the late 1990s, outsiders from southern Brazil began buying up property at a pittance. "There are many small farmers who don't know the value of money," Nnes said. "They thought the money would last, but it doesn't." Now they languish in Santarm's growing slums. Those who refused to sell found themselves encircled by an encroaching wasteland, as whining chain saws and raging fires consumed the trees right up to the edge of their land. Their yards were overrun with vipers, bees, and rodents escaping the apocalypse, and when tractors began spraying the cleared fields, toxic clouds of pesticides drifted into their homes. "Their health was in jeopardy," Nnes said. "Many started getting sick. Their animals started dying." Nnes and her husband, Everaldo Pimentel, still live as traditional family farmers, growing corn, squash, and beans and raising livestock on their 70-acre (28-hectare) plot. But Pimentel wanted to show me another place, 15 minutes away by car. We followed yet another dirt road past miles of soy before turning onto a narrower track that traced the edge of a freshly plowed field -- the driveway to the farmhouse his grandfather had built in the shade of a large mango tree. This, Pimentel said, was where he had grown up. Four years ago, his father sold the farm to a stranger, who immediately cut down every tree. "In 30 seconds," he said, "they caused more devastation than a small farmer who's been on the land for 30 years." Pimentel couldn't have cared less