The Road

Brazil’s massive Amazon rainforest basin is the world’s last terrestrial frontier. Like all frontiers, it’s getting developed for profit and nation-building at the expense of first nations and the native ecosystem. Unlike other frontiers, it’s happening as the world struggles to address climate change. In this epic, in-depth story, Stephanie Nolen travels 1,200 miles on a single road, BR-163, to examine whether Brazil can utilize the Amazon to build itself into a first-world economy while protecting enough forest to honor its global ecological responsibility.