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"Hell is Close" For the Yanomami Indians of Brazil.
In their quest for the riches of gold, uranium and diamonds, miners have brought with them illnesses such as measles, tuberculosis and venereal diseases and left behind stagnant pools of mercury-polluted water. The settlers, who came with the promise of land offered by the regional government, annually torched huge tracts of forest to clear for cattle grazing pasture. The slash-and-burn farming coupled with a record dry season brought on by El Nino conspired to produce the most devastating out of control fires ever seen in this part of the world.
Local politicians actually seek the relocation of settlers to their territory, for they bring with them election-winning votes in gratitude and increased federal monies. In Brazil, where 70 percent of the land is owned by 5 percent of the landowners, the politicians use the forested federal land in Roraima to appease the Sem Terra - the "without land"- movement as opposed to redistributing the already cleared lands of the rich.
The families that do come to settle often grow vexed with the lousy soil they find for new produce. The nutrients in the thin Amazon soil are bound with the teeming vegetation of the rain forest and thus many small farmers sell to larger landholders who turn the fields into cattle pasture. It is ironic that land cleared by fire fetches up to ten times more in sale due to the brief benefit fire brings to the soil, in terms of adding alkalinity. Cattle may graze for ten years on grass grown on this soil after which time it is tapped out. The herders will move on, the land looking like a moonscape.
 
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