ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The development of Roraima, the most northerly of the Brazilian Amazon states, which stretches from just south of the Equator to over 5° North, is of particular interest at the present time. On the one hand, it mirrors many of the current and familiar problems of the humid tropics but at a lesser stage of advancement; yet on the other, the region has a character and individuality quite distinct from the rest of Brazil and justifies a separate focus of attention. With an area of little over 230,000 sq. km (88,800 sq. miles) and a population of under 250,000 (IBGE 1992), it is evident that socio-economic change in Roraima, though rapid through the 1980s, has been at a less frenetic pace than that typical of the southern Brazilian Amazon. An arc of development, driven by demographic and economic forces from the south, extends from Acre in the west through Rondonia, Mato Grosso, Para, Tocantins to Maranhao in the east (Figure 1.1).
