When Valdemar Gamba’s small farm in southern Brazil was flooded by the building of a dam 30 years ago, the Government gave him compensation and pointed him towards the Amazon.

The ruling generals feared that if they continued to neglect the Amazon region, outside powers might colonise it – so they were eager to see Mr Gamba and his neighbours settle there. Mr Gamba duly made his way to Alta Floresta and hacked a new cattle ranch out of the jungle. The move was well worth it, he says: “The land here is more fertile and the climate is like a natural heater – this is good country for farming.”

But now he and his kind feel that they have been turned into villains by the State that coaxed them into the jungle all those years ago. Even with the twin pressures of rocketing food prices and the demand for biofuels, Brazil no longer sees the Amazon as empty territory waiting to be developed, but as the world’s greatest reserve of biodiversity and a crucial asset in combating global warming.

Three decades ago the migrants saw themselves as bringing large tracts of idle land into production. “Many who first settled here saw themselves as pioneers, patriotically expanding Brazil’s frontier,” Dernei Olindo Del Moro, who moved north in the 1970s, said.

Despite restrictions on how much land can be cleared, less than 20 per cent of the municipality’s original jungle cover remains, making it one of the most deforested places in the Amazon. The dominant activity is cattle ranching, but farther south, throughout Mato Grosso state, the forest and savannah have been cleared to create one of the world’s biggest grain-producing regions, principally soya and maize. As plantations have spread, and as sugar cane production for ethanol begins, the cattle ranchers have pushed farther into the rainforest.

Compared with the deep poverty of most of the 25 million people who live in the Amazon region, these farmers are prosperous. “We felt we were building something here and we were lauded for it,” Mr Del Moro remembers. “I had my photo taken with two presidents. They treated us like heroes.”

But where deforestation was once encouraged as an act of progress and development – officials looked the other way when environmental laws were flouted – Brazil now talks of sustainable development and enacts ever stricter laws. Suddenly Alta Floresta and places like it are crawling with armed federal police sent to back up agents from Brazil’s reformed environmental protection agency, Ibama. Many are outraged at what they see as the criminalisation of their community. “Many mistakes were made and have to be put right. But not by treating us like bandits,” Mr Gamba said.

Alta Floresta’s farmers say they understand that the situation has changed. Mr Gamba, for example, is experimenting with rice crops as a means of revitalising degraded pasture and says early results suggest that he can double his herd without encroaching farther on the Amazon. What they resent is the rigorous enforcement of regulations once ignored, and the lack of expertise and financial assistance to help them to work within the law.

“We feel abandoned here. The Government isn’t listening to us,” Maria Izaura, the Mayor of Alta Floresta, said. “The only minister who pays attention is the Environment Minister, and she just sends the police.”

Marina Silva, Environment Minister since 2003, says the law must come first. “Environmental protection law existed in the past. Why are these people becoming environmentally aware now? Because the law is now being enforced. When people can no longer count on impunity, they are obliged to look for other alternatives. The objective is to make the forest more valuable standing than it is when cut down.”

But it remains to be seen if these measures will work. Despite a huge influx of new recruits, Ibama agents are thin on the ground. Federal operations in one region tend to shift illegal logging and squatter farms to another, and the huge areas of undeveloped rainforest still tempt farmers.

“The forces of development that control the fate of this region are far more powerful than the forces that are being geared up to keep it the way it was,” said Dr Carlos Peres, an environmentalist from the Amazonian state of Pará who teaches at East Anglia University. “The economic incentives for colonising and opening up the region are huge and the thing you still have in the Amazon is a huge supply of cheap land that would tempt anybody. If I wanted to make money I’d stay right here.”

The disappearing rainforest

— According to United Nations estimates, about 32 million acres of forest – roughly the area of Greece – are cleared every year through deforestation

— Africa and South America have the largest net loss of forests

— Though they cover less than 2 per cent of the Earth’s total surface area, rainforests are home to 50 per cent of the world’s plant and animal life

— A typical 4 sq mile area of rainforest contains 1,500 flowering plants, 750 species of tree, 400 species of bird, and 150 species of butterflies

— Rainforests are found on every continent except Antarctica

— Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 per cent of global carbon emissions

— The world’s largest tropical rainforest in the Amazon region of Brazil produces an estimated 20 per cent of the globe’s oxygen

— In the 1500s there were approximately 6 million indigenous people living in the Brazilian Amazon. By the early 1900s, that number had shrunk to less than 250,000

— Every second a slice of rainforest the size of a football field is destroyed. 86,400 football fields of rainforest a day and more than 31 million football fields of rainforest each year are lost

Sources: Global Forest Watch; The United Nations Environmental Programme; www.nature.org

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