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This study is based on field surveys conducted in the Brazilian Amazon and covers twenty years of settlement experience. Its findings reveal that much of the Amazonian frontier land deforested by pioneers in the 1970s is becoming agriculturally unproductive. In response to the Brazilian economic crisis of the 1980s, a growing urban middle class began buying such land and holding it as a store of value, causing original settlers to leave and migrate to new frontiers within the Amazon.The authors conclude that for small farmers to be prevented from moving on and clearing new frontiers, they must be rewarded for staying in the old ones. THis requires promoting good farming, punishing speculation,a nd directly penalizing deforestation, through the innovative use of economic policies and new forms of cooperation between environmental and economic agencies at the local, national, and international levels, including the World Bank. Paradoxically, sustainable farming in the Amazon world would not likely attract migrants from outside the region, but unsustainable farming is sure to continue fueling intra-regional migration, even if the general economic crisis were to subside during the 1990s. Consequently, there is increasing urgency to devise policies that protect the forest by providing poor farmers with economic alternatives to encroachment.

Soil pollution. Soil purification --- Third World: agricultural and food problems --- Amazon Valey --- Deforestation --- Land settlement --- Sustainable agriculture --- Déboisement --- Colonisation intérieure --- Agriculture durable --- Amazon Valley --- Déboisement --- Colonisation intérieure --- Amazon river region --- Brazil --- Developing countries: agricultural and food problems --- Land settlement - Amazon River Region. --- Land settlement - Brazil. --- Sustainable agriculture - Amazon River Region. --- Sustainable agriculture - Brazil. --- Deforestation - Amazon River Region. --- Deforestation - Brazil.