On the Amazonian Frontier

Out of the hot, humid north and back to the cool, developed south. I’ve just returned from the adolescent, south western Amazonian state of Rondonia. Though not a top choice of destinations for most Brazilians, for those who care to learn the history and fate of the Amazon forest and see first hand a modern day ‘40 acres and a mule’ campaign, it’s unmatched in its offerings.

Dr Erin Sills and I are part of a research team made up of NCSU, Salisbury University and UC-Santa Barbara, that has been researching the relation between land use and human welfare, since 1996.

INCRA, or the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform, is the governmental agency who spearheaded the development of the state starting in the 1970s. Attracting people from across Brazil, carving roads and farms out of primary forest, it has settled tens of thousands of immigrants in the effort to ‘give a land without people to a people without land’. I’ll admit to having have had plenty of preconceived notions of government sponsored deforestation before arrival in Rondonia. Mandatory forest clearance to secure land tenure, financial and technical assistance for cattle production, indian removal and low levels of law environmetnal law enforcement. Travelling to Rondonia however, tempered my feelings and animated my opinions.

Not that I don’t feel the current paradigm of development couldn’t be improved. An increasing speed of the creation of new settlements coupled with an aggressive road building campaign are alarming. Though in meeting the farmers, the men and women who broke their backs over the land, fought off incredible rates of malaria, lived amidst the wilds of a lowland tropical rainforest and watched their family and neighbors succumb to sickness, remaining all the while on their land to this very day, well, it just gives it a human side. The feat of these folks who arrived to their lots, which then existed only on paper, via a 3 day hike through virgin forest, is nothing short of incredible nor historic. Right or wrong the politics of development in the region may be, there is no denying the endurance of the human spirit that is on display along the rural roads of Rondonia.

I’m often asked, why is an American intereseted in Rondonia? What do I care for the Amazon or for Brazil? Weekly, I fend off questions of American aims to internationalize the Amazon, though through these doubts have become more aware of just why I am here and what I truly do care about.
Brazil is a country unmatched in its diversity. Economically, naturally and racially, the disparity between a university town in Minas Gerais versus a Bahian beach village versus an extractive reserve in Acre, is incredible. The challenge for Brazil today is walking the fine line of preserving their cultural and natural heritage while entering the 21st centrury as a country worthy of membership in the G-8 which it seeks. I hope in my time here to learn all I can about this balancing act and that the work of my research group aids in the process.