Word: rondônia
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...those parts of the Amazon where people have seen the effects of paving, attitudes are also changing. Governor Viana and many of Acre?s citizens don?t want to see uncontrolled development spread through the rest of their wild and beautiful state, as it did through neighboring Rond?nia. ?Our struggle here,? says Viana, ?is to make sure that what happened in Rond?nia won?t happen here...
...slender highway between the Amazon city of Bel?m and Bras?lia, 58% of the forests disappeared in a 100-km swath on either side of the road. The paving of 1,460 km of highway BR-364 between the city of Cuiab? in Mato Grosso and Porto Velho in Rond?nia caused the disappearance of a third of the forest bordering the highway in just 15 years...
...Human attempts to remold the land for agriculture on a grand scale have also failed. In 1989 I flew over the catchment area for the Samuel Dam, a hydroelectric project just outside Porto Velho in Rond?nia. The land there is so flat that the newly built dam flooded 46,500 hectares of forest, leaving behind a wilderness of dead trees sticking out of shallow water and a vast breeding ground for mosquitoes. The dead trees and mosquitoes were still there when I flew over the area again. But now the talk in Porto Velho is that the dam is silting...
...drive south from Porto Velho on BR-364 offered a dramatic example of a similar process under way in the 21st century. In 1989 many small farms in the area were interspersed with patches of forests. Now much of the land is open pasture, dotted with some of Rond?nia?s 6 million cattle. About an hour out of the city, a series of illegal clearings begins in one of the few remaining stands of primary forest along the road. Settlers have invaded from every road or path, including the right of way for electrical lines that run through the forest...
...Remarkably, this unsanctioned invasion took place in plain view on one of the most traveled stretches of the busiest highway in Rond?nia. Moreover, the dozen or so clearings were cut in less than a week, a coordinated assault that bespeaks organization and planning. Antonio Alves, one of the settlers, says he came here because he was told the land did not belong to anyone. In fact, it belongs to a nonprofit organization that has not been able to produce clear title to the land; ibama officials guess that the settlers were tipped to this opportunity by a local politician...
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