The problem began with the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, which invited settlers to occupy the Amazon but required them to clear forests to gain access to land and credit. In effect, during those years, my mentor at the Hudson Institute, at Croton-on-the-Hudson, New York, Mr. Herman Kahn, and researcher William (Bill) Overholt, now with the Rand Corporation,  looked at the Amazon and wrote that this is the future “Granary of the World.” You know – the kind of global land-reserve that Brazil was holding for the world. Obviously, those were pre-environment days and in effect days when economic policy think tanks all over the world were busy taking on the neo-Malthusians, and thought nothing  of biodiversity or climate change. All what we were about was independence of centrally held resources in unfriendly places like the Middle East, and we were quite sure that we can produce ourselves out of any foreign imposed economic straights – even if we have to ask for help from friendly nations like Brazil. I am sure that some of my friends from those days will sharply disagree with my mentioning old childhood misconceptions. In some respects, much more visionary those days was Barry Commoner, but then, he was regarded as a socialist, and because of that a doctrinaire. (Please, do not think that I am turning my back to Herman Kahn – after all – he was the man that tought us how to live with the bomb – he also said that we will have enough energy resources but the day may come we will not be able to use them.)

Then came the 1972 Stockholm UN Conference on the Environment and Development led by Maurice Strong, and we started to see that there are also other very tangible reasons we cannot manage nature as if we were given a gift to despoil.

Growing criticism of Brazil’s Amazon policies pushed the new civilian government of Brazil, in the 1980s, to develop laws that, on paper at least, were among the world’s most protective of forests. But with scant presence of authorities to enforce them, the laws did little to stop the widespread grabbing of land.

“The chaos of legal insecurity of land-ownership was the most important basis for the perverse incentives in the Amazon to pillage, rather than to preserve or to develop, and constant incitement to violence,” said now Roberto Mangabeira Unger, the former Brazilian federal minister for strategic affairs, who helped develop the new land law of 2009.

São Félix do Xingu and Vila dos Crentes, Brazil, have drawn ranchers and others seeking cheap land. But lawlessness has prevailed as per an article by Alexei Barrionuevo in The New York Times of December 26, 2009. Those locations, on land of the Xingu people of the Amazon, in what is now the Brazilian Estado do Para,

From a New York Times, December 26, 2009 reporting from Villa Dos Crentes, and Sao Paulo do Xingu, the lost land of the Xingu Amazonian people,  Estado Para, Brazil, according to  Alexei Berrionuevo, we learn quite a lot about the new Brazil of President Lula.

The main point of the article is that the particular county, the size of Austria, the correspondent visited in the State of Pará, is the worst place for forest destruction in Brazil, and environmentalists say they hope that a new law, approved by Brazil’s Congress in June 2009, will help the government finally enforce its official limits on clearing land.


Yes, Brazil had laws on the books before that, but nobody bothered enforcing them. and land ownership was being established by the private operation of the barrel of a gun.

Using the new law, Brazil’s government is trying to impose order on this often lawless territory, and in the process, possibly nip away at a broader global concern: deforestation and the threat of climate change that comes with it.

For the first time, the Brazilian government is formally establishing who owns tens of millions of acres across the Amazon, enabling it to track who is responsible for clearing forests for logging and cattle — and who should be held accountable when it is done illegally.

“The government will finally know whose land it is, and who is responsible for what goes on there,” said Thomas E. Lovejoy, the biodiversity chair for the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington – this is the foundation established by the wife of the US Senator John Karry of Massachusetts.

This county in the state of Pará is the worst place for forest destruction in Brazil, and environmentalists, in Brazil and in the US, hope that the new law, approved by Brazil’s Congress will help the government finally enforce its official limits on clearing land.

Under the law, which applies to more than 150 million acres, the government will award plots up to 250 acres free to settlers. Bigger plots will be sold at varying prices, with or without public auctions, depending on their size. Those larger than about 6,000 acres cannot be sold without an explicit act of Congress. So far, settlers have registered only about 4 percent of the land singled out under the law, according to government officials.

Since the days of the dictatorship, this huge county in Pará State, known as São Félix do Xingu, has drawn hardy settlers and prospectors in search of cheap land, good soil, a rich array of minerals and rare Amazon fruits.

But notorious criminals have also found refuge. Leonardo Dias Mendonça ran a vast criminal enterprise from São Félix, which included a fleet of planes used to deliver weapons to the Colombian rebels in exchange for drugs, before being convicted in 2003.

Disputes in São Félix were traditionally settled with “a lot of death,” said Waldemir de Oliveira, the leader of the São Félix agricultural association. “It was the law of the strongest,” Mr. de Oliveira said. “Farmers put guards on the perimeter of their land and no one went in. Those that did were told to ‘Get out or die.’ ”

Mr. de Oliveira and other residents say the violence is diminishing but is still a major worry. In November, a local bar owner turned the tables on four men who came to kill him in broad daylight, killing all of them, said João Gross, an architect in the area.

In Vila dos Crentes, the loud roar of a generator nearly drowned out a recent meeting of residents gathered in a church. “We are beginning to understand that we have to get engaged in reforestation and stop deforestation,” Mr. de Souza said.

But those goals are clouded by the constant threat of violence. Residents said workers on a nearby farm had been carrying out a campaign of violence and intimidation to try to force them out, and even dumped a poisonous chemical from a plane over the area, killing fish and animals.

But it is a huge and messy undertaking. Clear ownership records exist for less than 4 percent of the land in private hands throughout the Brazilian Amazon, government officials said. In Pará, officials have discovered false titles for about 320 million acres, almost double the amount of land that actually exists, according to federal officials.

And while small farmers like Mr. de Souza, the man in the Barrionuevo story, are pinning their hopes on the law, many larger-scale land holders say they have sacrificed too much blood and sweat for bureaucrats in Brasília, the capital, to force new rules upon them.

“Everything we have today was built from our own desire to work,” said Jorgiano Alves de Oliveira, 68, who raises cattle and grows cocoa on about 600 acres.

“The chaos of legal insecurity was the most important basis for the perverse incentives in the Amazon to pillage rather than to preserve or to develop, and constant incitement to violence,” said Roberto Mangabeira Unger, the former minister for strategic affairs who helped develop the new land law.

Under the law, which applies to more than 150 million acres, the government will award plots up to 250 acres free to settlers. Bigger plots will be sold at varying prices, with or without public auctions, depending on their size. Those larger than about 6,000 acres cannot be sold without an explicit act of Congress. So far, settlers have registered about 4 percent of the land singled out under the law, according to government officials.

In May 2007, residents found Mr. de Souza’s stepson dead in the road, shot multiple times.

“No one should make enemies here,” said Eder Rodrigues de Oliveira, 26, who said he grew up with Mr. de Souza’s stepson. “Everyone here must be humble.”

At the closest police station, more than 100 miles away, Chief Álvaro Ikeda said killing was common here, touching a stack of files containing information about 11 suspected homicides under investigation.

Witnesses often are too afraid to come forward. “I cannot guarantee the witnesses’ life,” Chief Ikeda said. “I cannot even guarantee my own life.”

To that end, the police chief decided to live in the police station. He keeps a 12-gauge shotgun and an assault rifle at the ready.

“Here we do not let go of our guns,” he said.