State of Acre
Chico Mendes launched global forest conservation here, yet cattle herds grew 5% annually despite ecosystem payments—demonstrating how local economic calculus overrides international conservation value.
Acre occupies Brazil's westernmost Amazon frontier—a territory whose rubber boom legacy still shapes its identity. Chico Mendes launched the "empate" movement here in the 1980s, physically blocking deforestation and establishing extractive reserves that preserved 50% of state territory. His 1988 assassination sparked global awareness, yet the biological pattern persists: cattle herds grew 5% annually from 2000-2018 despite conservation policies.
The state's "forest economy" experiment under the Viana brothers (1999-2018) demonstrated path-dependent limits. They expanded sustainable-use reserves, demarcated Indigenous territories, and established ecosystem payments—slowing deforestation from 2007-2012. But the underlying economic calculus favored beef: by 2018, voters elected Governor Gladson Cameli, an explicit cattle industry supporter.
Smallholder ranchers in Ariquemes achieve surprisingly high stocking rates—evidence that intensive systems exist. Yet extensive conversion continues along BR-364, the highway that bisects western Amazon agricultural expansion. The 2024 drought created additional pressure: rivers dropped to record lows, stranding communities and burning forests. Acre embodies the tension between forest value captured internationally (carbon credits, ecosystem services) and local livelihoods captured through conversion. Until forest standing generates competitive returns, the pattern continues.