Brazil | The Wages of Fear | Deadliest Journeys

In Brazil, in the state of Para, a convoy of tanker trucks loaded with fuel plunges into the Amazon rainforest along a dilapidated track, illegally bulldozed. Their mission is to deliver diesel to gold miners who use water cannons and diesel engines to destroy one of the world’s most precious forests. Nearby, Cécilio and his family, indigenous Kayapo people, are driven out of their home as their ancestral territory is submerged by the artificial lake of the Bello Monte dam. Rendered homeless, they wander in search of a hypothetical shelter. This situation highlights the threat to this region, intensified by 200,000 kilometers of illegal tracks in the Amazon, revealed by satellites. These tracks, mainly in the states of Mato Grosso, Para, and Rondonia, provide access to isolated areas and are not marked on any maps. They enable colonists, often poor and desperate, to invade the forest in search of easy riches. These destructive practices follow only the law of the mightiest and quick profit. Farmers, landowners, and traffickers also enter the forest, ravaging it under the guise of development. They covet precious wood and gold. Over time, the Brazilian state legalizes these lands and paves the main tracks, but the deforested lands used for grazing quickly degrade into deserts within 10 to 20 years. Colonists and traffickers then take their bulldozers to create new illegal tracks, invading and burning millions of hectares for their cattle, further exacerbating the Amazon's agony.