The Transamazon Colonization Scheme, a massive development project in the Amazon rainforest, aimed to integrate the interior with the rest of the nation by building the Transamazon Highway through dense rainforest and settling families along its route. The book explores the achievements and failures of the scheme, including ecological destruction, threats to Indigenous communities, and the viability of agriculture in fragile upland soils. It draws on a decade of fieldwork and offers lessons on the limits of large-scale colonization and the need for more modest, ecologically attuned models of settlement.

Format: Hardback
Length: 268 pages
Publication date: 13 May 2022
Publisher: University of California Press

The Transamazon Colonization Scheme, initiated by the Brazilian government in 1970, aimed to integrate the vast Amazonian interior with the rest of the nation by constructing the 3,300-kilometer Transamazon Highway through dense rainforest and settling hundreds of thousands of families along its route. This ambitious plan promised modernization and economic growth but quickly raised global concerns about ecological destruction, threats to Indigenous communities, and the viability of agriculture in fragile upland soils. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork, this book traces both the achievements and failures of the colonization scheme, placing it within the broader political and economic forces that drove Amazonian development. Combining ecological, agricultural, medical, and ethnographic perspectives, the study documents how settlers struggled against infertile soils, pests, and climatic challenges while also contending with limited credit, poor farm management, and debilitating diseases such as malaria and gastrointestinal infections. Chapters explore the role of public health services, local healing practices, and the settlers' adaptive use of medicinal plants, alongside analyses of agroecosystem productivity and crop choices imposed by government policy. With vivid accounts of pioneer communities and careful attention to cultural diversity, the book situates the Transamazon within the global debate over tropical deforestation and sustainable development. At once a critical assessment and a constructive proposal, it offers enduring lessons on the limits of large-scale colonization and the need for more modest, ecologically attuned models.

Rainforest Corridors: The Transamazon Colonization Scheme

The Transamazon Colonization Scheme, initiated by the Brazilian government in 1970, aimed to integrate the vast Amazonian interior with the rest of the nation by constructing the 3,300-kilometer Transamazon Highway through dense rainforest and settling hundreds of thousands of families along its route. This ambitious plan promised modernization and economic growth but quickly raised global concerns about ecological destruction, threats to Indigenous communities, and the viability of agriculture in fragile upland soils. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork, this book traces both the achievements and failures of the colonization scheme, placing it within the broader political and economic forces that drove Amazonian development. Combining ecological, agricultural, medical, and ethnographic perspectives, the study documents how settlers struggled against infertile soils, pests, and climatic challenges while also contending with limited credit, poor farm management, and debilitating diseases such as malaria and gastrointestinal infections. Chapters explore the role of public health services, local healing practices, and the settlers' adaptive use of medicinal plants, alongside analyses of agroecosystem productivity and crop choices imposed by government policy. With vivid accounts of pioneer communities and careful attention to cultural diversity, the book situates the Transamazon within the global debate over tropical deforestation and sustainable development. At once a critical assessment and a constructive proposal, it offers enduring lessons on the limits of large-scale colonization and the need for more modest, ecologically attuned models.

Weight: 454g
Dimension: 216 x 140 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520360815