Jan M. G Kleinpenning

In the 1970s, the whole Brazilian Amazon was opened up by road construction and the exploitation of its rich resources increased considerably. Jan Kleinpenning traces the history of this development, which began in 1972 with the opening of the first part of the Ruta Transamazônica, as well as its effects on population growth and distribution. He lays a particular focus on the programme of supervised agrarian colonisation meant to help small farmers...