In the early 1970s, the Brazilian military dictatorship harnessed cutting-edge technology to map the Amazon rainforest more precisely than ever before. “Financed by a USD 30 million grant from the Brazilian government,” the New York Times reported in July 1976, “the venture, known as the Radam Project, has discovered a 400‐mile‐long river in the western Amazon that had been hidden by dense foliage and almost continuous cloud cover.” Evoking the spirit of adventure associated with colonial-era explorers, the regime embarked upon a broad effort to develop a jungle terrain two‐thirds the size of the continental U.S.
But this was...