Agriculture, Forests, and Ecological History: Brazil, 1500-1984 Author(s): John R.

McNeill Reviewed work(s): Source: Environmental Review: ER, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 122-133 Published by: Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3984562 . Accessed: 24/01/2012 23:05
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Agriculture, Forests, and Ecological History: Brazil 1500-1984

John R. McNeill One of the hallmarks civilizationis its capacityand inclinationto of simplifyecosystems.In orderto assureand enlargetheir niche, humans have rearranged plant and animal communitiesto favor those species that provide stored energy for human use. Only a comparativelyfew such speciesexist, hence, where human beings flourish they invariably reducethe diversityof the biota, replacingnaturalflora and fauna with high concentrations edible (and otherwiseuseful) plantsand animals. of In the Old World this process of replacementhas been going on for millenia;but in Braziland most of the Americas,the processis only 500 yearsold and thus much easierto trace. AlthoughindigenousAmerican specieshave fought a long undeclaredwar against invaders,the newly introducedspecies have often won through the interventionof human beings. Humankind,therefore,has exerciseda decisiveinfluence,reminiscentof the gods in Homer'sversionof the TrojanWar, struggling and connivingto see theirpreferred lowerspeciestriumph. Humanbeingswerein SouthAmericaat least 12,000to 15,000years ago. In centralMexico and Peru, Amerindiansdevelopedsocietiesthat radicallyrearrangedbiotic communities, but in Brazil, where human numbersweremuch smaller,they did not. Shortlybefore 1500, perhaps one to one and a half million hectareswere undercultivation-an area smallerthan the state of Connecticutin a countryalmost as largeas the United States.' With everydry season Brazilianfood-cropagriculturists cut and burnedpatchesof forestto raisecrops. Theseshiftingcultivators abandoned theirplots after a yearor two whenweedstook over and soil nutrients beganto diminish,eventuallyallowingthe surrounding natural vegetationto recolonize.If shiftingcultivatorsmoved often enoughand kept theirplots small, their economyinvolvedno degradation Brazilof ian ecosystems.Theirway of life was indefinitelysustainable.2 All this changedin 1500when Pedro AlvaresCabral,hopingto find an easy routeto India, accidentally landedon the Braziliancoast. In the centurythat followed, Europeandiseasesspreadthroughcoastalpopulations and the familiarAmericantragedyof massivedepopulationplayed
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itself out. Thus, the first notable effect of the incursionof Old World elementson the Brazilian landscapewas to reducethe cultivatedareaand to enlargethe forest. But Old World diseases were soon followed by otherelementsof the Europeanecologicalcomplex-plants and animals that would soon colonize partsof Brazil,replacingindigenousforms of life. That processof replacement infinitelycomplex, becauseBrazil was had the most diversearrayof ecosystemsanywhereon earth. This study will examineonly those aspectsmost directlyrelatedto humaneconomic activity. The first major Portugueseenterprisein Brazil was the dyewood trade, an industry that exploited a tropical hardwood of the genus caesalpina,often called brazilwood. Early modern Europe's growing textile manufacturersensured a strong market, and so legions of Amerindians(and soon Africans) were dispatchedto the forest to cut brazilwood.The selectivecutting of this species had a greatereffect on the forest than one mightimagine,becausefelling and freeinga tall tree involvedlevelinga large area of surroundingforest. But the impact of the brazilwoodtradewas confinedto the coast and riverbanks, and by about 1800the Europeantextileindustryhad developedsuitablealternatives to brazilwood,thus bringingan end to the first phasein the history of Brazil's exporteconomy.Whatdyewoodcuttersleft standing, however, sugarplanters wouldsoon burn. In the seventeenthcenturysugar eclipsed dyewood as the leading exportstaple. Brazilsoon rankedfirst among world sugarproducers,a distinctionit lost in the nineteenthcenturybut has recentlyregained. Althoughcanefieldsstretchedalong the coast from about five degrees south latitudeto about twenty-twodegrees (near Rio de Janeiro), the heartof the sugarcountrywas in the northeast.Thereplanterscleared the forestto plantcane and to fire sugarboilers.To crystallize metric one ton of sugarwith eighteenth-century methodsrequired roughly100cubic metersin fuel wood.3Becausecane producedbetteryieldson virginsoils and easily accessiblefuel wood was quicklydepleted,planterscontinually relocatedtheirfields. As long as primaryforestexisted,the incentive to abandoncanefieldsafter a few yearswas irresistable profit-minded to planters.Sugarwas itself a form of shiftingcultivation,with the difference that the forest rarelyrecoveredin its wake. Abandonedcanefields were convertedto food crops or pasture where conditions permitted. Underthe impact of sugar-growing, forests of coastal Brazil, espethe cially those in the northeast,rapidlyretreatedfrom the 1620son. The forests of southeasternBrazil, although not untouched by European enterprise, beyondthe idealrangeof sugar.Gold and coffee, however, lay soon extended zone of intensiveforestdestruction the southward. In the 1690s, gold strikesin southernMinas Geraisinaugurateda third majorstaple exportera in colonial Brazil. Miningbroughta large populationthat had to be fed, requiringmore forest clearing for the

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cultivationof food crops. Brazilianminingitself destroyedlargeswaths of forest becausethe minersburnedoff hillsidesin orderto dig trenches to get at gold. The miningboom provedbrief in comparisonto othersin Brazilian history,and by 1820the impacton the forestsof MinasGerais had abated. But the biotic communitieson the slopes never recovered from deforestationand soil erosion, and today many hillsidesare little morethanbarrenrock. Coffee, indigenousto Africa, first came to northeastern Brazil in 1723, and by the middle of the nineteenthcentury it had colonized coastal and uplandregionsaroundRio de Janeiroand Sao Paulo. Like sugar, coffee thrives in forest soils-planters believed it needed the "breathof the forest." Although not as destructiveas sugarbecauseit made no fuel-wood demands, coffee cultivationcleareda much larger area. Migratorylike sugar cultivation,the coffee frontiermoved westward from Sao Paulo, burning the forest as it went. The total area plantedto coffee at any one momentneverexceeded5 million hectares, but the coffee plantationsdestroyeda large chunk of the forest area of the state of Sao Paulo and appreciableareas of neighboringstates, especiallyParan'a. with sugar, abandonedcoffee plantationsrarely As revertedto forest; food crops or pasturenormallyfollowed when yields beganto decline. Whileone exportstaplesucceededanother,two quiet developments also had an impacton the Brazilianecosystem-stockraising and foodcrop agriculture.In the 1530s, the first Old World livestock entered northeastern Brazilwhereno large animals, domesticor wild, had previously existed. Cattle, horses, pigs, and the whole range of European domesticanimalsquicklyestablishedtheirown wild communities.Penetrationto the rest of Brazilwas slow, however, and the plains between the coastal escarpmentand the Andes remainedempty of big animals until the seventeenthcentury. But once Spanishand Portuguesebeasts came to the grasslandsof south-centralSouth America,they found an ideal habitat, largelyfree of predators,and at least initiallyof diseases as well. Under proper conditions livestock populationsdoubled in fifteen months. One HernandoArias left 100 cattle near Santa Fe de Paranain 1587;he returned 1607and found, he said, 100,000head. In the course in of the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturiesEuropeananimalsinvaded the savannalandsof central,southern,and westernBrazil,creatingwhat the Spanishcalledminasde ganado-mines of livestock.In two centuries horses and cattle colonized the interiorof Brazil, often promptingthe replacement indigenousflora with grasses adaptedto life under the of hoof. Elsewhere,in the coastal areas pigs, cattle, and goats colonized formercanefieldsand farms,therebypreventing returnof forestand the creatingartificial pastures. European animals played a major role in reshaping Brazilian the landscape.4

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Food-crop farming played a much smaller role, especiallybefore 1900, becauseexpansionparalleledthe growth of humannumbers,and the lattergrew less rapidlythan the livestockpopulation.Food imports and technological changeremained minoruntilafter 1900and accounted for the relativeequilibrium betweenthe area under food crops and the humanpopulation.Often maize, manioc, and otherBrazilianfood crops followed in the wake of sugar or coffee, but they also replacedforest independently the plantationfrontiers. of In the periodbefore1900,the greatmajority Brazilian of enterprisewhetherplantationproduction,food crops, or stockraising-took place adjacent to the coast. Thus, it was the coastal landscape that most strongly reflected invasionof Europeans theirplantsand animals. the and In 1500 the coastal region supporteda belt of forest that extendedfor 2,300 kilometersand up to 100 kilometersdeep. By 1900 most of the foresthad been convertedto fields, pasture,and otheruses, or degraded to the point of uselessness.Today, only remnantsof the coastal forest areleft.5 In the course of the twentiethcentury, the frontierprocessof the simplification ecosystemshas affected much of the Brazilian of interior. Animals had alreadyaltered the landscapeof the savanna lands, and since 1900 agriculturehas extended deeply into the forest zones. This occurredin two distinctphases:the first, associatedwith railroadsand plantationagriculture,began late in the nineteenthcentury and took place in the southernpart of the country; a second phase, related to highwayconstruction,ranching,and shifting cultivation,has happened chiefly since 1970 and principallyin Amazonia. The first phase was linkedto the integration southernBrazilto international of markets.The second phase, thus far, has had more to do with the developmentin Brazilof nationalmarkets. The coastal escarpmenthad long inhibitedexpansionin the south and encouraged development a transmontane the of frontieronly marginally connectedto the widerworld. This lasted until railroadsopened up the south to plantationagriculture the 1870s. Becausethe locomotives in almost invariablyburned wood, railroadseasily penetratedthe forest areas. In this way, northern Parana',most of Sao Paulo state, and southernMinasGeraiswereopenedup to agriculture. Food crops, raised by shifting cultivators (even when they were European immigrants), accompaniedthe surge of coffee westward.Farmerswho lacked clear title to their land-shifted cultivators-often found themselvesshunted furtherinto the forest. In some parts of Brazil, notably in the 200,000 square kilometers of forest dominated by Parana pine (araucaria angustifolia), timbercuttingcombinedwith agriculture eliminatethe to forest. Today, virtuallyno largestandsof Parana' pine forest remain;in the lasteightyyearsa forestthe size of Wisconsinhas disappeared.6 In the Parana'pine region of southern Brazil the replacementof forest with agriculture broughtwith it a certainprosperity,at least has

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for some. It may prove fleeting, and it has been attendedby systematic of violencebetweensquattersand land companies,but the replacement this ecosystem by invading ones has not been a complete disaster.7 Amazoniais anothermatter. BrazilianAmazonia accounts for 42 percentof the country, more than 3.5 million squarekilometers,nearly five times the size of Texas. For millionsof years, most of the area has been tropical moist forest, home to the richestand most variedecosystemsin the world. The forests of Amazonia,however,are shrinking rapidlybecausethe sameprocesses Brazilian land-usehistorysince 1500. areat workthat havecharacterized AlthoughAmazoniais muchlargerthan any of the denudedforest areas of Brazil,the pace of conversionthereis muchmorerapidbecausechain sawsandtruckshave replacedaxes and muletrains.Thisis not to suggest in that the forestsof Amazoniawill disappear twenty, fifty or 150years,8 only that the conversionof forest land will be uncontrolledand without systematic regardfor the future. Brazilian peasantswill continueto slash will and burntheirway throughthe forestto makea living, and ranchers do the samein searchof short-term profit. In earliercenturies,as a rule, tropicaldiseasesand labor shortages had kept Europeanenterprise of Amazonia.The exceptions,such as out the eighteenth-century Portuguesetrade in medicinal drugs, involved minimal ecological disruption. firstnotabledisturbance Amazonian The of ecosystemsbegan with the rubberboom of the late nineteenthcentury. Rubber,in demandfor severaluses after the development the vulcanof izationprocessin the late 1840s,came from latex found in treesthroughout Amazonia, but mostly in the rain forest of the present states of Amazonas and Para. Because it did not require felling the trees, the extraction of rubber caused minimal damage to the forest. But the rubberboom attractedabout 1.4 millionpeopleto the areaby 1910;thus patchesof maniocand maizereplacedthe forest. The total areainvolved was small, however,becausethe Amazon Riverallowedthe importation of manygoods, and labor was too valuableto waste in agriculture. The rubberindustry,which broughtone of the world's most opulent opera houses to Manaus in the heart of Amazonia, lasted until about 1920 when plantationproductioneclipsed wild rubberin the world market. Tropicalforestbeganto reclaimthe landsthat had beencleared. Since 1950the forestin Amazoniahas againlost groundto cropland and pasture,a processvigorouslypromotedby the Braziliangovernment and a host of willingentrepreneurs. Searingdroughtsin the Northeastin the 1940s and again around 1970 served as the proximatecause. The military government(in power after 1964), ostensibly respondingto intensifiedmiseryin the parchedand hungryNortheast,triedto open up Amazoniato colonization.A highwaythat slicedthroughthe forestfrom Brasiliato Belem was completed in 1960. The more ambitious transamazon highway and its attendantcolonization were to have cleared

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600,000squarekilometers. The scale of the plan recallsthe trans-Siberian railroad,another project that stemmed partly from the impulsesof a nationalistic government wantingto solidify its claimto sovereignty over lands insecurelywelded to the nation. Whereasthe Russian state extendedits authority with the trans-Siberian successfully railroad (bringing deforestationand ecological simplificationin its wake), in Brazil, thus far, a mere23,000 squarekilometershave been clearedfor the road and its feeders. The whole grandiosescheme is a failure.9Droughtvictims preferred be poor, hot, and dry at home ratherthan poor, hot, and to wet in Amazonia. But what the military governmenthas been unable to do in an organized plannedway, Brazilians,responding marketincentives, and to are doing in a chaotic way. The presentciviliangovernment,while less fixed on settlingAmazonia,will have greatdifficultyimposingorderon the frontierprocess. What was to become "the land without men for men withoutland" (in the words of PresidentEmilio Mediciin 1970)is insteadbecomingland with cattle for men with capital. Timberoperations and shiftingagriculture account for some of the forest conversion in Amazonia,but ranching the leadingagentof deforestation. is Although80 percentof Brazil'stimberresourceis in Amazonia,the regioncontributes only marginally the nation'slumberindustry.Most to of the forest species are not commerciallyvaluable, and most of the standsare far fromroadsand rivers.The government planseventually to log between12 and 15 percentof Amazonia;its objectiveis a sustained yield that would place Brazil first in the ranks of tropical hardwood exporters,a prospectthat grows more likely as commercialstands in West Africa and Indonesiaare steadily depleted. But at present, more than99 percentof the timberfelledin Amazoniagoes up in smoke. '0 Shiftingcultivatorshave somethingto do with these circumstances. Althoughplannedcolonization based on permanent small-holder agriculture has lost governmentsupport, many thousands of migrants are farming in Amazonia. Although few come from the impoverished Northeast,all are drivenby land hunger.They have takenup traditional methodsto savelaborandas a resultarewastingthe forest. Thisprocess, althoughprodigallywasteful, is not unwelcometo the Braziliangovernment, becauseit prefersmigrationto Amazonia to land reform or the terrifying stampedeto the cities. The migrationalso peoplesthe national frontiers,if ratherthinly. In tropicalAfricaandAsia, shiftingcultivators are spearheading assaulton the forest, spurredon by hunger.Somethe daythis couldhappenin Brazil,but currently is not. it In BrazilianAmazonia, it is cattle ranchingthat leads the way. ThroughoutLatinAmerica,whereranchingcarriesan inheritedIberian prestige,artificialpastureis replacingforest. In CentralAmerica, the fast-food marketin the United States is the principaldrivingforce. In

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Brazil the growing urban market lies behind the change. Less than 1 percentof Amazonianranchesare foreign-owned (althoughsome of the largestare). The government intendsthat Brazileventuallywill becomea leading exporter beef, but for now cattleranching Brazilian of in Amazonia has littleto do withthe worldbeyond."I The government offers a varietyof tax breaksand other incentives to ranchers.Between1966and 1984approximately 100,000squarekilometersof forest (roughlythe areaof Indiana)becamepasture.Ranching has developedinto the fastest-growing in enterprise Amazonia, far outstrippinglogging and farmingin its impacton native ecosystems.Most of this takes place in northernGoias and Mato Grosso, and in southern Para. The more westerlyregions of Amazonia have been only slightly affectedthus far. The affected areas have suffered serious and probablypermanent damageto their ecosystems.Becausestockingratios are unfavorablein Amazonia,ranchingis more land intensivethan elsewhereand the individual units tend to be very large. Soil compactionand weeds present problems after only a few years; as currentlypracticed, ranchingin Amazoniais not sustainable.Many enterprises have alreadybeen abandonedor have movedon. Four or five yearswithoutthe nutrientcycling providedby the forest is often sufficientto destroythe fragilefecundity of Amazoniansoils, at least outside the varzea-the Amazonianfloodplain whereeverysummersilt rejuvenates earth. Like the cultivation the of sugarand coffee elsewherein Brazil,Amazonianranchingis becomingmigratory-oftenit amounts a variant landspeculation-replacing to of the forestwith pastureand then often with wasteland.Werethe ranches smallerand their careersshorter,the forest might be able to recolonize pasturein areaswheresoil compactionand leachingare not serious.But underpresentconditions,shiftingranching Amazoniawill degradethe in 12 soils permanently. Whatintensivehumanactivitycan do to sometropicalforestecosystems is illustratedby the famous case of Bragantina,an area of about 30,000 square kilometerseast of Belem in the state of Par'a.Taking advantageof a rail link completedin 1908, cultivatorsfelled the luxuriant tropical forest to establish farms. Today Bragantinafeatures an unproductive second-growth forest, lateriticsandstone, and bare rock. Its scant soils cannot hold water, and the local climatehas changedfor the worse. In the wordsof pioneeringBrazilianscientist,EugeniaEgler, it is a ghost landscape.'3 the late 1940s,destituteBragantina In peasants resettledin anotherforest zone aroundlata and for threeyearsenjoyed high yields. But, in less than five yearsthe clearedfields becamevirtual pavementsof rock.' Further examples abound, especially along the Belem-Brasilia highway, wherethe impositionof Europeanecosystems and agrosystems failed and local life has not recovered.'5 has Does this fate awaitthe restof Amazonia?

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Barringland reformor some miraculousmeasureto alleviaterural povertyin Brazil,shiftingand shiftedcultivatorswill continueto reduce the forest area. In lieu of a radicalrevisionin governmentplanningor markettrendsin beef and hardwood,ranchingand loggingwill accelerate their restructuring Amazonia. So far, according to estimates of derivedfrom satelliteimagery,thesecombinedprocesseshave deforested less than 5 percentof Amazonia (the highestseriousestimatesclaim 10 percent).The Bragantinas small and Amazonia is very big. Indeed are the laterization problemof Bragantina (more accurately,the formation of plinthites) neveraffect more than about 5 percentof Amazonian will soils. Those in the 1970s who boldly proclaimedthat the forest would disappear the end of the centuryarecertainlywrong.But, thereis real by causefor concern.Ratesof deforestationhavenearlydoubledeveryyear duringthe late 1970s and early 1980s.'6In addition, the alterationof in ecosystems the tropicsis a verydifferentmatterfromthat in temperate zones; despite some promisingexperiments,none of the existingmanmadeecosystems Amazoniais likelyto be sustainable. in It need not be so. Settledagriculture feasiblein the varzea, which is accountsfor 2 percentof Amazonia.Indeed,experimental stationsthere have managedworld-recordrice yields. Experimentalcroppingin the Peruvian Amazonsuggeststhat productive,settledagriculture possible is withcarefulmanagement-at least in some zones. Aquaticcreatures also have the potentialto provide more protein than an Amazonia entirely devoted to cattle ranching.'7The region could go a long way toward solving Brazil'sfood problems,but in all probabilityit will not. If the Brazilian past is any guide, Amazoniawill continueto be exploited,as it currentlyis, in ways that lead to profits in the short term and to destruction productive of resources the long term. If the marketwants in cattle fleshinsteadof manatee,Brazilians burnthe forestto produce will it. The specialproblemin Amazoniais the vulnerability most of its of ecosystems. Robust when subject only to natural disruptions, most Amazonianecosystemsare equilibratedwholes that human enterprise can easily damage. The tremendousbiomass there does not indicate fertile soils, as nineteenth-century naturalistsassumedand the popular imagination today supposes. The nutrients supporting plant life in Amazoniaare constantlycycledthroughlivingand dyingtissuesin ways scientists just comingto understand.'8 soils themselves chemiare The are cally poor, partlyby dint of their great age and eons of leaching.Most are low in nutrients,notably deficient in nitrogenand phosporus,and about 80 percentare burdenedwith toxic levels of aluminum.Only 6 percentof the region'ssoils are free from major limitations.The abundant plantlife of Amazoniaflourishesdespite,not becauseof its soils; it is the forest that ensuresluxuriantgrowth. Deforestationallows direct

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sunlightto overheatsoils, retardsthe formationof fungus and humus, and breaksthe nutrientcycle. That processcan destroythe foundation on whichthe fertilityof Amazoniarests. Furthermore, deforestationremovesthe spongeeffect and increases runoff and erosion. Amazoniais not a plain-although it can look that way from the air-and soil erosion in the wake of deforestationis a serioushazardin approximately of its area. More than a quarterof half its soils lie on slopesof 8 percentor greater.Evenmoreseriousis the fact that deforestationcan change local climates, producinglonger dry seasons and cyclesof droughtand flood. Half of the rainfallin the Amazon basin is generatedby local evapotranspiration balancecomes from (the the AtlanticOcean). Therefore,an overallreductionand increasedseasonality of rainfall is a likely consequenceof deforestation.This will favor xerophytic vegetation at the expense of rain forest, and may producea mutuallyreinforcingsystem that will hasten the end of the mattersthat arehighlycomplex, tropicalforest. Whilethis oversimplifies there is already some concern about the lengthening dry season at 19 Manaus. At any rate,the attemptto simplifyAmazonianecosystemsby introducing speciesof greateruse to the Brazilianeconomyhas contributed to consumingnaturalresourcesratherthan nurturing them. Brazilians areeatinginto theircapital. in Attitudestowardnaturederivedfrom experience northern temperate zones have informed land use and economic activity throughout Brazil,but with differentresultsin differentregionsof the country.The transformationof coastal and southern Brazil involved less damage, becausethose ecosystemshad greaterresilienceand bettersoils. Even so, many areas have been devastated. In some places, however, like the naturalsavannaof Santa Catarinaand Rio Grandedo Sul, immigrants have introducedEuropeanagriculturalecosystems with great success, and their descendantsenjoy sustainableways of life. But that success cannot be duplicated in Amazonia. Careful attention to the special characteristics local ecosystems-and nothing less-can preventthe of inevitabledevelopmentand exploitationof Amazoniafrom becominga travesty. The Braziliangovernmentis aware of the problem. Since colonial times prescientBrazilianshave noted and lamentedwastefulpatternsof land use in forest zones.20 The failureof the colonizationschemein the 1970spromptedan inquiryinto ecologicallysuitablemethodsof exploiting Amazonia.In the final analysis,however,the difficultyis economic and political.If the government maintains commitment the developits to ment of Amazonia by enterprisescompetitivein the marketplace, the prospectsfor irreversible damageto the ecosystemare verygreat.A bevy of Brazilianecologistsand forestersare engagedin makingthis clearto the government.But to a country with the highest foreign debt in the

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considerapeasants,short-term worldand some 40 million land-hungry tions are likely to remainparamounteven among those who agree that the resourcesof Amazoniaare finite. The governmentneeds to bolster exporttradesto earn foreignexchangeto serviceits debts. And the poor needland. As long as those conditionsexist, the patternsof the Brazilian pastarelikelyto triumphoverconcernfor the future.
Notes for 'JohnR. McNeill,"LandUse in Brazil, 1500-1980," unpublished paperprepared the Ecosystems WoodsHole, Massachusetts, Center,Marine BiologicalLaboratory, 1982. 2BettyJ. Meggers,Amazonia:Man and Culturein a Counterfeit Paradise(Chicago, in 1971),158-59; Raymond HamesandWilliam Vickers,"Introduction," Hames and B. T. andVickers, eds., Adaptive Responses NativeAmazonians of (NewYork, 1983),18-24. von 3Alexander Humboldt,TheIslandof Cuba(NewYork, 1856),273. 4PierreDeffontaines,"L'introduction betail en AmeriqueLatine," Les cahiers du 10 WestWas de'Outre-Mer, (1957),3-22. Seealso DavidM. Davidson,"How the Brazilian Won:Freelance Stateon the MatoGrossoFrontier,1737-1752," DaurilAlden, ed., and in TheColonial Roots of Modern Brazil(LosAngeles,1973),69. 5Warren Dean, "Deforestationin Southeastern Brazil," in RichardP. Tuckerand JohnF. Richards, eds., GlobalDeforestation theNineteenth and CenturyWorld Economy (Durham,NC, 1983), 50-67;and NormanMyers, Conversion Tropical Moist Forests of (Washington,DC, 1980), 119. See also the convenientsurvey in A. Aubreville, "As florestas Brasil,"Anudriobrasileiro economiaflorestal,11(1959),201-32. do de 6JohnR. McNeill,"The Declineand Precipitous of ParanaPine, 1900-1983," in Fall RichardP. Tuckerand John F. Richards,eds., GlobalDeforestationand the Twentieth World Century Economy(Durham, NC, forthcoming). 7See Joe Foweraker,The Struggle for Land: A Political Economy of the Pioneer Frontier Brazilfrom1930to the PresentDay (Cambridge, in MA, 1981).Violentstruggles over landnow plagueAmazoniaas well. See also Marianne Schmink,"LandConflictsin Amazonia,"AmericanEthnologist,9 (1982), 341-57.For a recentsurveyof the colonial cycle of agricultural exports,see M. Y. Linharesand F. C. Teixerada Silva, Hist6riada agricultura brasileira (SaoPaulo, 1981),110-17. 8Themost direpredictions camein the early 1970s:WilliamDenevan,"The Riseand Imminent Demiseof the Rain Forest," ProfessionalGeographer, (1973), 130-35;and 25 Robert and Goodland H. S. Irwin,AmazonJungle:Green Hell to RedDesert?(Amsterdam, 1975).For morerecentworks,see NormanMyers,ThePrimarySource(NewYork, 1984), 364-66;RogerD.Stone, Dreamsof Amazonia(New York, 1985), 149-50;and Catherine Caufield,In theRainforest (NewYork, 1985),37-39. 'Nigel J. H. Smith, RainforestCorridors:The Transamazon ColonizationScheme (Berkeley,1982),21-29, 169-86.The bestgeneralworkson recentAmazonian development in Englishare DennisMahar,Frontier Development Brazil:A Studyof Amazonia(New in York, 1978);Emilio Moran, Developingthe Amazon (Bloomington,IN, 1981);Emilio Moran,ed., TheDilemmaof AmazonianDevelopment (Boulder,CO, 1983);M. Schmink andC. H. Wood, eds., Frontier Expansion Amazonia(Gainesville, 1984);and John in FL,
Hemming, ed., Change in the Amazon Basin (Manchester, England, 1985), 2 vols.

'?Shelton Davis, Victims theMiracle(Cambridge, of MA, 1977),154-56. "Myers, Primary Source,136-40. '2The mostcarefulanalysisof the ecologicalimpactof ranching Amazoniais thatof in SusannaB. Hecht. See Hecht, "Cattle Ranchingin Amazonia:Political and Ecological Considerations," in Schmink and Wood eds., Frontier Expansion, 380-93; Hecht, in "Deforestation the AmazonBasin:Magnitude, Dynamics,and Soil Resource Effects," Studiesin ThirdWorldSocieties, 13 (1981), 83; Hecht, "CattleRanchingin the Eastern

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and Amazon:Environmental Social Implications,"in Moran, Dilemma of Amazonian "Os sobrea fertilidade Development, 164-76. also P. M. Fearnside, efeitosdaspastagens See de do solo na Amazoniabrasileira: Consequencias para a sustenabilidade produsaobovina,"ActaAmaz6nica,10(1982),119-32. '3Eugenia Egler, "A Zona bragantina estadodo Para," Revistabrasilno Gonqalves eira da geografia, 23 (1961), 527-55. See also FelisbertoC. de Camargo, "Terra de na no Estadodo colonizaqao antigoe novo quatenario zona estradade ferrode Braganqa, Para-Brasil," BoletimMuseuPardEmilioGoeldi,10(1948), 123-47. '4Mary McNeil, "LateriticSoils in DistinctTropicalEnvironments: SouthernSudan and Brazil," in M. Taghi Farvarand John P. Milton, eds., The CarelessTechnology: EcologyandInternational Development (Garden City,NJ, 1972),605-6. "R. C. de GarciaPaula, "A RodoviaBelem-Brasilia os fazendores desertos,"A e de Amazoniabrasileira emfoco, 6 (1972),78-95. "Estimates the rate of Amazoniandeforestation recentyears-mostly by scienof in tists usingremotesensingtechniques that may seriouslyunderestimate matters-appearin Antonio C. Albuquerquedos Santos, "Assessmentof Deforestationin the Brazilian Amazon,"(master's is thesis,IowaStateUniversity,1982),59-75.A morerecentsummary PhilipM. Fearnside, "Environmental Change Deforestation the Brazilian and in Amazon,"in Hemming,Changein the Amazon Basin, vol. 1, Man's Impact on Forests and Rivers (Manchester, England, 1985), 71-74. Recent data are very hard to come by since the Brazilian in government agencies charge collecting information beenreorganized. of the have '"Nigel H. Smith,Man, Fishes,and theAmazon(NewYork, 1981),83-86;Meggers, J. D. Amazonia,154-55; E. Sanchez,et al, "AmazonBasinSoils:Management Continufor ous CropProduction," Science,216(1982),821-27;andMyers,Primary Source,139. '"N. Stark, "NutrientCyclingI: NutrientDistribution Some AmazonianSoils," in Tropical Ecology, 12 (1971),24-50;Stark, "NutrientCyclingII: NutrientDistribution in AmazonianVegetation,"Tropical Ecology, 12 (1971), 177-201;C. F. Jordan,"Amazon Rain Forests," AmericanScientist, 70 (1982), 394-401;and R. C. F. Herrera,et al, "Amazon Ecosystems:Their Structureand Functioningwith ParticularEmphasison Nutrients," Interciencia, (1978),223-31. 3 'A. Henderson-Sellers, "TheEffectsof LandClearance Agricultural and Practices on Climate," Studies in Third World Societies, 13 (1981), 468-72; C. F. Jordan and J. Heuveldop,"The WaterBudgetof the AmazonianRain Forest," Acta Amaz6nica, 11 (1981),87-92;Fearnside, "Environmental Change,"79-86;and HaraldSioli, "TheEffects of Deforestation Amazonia,"in Hemming,Changein the Amazon Basin 1:62-63.On in slopes, see J. Nicholiades,et al, "ContinuousCroppingPotentialin the UpperAmazon Basin,"in Schmink Wood, eds., Frontier and Expansion Amazonia,340. in 20Roberta Delsonand John Dickenson,"Conservation M. Tendencies Colonialand in ImperialBrazil: An AlternativePerspectiveon Human Relationshipsto the Land," Environmental Review,8 (Fall 1984),270-283;and F. W. 0. Morton,"The RoyalTimber in LateColonialBahia,"Hispanic American Historical Review,58 (1978),41-61.