Over a century after the wilderness frontiers vanished in Europe, Russia, and North America, a drama with fascinating human and ecological repercussions is taking shape in Brazil, as that country pursues its own version of Manifest Destiny in the last habitable frontier on earth: the vast, forbidding and fragile rain forests of the Amazon basin. This book is an account of the terrible toll of frontier conquest in the Amazon: huge forest tracts laid waste to make crude iron; Indians and rubber trappers in constant conflict with developers; gold mines devouring whole landscapes and poisoning the rivers with mercury. It is also a story about people, the ranchers, settlers, Indians and foresters who inhabit Amazonia and are there to stay. The author takes us into their lives to see what hope there is for man to live in this natural wonder without pillaging it.