Peter Speetjens

Journalist

Recent

Fordlandia: hoe het Amazonewoud het won van technologie

De metalen watertoren op stelten is van mijlenver zichtbaar. Weer en wind hebben het Fordlogo helemaal doen vervagen. Maar wanneer de boot na zes uur varen vanuit Santarém op de oever van de rivier Tapajós afstevent, laten de felrode letters op de enorme loods er geen...

Hopes and fears for the Amazon: Interview with botanist Hans ter Steege

Having lived in Guyana for more than a decade, Dutch botanist Hans ter Steege spends his time these days mostly on home soil. Yet his heart and mind very much remain among the trees of the tropics, which he considers his “personal pet plants.” A professor of community...

A short walk through Amazon time with Anna Roosevelt

A professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Roosevelt has been dubbed the “matriarch” of archaeology in the Amazon Basin. In a career spanning some 40 years, she helped accomplish a radical shift in the way we perceive past and present in the...

In Brazil, half a century of salt mining sinks a city, displacing thousands

Streets lie deserted. Gardens have overgrown homes. Doors and windows are bricked up. The Bebedouro neighborhood in Maceió, in Brazil’s northeastern coastal state of Alagoas, is a shadow of its former self. And soon not even that. Every building there is numbered. As...

I’m a journalist currently based in São Paulo. Following my law studies in Rotterdam I wanted to see the world. After a year in India, I spent some 20 years in the Middle East, before moving to Brazil.

My work has appeared in both Dutch and English language media, including: Trouw, De Groene, De Standaard, Hard Gras, NRC, The Blizzard, MO Magazine, Middle East Eye and Mongabay.

I speak 5 languages, like photography, and in 2004 co-authored the documentary “2000 Terrorists” broadcasted by Al Jazeera.