- The latest wave of migration to the Amazon countries was sustained by a new process of colonization. In Brazil, Operação Amazônia used land grants, tax exemptions and a progressive land tax that encouraged forest to cropland or pasture conversion in order to occupy areas bordering neighboring countries.
- In 1972, the federal government launched POLAMAZÔNIA, which designated fifteen landscapes as priority areas for expanding mineral, livestock and agro-industrial production.
- In 1981 the POLONOROESTE programme – which included infrastructure development, agricultural extension, land title administration and healthcare – has been criticized for unleashing deforestation and harming Indigenous communities.
The most recent, largest and probably last migratory wave into the Amazon started in the 1960s with the initiation of infrastructure projects and land distribution programmes in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. Each country had its version of these policies, but the objective was clear in the universal adoption of the term ‘colonization’, the names of key institutions and the self-identification of its participants as ‘Colonos’. Like previous epochs, the policies and events had strong regional variations that reflected the origin of the immigrants and the cultural traditions they brought with them into the Amazon.
Brazil
Policy initiatives to develop the Amazon were organized and financed by multiple agencies, reflecting an ‘all of government’ approach of the military government that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. It was a logical extension of policies initiated by previous civilian governments, most notably the Marcha para o Oeste and the decision to relocate the federal capital to Brasília.
In 1966, the military government launched Operação Amazônia, which was summarized by the slogan: ‘Bring people without land to a land without people.’ Integral to this policy of migration and settlement was the intention to physically occupy the landscapes bordering neighboring countries. Special incentives included land grants, exemption from federal income and excise taxes, and a progressive land tax that encouraged the conversion of forest to crop land or pasture. The initiative also established the concept of the ‘Legal Amazon’, which designated which states of the federal union were eligible for the fiscal incentives.
In 1972, the federal government launched another programme known by its acronym POLAMAZÔNIA, which designated fifteen landscapes, referred to as development poles, as priority areas for the expansion of mineral, livestock and agro-industrial production. Development was organized by the Programa de Integração Nacional (PIN), which was predicated on the construction of major trunk highways and the distribution of land along the margins of those highways. The initiative was managed by the Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria e Colonização (INCRA), which began by distributing 100-hectare plots via Projetos Integrados de Colonização (PIC). Tens of thousands of landless peasants began migrating into the Amazon. Unfortunately, INCRA had neither the financial resources nor the technical capacity to support such an ambitious programme and was soon beset with a host of logistical problems and a flood of complaints from angry citizens.
The focus on smallholders did not disappear from policy agendas, however, in response, in 1981 the government and the World Bank launched the POLONOROESTE project, which was intended to be a model for an integrated approach to frontier development. It included infrastructure development, agricultural extension, land title administration and health care. The project triggered another land rush and led to the development of one of Brazil’s most dynamic smallholder landscapes. Despite its emphasis on providing landless peasants a pathway out of poverty, POLONOROESTE was soon the focus of intense criticism for unleashing deforestation and causing harm to Indigenous communities.
The World Bank sought to remedy the deficiencies in the original project by funding a follow-on project, known as PLANOFLORO, which explicitly committed to a participatory framework and the demarcation of Indigenous lands and protected areas, as well as systems for rural credit, improved educational programmes and support for public institutions.
Despite the remedial investment focusing on sustainability, the highway and settlement process undertaken via POLAMAZÔNIA and POLONOROESTE are widely viewed as failures of the development strategies of the 1970s. For example, the Transamazônica has never functioned as a transportation corridor, while the colonization landscapes in both Acre and Roraima remain backwaters. Nevertheless, political leaders in these regions are determined that some type of conventional productive activity will eventually become established.
Investment in infrastructure lagged between 1985 and 1995 because of economic problems that plagued the country during a period of high inflation, but increased after fiscal reforms in 1997. Once again, development initiatives became major components of a series of administrations, although they have been subsumed into other initiatives marketed to reflect the political agendas of successive elected governments. The new investment phase began with the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoza: Brasil em Ação (1996–1999) and Avança Brasil (2000–2003), which were followed by even larger initiatives by Inácio Lula da Silva: Plano Brasil de Todos (2004–2007) and Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento – PAC 1 (2007–2010), and Dilma Rousseff: PAC 2 (2011–2014).
Infrastructure investment was scaled back after 2015, partly because of a dramatic decline in revenues due to the collapse of international commodity markets, but also because the appropriation process had been poisoned by the Lava Jato corruption scandal, which revealed that vast sums of the money had been wasted, stolen or pilfered.
Banner image: Satellite image of the Brazilian region of Sao Joao da Baliza in Roraima in the year 2021. Source: NASA Landsat.
“A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” is a book by Timothy Killeen and contains the author’s viewpoints and analysis. The second edition was published by The White Horse in 2021, under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).
To read earlier chapters of the book, find Chapter One here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here, Chapter Four here and Chapter Five here.
Chapter 6. Culture and demographic defines the present
Credits
