Brazil's "Middle Lands"

A cowboy drives cattle on a road leading to Brazil's "middle lands" in the south of Brazil's Amazonian state of Para, Sept. 30, 2004. As any satellite map can show, there is a direct link of road construction and forest destruction. As roads improve, migration increases, forest is cleared to make way got farms and towns. Currently about 18,000 square kilometers is destroyed each year. In many ways the federal government promotes this situation with rural projects, highway construction and agrarian reform, while, at the same time, tries to stop it through the environmental agency IBAMA or the Federal Police. (AustralFoto/Douglas Engle)

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