Amazon Justice Boat

Members of the Amapa state justice department, right, leave the "Tribuna" coartroom boat in a motorboat to reach a community along a shallow river, where larger boats cannot enter, in the Balique island arquipelago of the Amazon river delta of Brazil's northern Amapa state. Every two months some 40 people from the justice department and other state agencies travel from the state capital Macapa down the Amazon river in a mission to bring state services to residents of the remote region. It is a unique Brazilian solution to the immense geography of the Amazon, where roads do not exist and travel is costly and slow. People who once lived their whole lives with no records of birth, mariage, death, or even ID cards, are no longer forgotton by the state in this real life waterworld. (AustralFoto/Douglas Engle)

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Members of the Amapa state justice department, right, leave the "Tribuna" coartroom boat in a motorboat to reach a community along a shallow river, where larger boats cannot enter, in the Balique island arquipelago of the Amazon river delta of Brazil's northern Amapa state. Every two months some 40 people from the justice department and other state agencies travel from the state capital Macapa down the Amazon river in a mission to bring state services to residents of the remote region. It is a unique Brazilian solution to the immense geography of the Amazon, where roads do not exist and travel is costly and slow. People who once lived their whole lives with no records of birth, mariage, death, or even ID cards, are no longer forgotton by the state in this real life waterworld. (AustralFoto/Douglas Engle)

Brazil Amazon justice remote river 20041208 floating court