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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.
他们告诉我，这条河已经跟以前不一样了。变凶狠了，冲走了岸边的土地。
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.
这边的房子在盖的时候就设计成可以应付高涨的水位，像在洪水森林里的一样，但当他们脚下的土地受到洪水侵袭时，就算底下架高，一楼的位置加高也还是不够。
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.
费利佩和我在群岛上最大的村子“进步村”租了一间空屋，后阳台距离水边大概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.
他们告诉我们，十年前从后阳台看出去，会看到我们和河之间的另一排房子。
All collapsed. Terra caida, the Bailique people say: fallen land.
全都倒了。贝利克的居民说：Terra caida（崩毁的大地）。
The sorrowful young mother I talked to yesterday knows her family's riverbank house is doomed.
昨天我访谈的那位悲伤的年轻妈妈，知道她家在河边的房子已经没救了。
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.
她在贝利克工作，协助经营渔民合作社，但她丈夫带孩子搬到拥挤的马卡帕去了，那是距离最近的城市，要搭12个小时的船溯河而上，但那边的学校教育比较可靠。
There are a few schools on the islands, but attending them now is a challenge.
群岛上是有几个学校，但现在连去学校都成了难题。
Riverbank damage is undermining the campus grounds of the one K-12 school, which is here in Vila Progresso.
河岸的崩坏掏空了进步村这里一座K12学制学校的校园。
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.
而由于亚马逊河才是唯一的真正交通管道，当高涨的河水冲坏码头、或是连接水道无预警灌满了河流带来的淤泥时，汽艇也无法接送上学的儿童。
Some school days, even when kids do make it to class, are only two hours long.
就算孩子成功抵达课堂，有些上学日也只有两个小时的课。
Terra caida is not the only slow-motion catastrophe we hear about again and again.
我们一再听人提起缓慢加剧的灾难，崩毁的大地还不是唯一一个。
The piped-in fresh river water, traditionally brought up for Bailique's household needs, now tastes salty many months of the year.
传统上，贝里克家庭都会抽取河里的淡水以满足家用需求，但现在每年有好几个月抽上来的水都是咸的。
It's only a bit of salt sometimes, but enough to make the water undrinkable and problematic for cooking and washing.
有时候只是有点咸，但也已经不能喝了，连用来做饭和清洗都有问题。
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，费利佩和我对着彼此高呼：住在这个被全世界范围最大的河流包围的地方，却被迫要向货运船或村子里的商店购买瓶装水。
Salinization upends so many people's work lives here. We hear about it in every conversation.
盐化作用打乱了这里许多人的工作生活。所有谈话中都听得到过一点。
The acai cultivators are wondering about the small groves of trees they manage and climb to harvest berries.
巴西莓农会在他们照顾的小树林里爬上树采摘莓果，他们有一些疑问。
Will saltier soil damage the roots, they ask us. Will it change the harvest?
变咸的土壤会不会伤到根部？他们问我们。会不会影响收成？
The fishing families are watching freshwater species they depend on -- fish from the mato, the jungle -- thin out or vanish during the salty months.
渔民家庭看着他们赖以为生的那些淡水鱼--来自mato，也就是丛林--在水变咸的那几个月数量减少、甚至消失不见。
One second-generation fisherman told Felipe that he has learned how to see when the salinization is high: The water shines differently, he said.
有位二代渔民告诉费利佩，他学会了要怎么看出水的盐度升高：水闪烁的样子不一样，他说。
Bailique receives steady news from beyond the archipelago.
贝利克稳定地接收着群岛以外地区的新闻。
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.
太阳能板和由卫星提供的网路服务正在扩张，我们也看过主要家具是宽屏电视的房间。
The explanations people give us, as they describe what is happening to them, are essentially what we as scientists believe.
大家在解释自己碰到的状况时，他们说的基本上就是我们这些科学家所相信的解释。
In part, it's mudan?a do clima, they say, climate change.
他们说，部分原因是mudan?a do clima（气候变化）。
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，剧烈的季节性变化也更常见；现在每到雨季，这里的河水就涨得特别高也特别猛，河水汹涌、夺走土地。
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.
其他月份则发生最严重的干旱--去年，整个亚马逊流域发生了有史以来最严重的一次干旱--削弱了淡水冲入大海的力量，让咸水更容易渗进来。
More immediate human intervention is causing trouble as well.
更直接的人为干扰也造成了问题。
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.
最近几十年来，在这里以北的内陆河流上兴建的发电用水坝，破坏了这个地区的水文，以及本来会在亚马逊河口处汇流的多条支流。
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.
亚马逊有些地区的森林已经为了建置牧场而遭到砍伐，而虽然这里的土地湿软，并不适合作为牧场，对水牛却没问题，所以贝利克一带已经有农民为了牛肉而开始养水牛。
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，当筑坝改变了水流，而到处跑的水牛蹂躏了河床，维持已久的生态平衡--河流对海洋，咸水对淡水--就在贝利克这里被打乱了。
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."
在河水高涨时，我们看着大块大块的河岸崩落，而我一边从一个令人难过的访谈跋涉到下一个，一边思量着：这就像一个窗口，可以看进地球的未来。
No! Correcting myself. The planet's present.
不！我更正自己，是地球的现状。
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.
不断上升的海平面已经给世界各地的沿海社区带来了土壤侵蚀和盐碱化的危机，费利佩和我可以看到，贝利克的居民就和其他许多地方的居民一样，正在竭尽所能地适应。
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.
他们在后院建起蓄水池储存雨水。他们放弃了破损的岸边房屋，搬到更内陆的地方--这点让我难以忘怀，一个个家庭眼睁睁看着河水吞噬他们住了半个多世纪的家。
For many of them, the river then takes the next house too. We've met families who have made this move six times.
其中有许多人后来连第二个家也被大河夺走。我们还遇过有家庭已经搬了六次。
Some people give up, like the man whose empty house we're renting, and pile all their belongings onto a ferryboat for Macapá.
有些人放弃了，例如把空房子租给我们的那个男人，他们把家当堆上一艘渡船，前往马卡帕。
"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，一个听起来心灰意冷的渔夫想到那些已经离开的邻居和朋友，对我说：“Mudou a agua, mudou a vida”（水变了，生活也变了。）
