tion began, in a major way, with the government of Brazil deciding that its 10 million poor, rural families might be given acreage in the Amazon and allowed to engage in farming. Such a move, it was reasoned, would keep these people from adding to the numbers of extremely poor people already in the cities; in addition, it would give them a chance at a livelihood that could, if they worked hard, elevate them from the status of the destitute.
To these rural families, the government's offer was a godsend. They packed up their families and thei alarms, these regarding the global effects of the deforestation, effects relating to the depletion of the world's oxygen supply and the warming of the atmosphere. The Indians and the rubber tappers aligned themselves with the p
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