AMAZON PIONEERS .
By WILLARD PRICE
FAR up the Amazon we came upon a young Brazilian pioneer whose savings had just been stolen and whose house had been burned by river bandits ; yet he was determined to stay on
the farm that he had carved out of the jungle. When asked why he had embarked upon this difficult venture, he replied: " There were posters on the walls in Rio. They said, in Portuguese, ' Go West, Young Man.' Our Government wanted us to develop this back country. So I came."
The new importance attached to the development of Amazonia is expressed in these words by a prominent Brazilian biologist: " If the Amazon can be brought into food-production, the world will be able to support its population." The Amazon is the world's last great frontier. Much of it has not even been explored. It is rich in minerals. It has the greatest forests of fine woods on earth. It has the world's mightiest river to carry its products to the sea. But it lacks men. Today there is half a man to the square mile. And that is the reason for " Go West " posters on the walls of Rio. Tens of thousands of pioneers are flooding from the coastal cities a thousand miles back into the wilderness—or what was wilderness a few years ago, the watershed of Amazon tributaries, the rivers Tocantins, Araguaya and Xingu. Mainly responsible for the west- ward trek is the Central Brazil Foundation, a great development agency supported by both public and private funds This agency is not diffusing its effort over the entire Amazon jungle. It is con- centrating upon the building of what Brazilians call "The Great Diagonal."
This is a sort of flying wedge straight through the jungle, much of which until now has not even been explored. The most important city of the Amazon, Manaos, heretofore reached from Rio only by a circuitous route up the coast and river, will be connected by direct route cutting diagonally across the wildernesp. The same straight line when extended will strike Miami and Chicago, and planes from North America will save eight hours on a flight to Rio.
This project is now being realised through one of the most daring jungle-taming enterprises ever attempted by man There is being cut through the wilds a swath of civilisation replete not only with airfields but with farms and ranches, mines and factories, and an amazing string of boom towns. Through the gateway of this new world, the mushroom city of Anapolis, more than fifty thousand Brazilians a year pass to the busy towns of Chavantina, Aragarcas, Sao Feliz, Maraba, Goiania and Colcoria, none of them to be found on any map ten years ago. Hundreds of men have given their lives to make the project a success. The chief difficulty has been the stubborn opposition of the Chavante Indians whose territories lie athwart the path of progress. Taking a leaf perhaps from Gandhi's book, the head of the Indian Protection Service, himself part Indian, laid down the rule that the Chavantes must be won over by a policy of non-violence. "Die if necessary, but never kill," was the motto.
Gifts were used instead of bullets. I flew over an Indian village
with a pilot who dropped pots and pans, egg-beaters, scissors, toys, foods and portraits of Hollywood stars, only to see the packages smashed to bits by the heavy three-edged bordunas, war clubs, wielded by red-painted warriors. In other ,villages, however, the gifts were accepted. Hostility was crumbling as the Chavantes found that their showers of arrows were never returned by rifle fire. Today the Diagonal passes straight through Chavante country, and, though the Chavantes cannot be said to be effusively friendly, they have actually helped in building certain airfields.
The fight against disease plays a large part in the conquest of the Brazilian West. In a hydroplane that serves as a local bus between villages of the Amazon, I chatted with a sanitary engineer employed by the joint U.S.-Brazilian organisation, Servico Especial de Saude Publica (Special Public Health Service), known usually as S.E.S.P.
The service, my fellow-passenger told me, faced the fact that communicable diseases accounted for fifty-five per cent. of all deaths in the Amazon region. The chief offenders were malaria, yellow fever, typhoid and amoebic dysentery. Today well-staffed health centres are to be found in most Amazon villages. Drinking-water comes from scientifically constructed wells rather than from the turbid river. Pipes carry the water to faucets scattered about the town. The sanitary S.E.S.P.-built privy has become standard equipment. D.D.T. is ending the brilliant career of the fever mosquito. If malaria and yellow fever could be conquered in Cuba, Panama and Guayaquil, says the S E.S.P. man, why not eventually in the Amazon basin ?
The notion that Amazon soil, which produces almost impenetrable jungle and mothers trees thirty feet around and two hundred feet tall, is too poor to grow fruits, vegetables and grains, is being dis- pelled by another Brazilian organisation, the Imtituto Azronomico do Norte (Agricultural Institute of the North). At its head is Dr. Felisberto Camargo, a Brazilian professor of agriculture. Where Ford failed, Camargo is succccding. When the Ford rubber planta- tions at Fordlandia and Belterra succumbed to leaf rot and were sold to the Brazilian Government, Dr. Camargo was assigned the task of making something out of them. At Beltcrra two and a quarter million rubber trees have been restored to health. Each tree is geared to production of several times as much rubber as a wild tree by an intricate process of grafting. Fordlandia he has transformed into a great experimental farm for growing everything from hardwood trees and cacao to jute and vegetables. He is breed- ing water buffalo. This denizen of the Far Eastern tropics will prove immensely useful to the Amazon planter.
As important as the Government projects are some of the enormous private enterprises that are changing the face of the Amazon wilderness. Chief among these is the Araujo concern. " Have you met the emperor of Amazonia ? " I was asked at Manaos. I found Agesislau Araujo to be a very modest and diligent emperor, who works from seven to six daily at one of half a dozen roll-top desks in a busy office. He has no car because he prefers to walk to work, and because Manaos is a jungle-girt city with no communi- cation with the outside world except by air and water. But he owns a fleet of river boats, a tract of jungle nearly as large as Texas, a string of trading posts, some of which arc so remote that the round trip from Manaos takes eighteen days, a fortune well up in the millions of dollars, a house in Manaos, another in Rio, another in Estrella, Portugal, and a palace in Lisbon. His company is the Amazonian equivalent of the Hudson's Bay Company, with an empire of its own within which it maintains communications and commerce, controls the lives of residents, and is in effect a benign government within a government. Araujo does not merely extract and export the natural resources of the region such as gold, diamonds, balata, piassava and Brazil nuts. He brings in machinery, starts factories and builds a permanent, self-contained industrial economy as well as agricultural and stock-raising projects new to the jungle. For example, on the upper Rio Branco he has fifty thousand head of cattle. " I have just brought in from India twenty-nine zebu bulls to improve the breed."
But the most far-reaching, although as yet nebulous, Amazonian enterprise is that of the United Nations. That the plan is still in its formative stages is not surprising, in view of the fact that it was only three years ago that it was first proposed by the Brazilian biologist, Paulo Carneiro, at a session of U.N.E.S.C.O. According to the plan the Amazon valley is to be used as a great experimental station in the study of the adaptation of man to tropical environ- ment. The possibilities of the region are to be scientifically analysed. Initial appropriations of more than L250,000 have been made by U.N.E.S.C.O. and the nations most directly concerned in the project. These include Great Britain, the United States, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and British, Dutch and
French Guiana. Great interest in the project is being shown by all nations that have problems in the tropics—for example, the Netherlands, France, India and Australia. Solutions arrived at in Brazil may prove useful elsewhere.
Few aspects arc being overlooked. Science teams on the field include physical geographers, soil experts, botanists, zoologists, ecologists, anthropologists, agronomists and nutritionists. Chief purpose of these adventurers in the " lost world" is to change it from a "mine " from which riches may be extracted to a home where many millions of people may enjoy self-sufficiency. The Indians have found Amazonia habitable. Their successful methods are to be studied with the idea of grafting on to them the scieace and skill of modern civilisation. Heavy immigration is contemplated once the world's last great frontier is made safe for settlement.
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