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 - 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.
4. 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.
5. 2019 - Cattle and the Clearing Front. Footage from the Rondônia clearing front, logging, burning and the cattle ranches that replace the forest.
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.