Soc 304: The Amazon

Natural Characteristics & Pre-colonial and Colonial History

I. Natural Characteristics
II. Pre-colonial and Colonial History
III. The Rubber Boom and Bust
IV. The Brazilian Military Government in the Amazon
V. The Amazon Today

I. Natural Characteristics

A. Geology
1. _____________________________: separation of South America from Australia and more recently Africa lead to similar flora and fauna; contact with __________________ only over the last 5.7 million years
2. Amazon Basin 6 million square kilometers: half of _____________________, about equal to the _________________________
3. Relatively ____________ (0-200 meters elevation across region), but cut by __________________________

A.4. basin cut by __________________, creating steep ____________________ between rivers and plateaus

A.5. Soils:
a. very high rate of _______________________
b. most soils have a high degree of ___________________________, leaving clay with limited ability to ___________________________
c. soils ____________________________ are very fertile
d. most soils can support __________________________________, but large areas of land needed make transport costs uneconomic
B. Climate of the Rainforest
1. __________________ temperatures and high humidity
2. high levels of _____________________ year round, but some seasonal variation
3. capture large amounts of _______________________
4. cycle _________________________ back into the atmosphere via evapotranspiration
5. creation of ______________________ networks: 20% of the world’s fresh water enters the Atlantic from the Amazon
C. Vegetation
1. high plant __________________ (200-400 tons/ha)
2. concentration of nutrients in the ______________________
3. rapid rate of ____________________________ in an essentially closed system
4. 65-80% of ______________________ in the top 30 cm of soil
5. large number of ________________________________ of one species in a given area

C.6. rapid plant growth with _______________________________________ of cleared areas because of species diversity and intense competition for light

C.7. no distinct ____________________ of plant growth and reproduction; individual species have _______________________, but not the overall forest
8. year round warmth allows ______________________ that attack plants to proliferate; makes stored foods decompose rapidly and __________________ farms and tree plantations very vulnerable to _________________________________________
D. Animals
1. large number of _______________________, but few large animals
2. only a small part of total _____________
3. often live in the _____________
4. partition resources so there is little direct __________________________
5. often high degrees of _________________ (tight interdependence of species on one another)

II. Pre-colonial and Colonial History

A. Indigenous Peoples before European Arrival
1. Most lived in ______________________ that relied on relied on farming of sediment-enriched _____________________ and hunting animals available along riverbanks, including peccary, capybara, monkey, deer, tapir, birds, and especially fish
2. estimated _______________________________ prior to European arrival in the early 1500s of 6.8 million
A.3. large scale _____________________, often with several villages of several thousand residents each linked under a common chief with armies numbering in the thousands
4. political control maintained by control over _____________________, allowing control over the movement of people up and down the rivers, the main type of transport; this pattern would be replicated during the _____________________
B. European Conquest
1. most of Amazon conquered by ________________ Empire; these areas now Brazil
2. some upriver areas conquered by ________; now part of Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru
3. gradual process during the 1500s and 1600s because of difficult ________________ and fierce resistance by _____________________________
B.4. during 1500s and 1600s, primary goals of conquest were:
a. search for ____________________
b. conversion of indigenous groups to ____________________
c. protecting land from ________________________________, including Spanish, French, Dutch, German, and British
B.5. Concern to protect the Amazon from ____________________________ a theme in region’s history; recent decades have seen the Brazilian government seek to conquer this frontier as its Manifest Destiny to exploit its resources
6. Political control maintained by taking over _____________________ population centers as missions and forts to control the movement of people and goods on the rivers
7. only ___________________________ made by the Portuguese from their Amazon empire because of difficult natural conditions
C. Effects of Conquest on Indigenous Groups: Dramatic _____________________
1. causes include ______________________________________ (measles, common cold, whooping cough, influenza)
2. In one century (early 1500s to early 1600s), the indigenous population declined by _______________
D. Economic Exploitation: mid-1700s to late 1800s
1. Marquis de Pombal, new ____________________, launches effort to increase profits from the Amazon
2. comes into conflict with the _________________________ who sought to protect indigenous groups from exploitation
D.3. Pombal expelled the _________________ and made Indian labor available to ___________________________
4. increased exploitation of _____________________ in gathering and processing forest products for export and on sugar plantations in Northeast Brazil further decimated indigenous groups and forced survivors to move upriver to ______________________
5. Pombal established the long term pattern for the Amazon’s relationship with the ________________: extracting _________________________ for export to the core in Europe, U.S. & Japan
E. Effects of Conquest on the Environment
1. high European demand for ___________________________
2. oil extraction for export led to extinction of __________________________ river mammals, as well as the sharp decline of river ___________ populations (3 feet long, 150 pounds)
3. this reduced the _______________ available to indigenous populations, further reducing their size, and removed key parts of river ____________________
E.4. another result of reduction and relocation of indigenous populations was the loss of their ________________________________________ for utilizing the region’s resources
5. a second result of the decimation of indigenous populations was that the region lacked the ______________ needed in the late 1800s to exploit the region’s rubber resources, forcing the importation of large numbers of ________________ into the region

III. The Rubber Boom and Bust

A. Origins of the Rubber Boom
1. ___________________________________ in the core
a. Charles Goodyear and _________________________ of rubber in 1839 to stabilize rubber for use in industrial products
b. Development of internal combustion engine and _____________________ in late 19th and early 20th centuries
2. _____________________ was the only source of natural rubber
A.3. The Result: A New and More Extensive Incorporation of the Brazilian Amazon into the _______________________, driven by technological and economic changes in the _________, not by the internal characteristics of the Amazon; a continuation of the colonial pattern
B. Characteristics of the Rubber Industry
1. Rubber trees ____________________ to avoid pests, requiring many workers to collect the rubber
2. to keep the tree healthy, rubber can only be __________________________
B.3. difficulty of ______________________ meant:
a. __________________ provided the main means of moving people and supplies into the region and rubber out of the region
b. maintaining trails between rubber trees required a lot of _______________
4. ______________________ of workers throughout the forest made supervision by the owners of rubber tree lands difficult
B.5. _____________________ allowed rubber barons to control workers by controlling access via river junction trading posts (continuing the _______________________ pattern)
6. rubber barons created a system of ______________________ to strengthen their control over workers: owners loaned money and supplies to workers, and workers repaid with ___________
a. if rubber collection or prices were ________________, the worker fell into debt to the owner and was not __________________________
B.7. some workers were able to _____________ these forms of control, but it was difficult and very risky because ___________________ (usually murder) was used against those who were caught
8. shortage of _____________ in the region resolved by large scale ______________ of poor agricultural workers from other parts of Brazil, especially the Northeast: Amazon population rose from 137,000 non-indigenous people in 1820 to 323,000 in 1870 and 1,217,000 in 1910
C. The Height of the Rubber Boom
1. dispersion of labor, debt peonage, and transport systems allowed _________________ to maintain their control over local operations, rather than being operated by ___________________________ (as was already the case in mining in the periphery)
2. Shortage of local capital meant that ____________________________ loaned money to local landowners and merchants, who reinvested profits in rubber
C.3. investment in extraction and transport facilities was typically ___________________ (meaning that trading posts, ports, boats, etc. could not be used for other purposes)
4. this ____________________ nature of investment made it difficult for companies to use these investments for _________________________, making it worthless after the bust
5. ___________________________ continued to decline, be assimilated, or retreat to more remote areas of the Amazon
C.6. _____________________ in the region increased by 800% between the mid-1800s and 1910; the region became one of the ________________ in the world
7. although some profits were _______________ to British trading companies, a very large part was retained by _________________________________ and by the Brazilian government and reinvested in the region
C.8. few local ______________ (few inputs were supplied by local industries and no advanced industrial processing of rubber into tires and other products took place in the Amazon)
9. One Common Criticism of the Rubber Boom: Why were Amazonian capitalists and the Brazilian government so _________________ as to reinvest profits in this one natural resource-based industry?
a. this is a __________________: 70 years of boom is a ________________, especially for companies for whom 5 or 10 years is a very long time period for planning
C.9. b. investing in rubber offered some of the ________________________ available anywhere in the world from 1840 to 1910
c. a bust was not ___________________: it was due to the __________________ by the British, who set up rubber plantations in ______________ where there were no natural pests
d. most important reason for bust was that the dependence only on natural rubber from Brazil limited _________________________; this created a very strong incentive for companies and governments to find a ____________________________________
D. The Rubber Bust
1. British government _________________________ and developed plantations in their _________________________________ where there were no natural pests
2. Rubber prices crashed in 1910s as ______________________________

3. the regional economy ____________________________: jobs disappeared, companies went bankrupt, and the region became impoverished

IV. The Brazilian Military Government in the Amazon

A. The Amazon Ignored, 1920-1964
1. Small scale ____________________ in Amazon
2. No national or international _____________________
3. Brazilian national _________________ doing well; government and firms focused on __________________ in southern Brazil
4. Capture of Southeast Asian ______________________ by Japanese in World War II led to development of synthetic rubber and efforts to increase Amazon rubber production
A.5. _____________________: Brazilian military fought with Allies in WW II and became strong Cold War _________________________
6. When economic growth slowed in southern Brazil in the late 1950s and early 1960s, political movements sought to create a ________________________ system like in Western Europe
7. Brazilian military labeled these political movements as _________________ and the military _________________________ in 1964 and remained in control until 1985
B. The Military Government’s Plans for the Amazon
1. Resettle _____________________ from the rest of Brazil in the Amazon, eliminating the need to take land away from ______________________
2. Export _____________________ to the core to earn money for the nation
3. _________________________ by populating the Amazon so it would not be lost
C. The Cattle Industry
1. Attractive because of national and international demand for _______, loans available from World Bank, and it appeared _________________________________________ easy to do
2. Soil qualities proved to be ______________________ for sustained pasture production; pastures degraded by fifth year after clearance
3. Brazilian government provided US$_____________ in subsidies between 1966 and 1983
4. Cattle sales do not cover ________________________ without government subsidies
C.5. Loss to nation of _________ of the national resources invested in the average ranch
6. Ranching responsible for __________ of deforestation in the Amazon
D. Roadbuilding in the Amazon
1. Why build roads?
a. rest of Brazil already ______________________
b. _____________________________ a large part of economy
c. ____________________________ in Amazon seen as inefficient and primitive
D.1.d. roads were essential to ______________________________ development to open the Amazon for settlement and move inputs in and take products out of the region
D.2. What are the problems with building roads in the Amazon?
a. ______________ leads to erosion and road washouts, making maintenance very _________ and time-consuming and requiring a large amount of labor
D.2.b. thousands of rivers and streams and seasonal flooding require many ________________, raising construction costs
c. large size of region and lack of _____________________ require construction of a very ___________________ network of roads
d. rapid __________________________ raises maintenance costs to keep roads clear
e. existing ______________________________ along rivers, increasing the need for bridges
f. road construction disrupts natural ____________________
E. The Timber Industry
1. rapid expansion of ____________________
2. mainly production for export: first ___________________________
3. logging very difficult because trees in demand are ________________________, making selective cutting expensive and clearcutting extremely wasteful and destructive
E.4. Tree Plantation Attempts:
a. ____________________ and rubber
b. Daniel Ludwig, American shipping magnate, in 1967 with 3 million acres for a fast-growing ________________________
c. What went wrong?
i. ____________, transport difficulties, _____________ of production, high labor requirements
F. What are the Environmental Impacts of ________________?
1. _________________: complete clearing of the Amazon would release 11.35 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere; however, this is a relatively small impact, since fossil fuel use releases 5 gigatons of carbon per year
F.2. loss of ______________________________ in cleared areas
3. disruption of local, regional, and global _______________________
4. ________________________ via erosion
5. destruction of other ________________ of the forest, e.g. rubber tapping and gathering Brazil nuts

V. The Amazon Today

A. Mining
1. _______________________________ encouraged mining and this policy continues today
2. The Amazon one of the few _______________________ left to supply core industries
3. Military government hoped to create _____________________ for processing raw materials, bringing in foreign TNCs and Brazilian companies to follow the model of the ____________ ________________________, creating new industrial cities in the Amazon
A.4. Resources mined in the Amazon: iron ore (world’s largest mine), bauxite (world’s second largest mine), gold, manganese, tin, and copper
5. Very difficult to __________________: transport difficulties, huge area, forest covering land surface, heavy rains, and large streams; TNCs had to use techniques developed in Canada to prospect ________________________ to penetrate forest cover
6. Loans from __________________ and from U.S. and European banks and TNCs to develop mines, hydroelectric dams, and factories
A.7. Mining projects create thousands of _________________________________, drawing in a large ___________________________ that moves on to the next big project
8. Gold mining:
a. _________________ gold miners began invading Indian lands more than 20 years ago
b. most labor is ____________, panning for gold in rivers or digging for small gold lodes on land
A.8.c. employs tens of thousands of poor people, making it ___________________
d. most significant environmental and human health threat in the region: indiscriminate use of ________________ to separate gold from dross; elevated __________________ found in indigenous peoples in some areas of heavy gold mining
B. Hydroelectricity
1. Provides power for ________________________
2. Has forced the relocation of thousands of _____________________ and other area residents
3. Dozens of large dams still ___________ for the region, threatening to displace tens of thousands of people and alter the region’s _________________________
C. Indigenous Peoples
1. ______________________ successfully opposed building a huge dam in the early 1990s
a. took ___________________ hostage in 1985 and forced government to recognize their lands and pay royalties from gold mining to them, then used wealth to resist dam building
2. ____________ and agricultural colonization have led to even more assimilation and extinction
C.3. More than one-third of indigenous lands have had _________________________ filed on them by mining companies
4. __________________ would take away 100,000 more hectares of indigenous lands
5. Many residents of the Amazon consider indigenous peoples "_________________________"
6. __________________________ of 1988 required government to define, give title to, and defend indigenous groups’ land
C.7. many indigenous lands protected as "_________________" that are then legally or illegally exploited by ________________________
8. in 1995, all demarcation ______________________; only 39% of land eligible for demarcation had been titled to indigenous peoples
9. land already demarcated can be _______________________ claiming rights to the land, including loggers and miners
C.10. Policy still being debated, but changes due to interest in _________________ by military, gold miners, loggers, farmers, and state governments in further access to land; these groups have ____________________________ and tried to get access to lands
11. ___________________ of the Brazilian government: protect indigenous peoples, protect Brazilian borders, promote development, promote and/or carry out prospecting, mining, dam building, logging, ranching, and farming
D. The Amazon as a _______________
1. One View: it impossible for the Amazon to develop like the _______________ did because of:
a. high _________________
b. lack of services for the _____________________
c. ____________________ constraints
d. high rate of ______________ means people remain part of the informal economy and frequently move from one line of work and location to another, never starting ___________

____________________________________

D. 2. Another View: the frontier will _________________ because _______________ cannot be maintained and many migrants leave the _________________________
3. An Alternative View: ___________________ Uses rather than Large Projects
a. _________________________: land owned by the government that is used by caboclos and settlers for extraction at sustainable rates
4. Pessimistic View: natural resource _____________________________ mean that TNCs will eventually develop the ____________________________