Masters of the Lost Land The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World's Last Frontier [Audiobook]

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, the city of Rondon do Pará, Brazil, lived for decades in the shadow of land barons, or fazendeiros, who maintained control of the region through unscrupulous land grabs and egregious human rights violations. They razed and burned the jungle, expelled small-scale farmers and Indigenous tribes from their lands, and treated their farmhands as slaves-all with impunity. The only true opposition came from Rondon's small but robust farmworkers' union, led by the charismatic Dezinho, who fought to put power back into the hands of the people who called the Amazon home.
But when Dezinho was assassinated in cold blood, it seemed the farmworkers' struggle had come to a violent and fruitless end. Featuring groundbreaking revelations and exclusive interviews, this gripping work of narrative nonfictionis the culmination ofjournalist Heriberto Araujo's years-long investigation in the heart of the Amazon. Set against the backdrop of appalling deforestation rates and resultant superfires, Masters of the Lost Land vividly reveals the human story behind the loss of-and fierce crusade to protect-one of our greatest resources in the fight against climate change and one of the last wild places on earth.