Amazon deforestation creates lawless cattle-frontier communities that attract fugitives

Evidence

Many people understand that the forest is shrinking. Few realize what takes its place. The communities that exist in between the thick, dark green foliage, are primarily cowboy outposts, in every sense that the word connotes. Men wear big belt buckles, cowboy boots, and big cowboy hats. They amble into watering holes to get drunk and listen to country music without bothering to hide the pistols on their hips. Cattle, which transform the soil and help destroy the jungle, are their source of income. … After that night in the cantina, I went to watch a local motocross show on a deforested piece of dirt nearby with a young woman I met. … “We have to leave,” she said, as soon as we arrived. Her ex-boyfriend was there. Oh, it’s no big deal, I said, it’s not like we are on a date. I’m just a clueless gringo journalist, we can tell him that. “Oh no, you don’t understand,” she said. “He moved out here because he is wanted for murder in several states.” I skipped the race. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 320

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reporting texture of the reader’s broader project on extraction frontiers and to the ADDENDUM piece on trees/land being transformed by cattle. — connects to: Delaying deforestation response until harm is local triggers runaway degradation; Forced local necessity proliferates indigenous, non-Western environmentalisms — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 316; Frontier wildlife remained unafraid of humans in this unsettled region — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 163
• SEED: Angle for an essay or reported piece on how deforestation frontier settlements function as de facto refuge zones and rogues’ economies.

Broader Connections

• Frontier wildlife remained unafraid of humans in this unsettled region #qualifies (0.74) — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 163
• Delaying deforestation response until harm is local triggers runaway degradation #qualifies (0.72)
• Forced local necessity proliferates indigenous, non-Western environmentalisms #complicates (0.71) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 316