are proliferating, and we've seen rooms in which the primary piece of furniture is a wide-screen TV.
太陽能板和由衛(wèi)星提供的網(wǎng)路服務(wù)正在擴(kuò)張，我們也看過主要家具是寬屏電視的房間。
The explanations people give us, as they describe what is happening to them, are essentially what we as scientists believe.
大家在解釋自己碰到的狀況時，他們說的基本上就是我們這些科學(xué)家所相信的解釋。
In part, it's mudan?a do clima, they say, climate change.
他們說，部分原因是mudan?a do clima（氣候變化）。
As sea levels rise everywhere, violent seasonal changes are also more commonplace; here the river now surges extra high and strong during rainy months, roiling water and taking land.
各地的海平面都在上升，劇烈的季節(jié)性變化也更常見；現(xiàn)在每到雨季，這里的河水就漲得特別高也特別猛，河水洶涌、奪走土地。
Other months have brought terrible droughts -- last year's, across Amazonia, was the worst in recorded history -- which weaken the force of fresh water pushing out to sea, making it easier for salt water to infiltrate.
其他月份則發(fā)生最嚴(yán)重的干旱--去年，整個亞馬遜流域發(fā)生了有史以來最嚴(yán)重的一次干旱--削弱了淡水沖入大海的力量，讓咸水更容易滲進(jìn)來。
More immediate human intervention is causing trouble as well.
更直接的人為干擾也造成了問題。
Electricity-generating dams, built in recent decades on a mainland river north of here, have disrupted the hydrology of the region and river tributaries that used to join the flow at the Amazon's mouth.
最近幾十年來，在這里以北的內(nèi)陸河流上興建的發(fā)電用水壩，破壞了這個地區(qū)的水文，以及本來會在亞馬遜河口處匯流的多條支流。
And although this soggy region doesn't suit the cattle ranchers who have deforested other parts of Amazonia, it turns out to be fine for water buffalo, which some farmers around Bailique now raise for meat.
亞馬遜有些地區(qū)的森林已經(jīng)為了建置牧場而遭到砍伐，而雖然這里的土地濕軟，并不適合作為牧場，對水牛卻沒問題，所以貝利克一帶已經(jīng)有農(nóng)民為了牛肉而開始養(yǎng)水牛。
So as damming alters the currents and wandering buffalo trample streambeds, a long-standing ecological balance -- river against ocean, salt water against fresh -- is being disrupted here in Bailique.
因此，當(dāng)筑壩改變了水流，而到處跑的水牛蹂躪了河床，維持已久的生態(tài)平衡--河流對海洋，咸水對淡水--就在貝利克這里被打亂了。
At high tide we watch chunks of the riverbank crack, and I trudge from one distressing interview to the next, thinking, "It's like a window into the planet's future."
在河水高漲時，我們看著大塊大塊的河岸崩落，而我一邊從一個令人難過的訪談跋涉到下一個，一邊思量著：這就像一個窗口，可以看進(jìn)地球的未來。
No! Correcting myself. The planet's present.
不！我更正自己，是地球的現(xiàn)狀。
Rising sea levels have already brought erosion and salinization crises to coastal communities around the world, and Felipe and I can see Bailique people trying, like so many others, to adapt with what's available.
不斷上升的海平面已經(jīng)給世界各地的沿海社區(qū)帶來了土壤侵蝕和鹽堿化的危機(jī)，費利佩和我可以看到，貝利克的居民就和其他許多地方的居民一樣，正在竭盡所能地適應(yīng)。
They build backyard holding tanks for rain. They abandon broken riverbank houses and move further inland -- this haunts me, families watching the river eat their homes of more than half a century.
他們在后院建起蓄水池儲存雨水。他們放棄了破損的岸邊房屋，搬到更內(nèi)陸的地方--這點讓我難以忘懷，一個個家庭眼睜睜看著河水吞噬他們住了半個多世紀(jì)的家。
For many of them, the river then takes the next house too. We've met families who have made this move six times.
其中有許多人后來連第二個家也被大河奪走。我們還遇過有家庭已經(jīng)搬了六次。
Some people give up, like the man whose empty house we're renting, and pile all their belongings onto a ferryboat for Macapá.
有些人放棄了，例如把空房子租給我們的那個男人，他們把家當(dāng)堆上一艘渡船，前往馬卡帕。
"Mudou a agua, mudou a vida," a resigned-sounding fisherman told me this morning, recalling friends and neighbors who have left: The water changed, and so did life.
今天早上，一個聽起來心灰意冷的漁夫想到那些已經(jīng)離開的鄰居和朋友，對我說：“Mudou a agua, mudou a vida”（水變了，生活也變了。）
