On the Ground

Rondônia — On the Ground.

10 moments in this segment.

1. 2019-01-01 — Illegal logging. Loggers strip the most valuable hardwoods first, in operations that are largely illegal.
2. 2019-01-01 — Cattle on the cleared land. Most cleared Amazon land becomes cattle pasture — Brazil's beef frontier drives the deforestation.
3. 2019 — The 2019 Amazon Fires. 2019’s fire season drew global attention as clearing fires across Rondônia and the wider Amazon sent smoke as far as São Paulo.
4. 2019 — Cattle and the Clearing Front. Footage from the Rondônia clearing front — logging, burning and the cattle ranches that replace the forest.
5. 2019 — Burning Beside the Highway. A fire set to clear land along an Amazon highway, 2019 — the same slash-and-burn method that drove Rondônia’s clearing for decades.
6. 2019-08-01 — The clearing front. On the ground at the frontier: chainsaws, bulldozers and the burning of freshly-felled forest.
7. 2019-08-23 — The 2019 fires. In August 2019 fires set to clear land raged across Rondônia and the Amazon, darkening the sky over São Paulo.
8. 2020-01-01 — Soy and the frontier. Beyond the cattle, soybean plantations push the agricultural frontier deeper into the forest.
9. 2021-01-01 — Wildcat gold mining. Illegal 'garimpo' gold mining poisons the rivers of the Amazon with mercury.
10. What the Clearing Leaves. Degraded, fragmented forest — the thinned remnant left behind after selective logging and repeated burning.