The government and the elite haven't, on the contrary: during a long time they encouraged hordes of wretches and daydreamers from all over the country to
occupy these lands.

One of the obsessions of the military dictatorship from the 1960s to the 1980s was to integrate the Amazon into the rest of Brazil hastily and with the military calling the tune. They feared that the emptiness of the forest would be occupied by foreign 'invaders'. "To integrate so as not to relinquish" was the motto in those times.

However, it was not so simple. The settlers discovered before long that their tracts of land cleared by fire wouldn't yield more than just a few harvests. They also found out that promised incentives like roads, financing, seeds and market wouldn't be on hand, not even for their grandchildren.