ABSTRACT
Between 1970 and 2007, the Brazilian Amazon grew from 7.8 million people to 23.6 million (IBGE 2009). This increase was mostly a result of in-migration in response to governmental incentives in support of agriculture, mineral extraction, cattle ranching, and wide-ranging human settlement (Benchimol 1985; Moran 1985; Sawyer 1986; Mahar 1989; Schmink and Wood 1992; Browder and Godfrey 1997). At the same time, the Amazon experienced significant environmental changes. In 1978, approximately 169,900 km2 of the forest had been removed, and by 2003 the cleared area amounted to 648,500 km2 (16.2 percent of the initially forested area of the Amazon; Fearnside 2005b). Since 2000, an average of about 18,000 km2 of forest cover was removed annually (INPE 2009). Much of this environmental change was a direct result of the aforementioned governmental incentives, but some was a consequence of illegal activities in the region (e.g., timber extraction). Consequences of these transformations were observed in many aspects of the life of the Amazonian population. In this chapter we focus on health, particularly on malaria.
