ABSTRACT
Brazil was first claimed by the Portuguese under the provisions of the Treaty of Tordesillas. This treaty divided the Western Hemisphere into Spanish and Portuguese areas of domination along a line running between the poles and lying 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Possible environmental consequences from the development of the Amazon stem mainly from deforestation. The magnitude of that deforestation is great, but difficult to measure with certainty. Clearing the Amazon leads to a second problem of global dimensions and concern. Of the 16 million square kilometers of tropical forests which existed less than a century ago, only about 9 million remain. The development at Jari illustrates several regionalized local environmental problems. Monocultures invite pests. That was shown to be the case in the Amazon as long ago as the early 1930s, when the Henry Ford rubber plantation succumbed to South American leaf blight.
