Investor Presentaiton
communities, traditional populations and the environment. The last movement, on the other
hand, focuses on expansion into the Brazilian Amazon: both its south and east part. The fight
against deforestation government policy laid down certain restrictions and managed to
temporarily block the acceleration of the process of expansion into the southern Amazon,
creating the so-called Green Arch for this purpose. Thus, the most intense focus of expansion of
internal border occurs for at least two decades from the south and east of the Amazon directed to
its center, where the extensive state of Pará arises as a privileged locus for the current analysis of
this process.
2.1.1. Brief history of land occupation in Pará
From the 20s of last century the provinces of Amazonas and Pará went through economic
stagnation. From the rubber crisis Pará becomes the scene of a transfer of public lands to private
hands through state laws that allowed the purchase of vacant land in the state and the perpetual
tenure. This transfer concerns a particular way on Marabá region, which becomes the basis of the
constitution of a landed oligarchy.
During the 1950s, there was a migration process where several people, mainly from São Paulo,
have become owners of vast tracts of land in southeastern Pará, in the wake of the Roncador-
Xingu expedition. In addition, in 1953 the federal government created the Superintendency of
Economic Recovery Plan of the Amazon (SPVEA), later replaced by the Superintendency of
Development for the Amazon (SUDAM), which followed the idea of development through
occupation with land for speculation, exploitation of forest resources and disorderly migration.
This continues with the military governments and the creation of large projects, strong incentive
to the migration of people to the region, construction of infrastructure as federal roads and also
the insertion of foreign capital. Thus this intensified environmental degradation, conflicts in the
field, the land chaos and land grabbing.
Already at the end of the 50s appears the figure of the "pioneers", new characters in the region
were, in general, São Paulo groups that had already appropriated land in other states and came in
search of legally free land on the new frontier. (Fernandes, 1999, p. 32)View entire presentation