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captioning sponsored aenberg/c narrator: since 1980, latin america has been onef e most rapidly urbaning regions on eart nowhere are the sults more dramatic than in sao paulo, brazil, the third largest city in the world. in this anatomy of a mega-city, we'll explore: the urban geography of immigration and etic diversity, squatter settlements and self-construction. sao pao, brazil. with its crowded boulevards and massive skyscrapers, it seemswealthy as any city in the world. sao paulo is unique among latin american cities. in the early part ofhe, when places like rio de janeiro

copied traditional european styles of construction, sao paulo was following a distinctly american model of urbanism. imitating the forms of chicago and new york, sao paulo built upward, growing vertically very quickly. buin a huge ring around the centrality slies a very different, here, stretching foriles,uickly. is a city of self-built structures in various stages of completion. they line hillsides and rocky streets where some of sao paulo's newest immigrants struggo ild mes om brick and cen where some of sao paulo's alaide and her family came to sao paulo from northeastern brazil. ( alaide speaking portuguese ) translator: from there my father came first to work. came i as a maid,my motwas amsts

narrator:alaide mar, they coun't afford even the cheapestenn thcity, so they decided to bui a home thon unclaimed land onn the outskirts of sao paulo. they began building this house when their first daughtewas. 11 years ago, anslator: when she was eightonths old, we movedo th house. first we me three rooms... then we rent them out to hp things a bit. we then builfo rooms on top, and that's where we are now. we wilcoinue build on narrator: th will continue to build. but it's not clearf or migrts lalaide josé will ever be part of the wealthy ci that seems so far away.

tokyo in east asia, along with los angeles in the u.s. and mexico city, are defined by geographers for their enormous size. tountryazil, the mega-city ofaoau arhas joined the ranks of these world-famousetpolises, size. wi a population of 1million people at the startof t 21st century. sao paulo is a city of immigras, at the startof t 21st century. who built it neighborhood by neighborhood. the first immigrants to arrive were portuguese explorers and jesuit missionaries, who settled here in 1554 and broughthhem brazil's language a religio bureal growth did not begin between 1880 and the 1950s,4 more tn ve million italians came to sao paulo, atacted by jobs in a booming coffee industry.

along with these agricultural workers came small business owners and craftsmen who established an italian enclave cled bixiga on the outskirts of the city., geographer fisco scarlato nestudies immigration patterns, assimilation and the expansion of sao paulo. he was an artisan anhe. myaterl grandfher came at the beginning ofhe century. narrator e factory is sti inthan ever.y day,bigger l bias sao paulo grew around it, and rthe neighborhoodecameave.

an important part of the city's mainstream. but the italians did not have bixiga to themselves for long. (drmi sea after slavery was abolished in brazil in 1888, freed slaves moved into the city. they were attractetoixaby i i. their afro-brazilian legacy is still evident today in vai-vai, the neighborhood samba school.) translator: fothe black culture, the scol is part ofe ighborho. represents the neighborhood, . the neighborhood it has bcks, aicans,n; anvai-vai is an exession oat. ( samba-style drumming ) speaking portuguese )

translator: the city absorbed the different waves of immigrants, but each group had troubleinteg, because it was so divee. soach group created its own little world. you can't say the city has one identity today; each group ilt(iwild cheering.) rrator: although they bega arriving in 1908 each group japanese immigration to brazil accelerated llowing world war ii. the devastation suffered by japan sent a wave of immignts looking for new opportunities outside their country. sao paulo was a popular destination. ttoday, sao paulo boasts ighbthe largest pulation of japanese ople and their descendants outside of japan. but do peoe here considermselves toe azilian orapanese?

translator: el more brazilian an japanese. eu também. anslator: me, too. interviewer: por que? translator: because i was born here, live here. i've never been to japan. translator: more japanese, but also brazilian, because my children and grandcldren are all brazilian. but when japan and brazil play against each other, i cheer for the japanese-- my children, for brazil. ( speaking portuguese, laughing ) kingore ) translator: ( speaking portuguese, i was born in japan, but now i'veeen in bl fomanyea. i'm now brazilia narrator: by 1960, when this wave of immigration had slowed, the city, bulging at its seams, boasted 13 million residents.

and then yet another group of immigrants began to pour in. ( children shouting ) this group came from brazil's. between 1955 and 1980, more than five millionrrived, attracted by the promise of work ana better life. but an already crowded city could not absorb them. so they began to build tir own homes and neighborhoods, but an already crowded city brick by brick, couon the periphery.m. this so-called "self-construction" caused the city to spread even farther. translator: the gigantic size of sao paulo, ( scarlato speaking portuguese ) in a horizontal see, is aesult of self-construction. in a chaotic, disorganized way, without planning, it spoaneousen e in all direcons. rrator: today, saoaulo h swelled toncompass over 3,000 square miles,

stretching more than 50 miles from end to end. many oe new neigorhoods were b on stee stab mostere nocognizedby theit but some neighborhoods ifdid progress. jardim valkíria, or "garden of the valkyries," was fas a colctionatters mof cardboard scks.ago slowly, solid ildings appeared. stores and crches opened, streets were paved and some utilities were installed. bus routes connected the neighborhood to the city center. t wiout official recogtionnd ow, these peopleemain squatters. so their community leaders are negotiating with the city government for land titles and city services. (speaking portugues ) translator:itles the first things we want here

are day care, a health clinic and a school. these are the three ings we need most urgently. narrator: if these newest migrants receive official recognition, a path toward assimilationath behind and integratiofore them, anslator: i wa to stay here, finish t house and connue. e k. naator immigratioto saoaulo s slowedgain, ( speaking porguese )slato, but birth rates coinue rease the pulation.

orwirojectop ceg ib th is ciwhicswi dow sinher case, has creased.pop sao o willontinutoe one of the world's mega-cies. the urban geography of immigration and ethnic diversity real a complex pattern of squatr settlements and self-construction. with luck and hard work, the newest residents will get their chance to share in the wealth and sophistication thats sao paulo. narrator: in eatorial regions around the world, large tropicalaiforests are qukly vashing.

ree examine seral emes,uness, b thanouincluding:16% of bras rt opical foresecology; maalof sustainabevelopmeucnd a; the amazon rain forest-- and its dirsity ofife.worldfor s the forest ecosystem is delicate e oflants and animals, soil and water. like geography, ecology is an integrative science, bringing together many pblems into one view.

ecologist daelepstadisesearchi . whether he gheria inhe forescanopy ecologist daelepstadisesearchi . or mng ion compute a spatial pepectivis essential whether he gheria inhe forescanopy the future othe amazon, undstan t future. tonderstan we really haveo go back in time and ink about the first people who arrived in t amazoazon, undstan t future. tonderstan who camep the vers-- and ink about the first people who arrived in t amazoazon, and even these psentedobsta. undstan t future. tonderstan ifouo rth on many ofseibutars--s who andsp the vers-- rrator:chthe veaffis atoawhh locat nearheouth oe amazon. when european settlers arrived in amazoa in t 1h century and built cities like belém, the rain forest was seen as a rich, but impenetrableesource. until the 1970s, belém was accessible to the rest of brazil only by water. then came a wave of road building.

so far, the major investmes theaerenof the basure coenatg thanalong e sout a wave of road building. withoaou have cheapernvcesso th, theaerenof the basure coenatg and with cheaper access, a lot of economic activities become profitable. narrator: two of the biggest activities are cattle ranching and farming. ( chain saw buzzing ) buthe one at clears the land everything else isogging. so whole newowns sprang up herlocated in pará state.nas, this is a boomtown, home to more than 80 sawmills. this is brazil's frontier, a land of opportunity chnoama's oner

dbumany othe most importantt sos new roads intohe intiorepresents still dirt and not paved. paving greatly accelerates the change. nepstad: and what we're going to do is just look a little bit into the fute, imagining th these roads, which are still dirt roads, are all paved, as is slated by the federal government of brazil. narrator: in this simulation, the growing red area represents new deforestation every two years up to the year 2020. so as these roads are paved, deforestation is basically going to march up along those roads. instead of all the deforestation being concentrated along theast and south, we've made inroads into the core of the basin. narrator: at the southern edge of that core, a new economic force is pushing the pavement north.

from space, we see fields of soybeans etched in the shrinking forest. brazil is about to overtake the u.s. as the world's leading producer of soy, exporting their crop to millions of chinese consumers and european livestock growers. the soy farmers of mato grosso are very keen on having asphalt so that they can ship their soybeans to the santarém port and puit on oceangoing freighte and serve the world markets that way. it's much cheaper that way than to go south to the big brazilian ports down south. as that pavement goes through, the ancillary effect of paving, of course, will be to make it cheaper for everyone to do business along that corridor. but let's just imagine for a second two different trajectories for this road. he we see the portion that's not yet been paved-- santarém up here, mato grosso down here. in a business-as-usual situation, as paving goes in here, people will move in along the highways,

driven largely by land speculation interests, putting cattle pastures, shifting cultivation. and we can see the deforestation frontier rapidly eanding along this road. but there is reason to think that another scenario is possible. narrator: the lower rates of deforestation are based overnmen ctrcin the environmental laws on the books. brazil has received some help from some new technology and from other ecologists, including chris uhl. uhl is the founder of imazon, a research institute located in the city of belém. the law in pará state says that 50% of all prate land must be maintained in forest. until recently, that was very hd to monitor. now, using a system of satellites casearcher carlos sousaiing cadot that.ps,

okgps is realowhat it allows us to do is to pickp signals from the satellites. and through ocess of triangulation we can locate ouels rylynr and through ocess to within about ten meters. four... ey've gour sateites now. we are... probably... in this... area. mm-hmm. narrator: if the government chooses, it can use gps to locate property lines on satlite photographs of the landscape. they can then determine how much of a farmer's land has beenleared but enforcement is stty. anotg problem is thenefficient way the cleared land is being used. the most common farming and grazing method here requires the farmer to cut tousandofirm spe,t it dry.it

set by farmers during the dry season to release the nutrients from the vegetation. but the soil's producvity disappears,n sometimes in one or two years. it forces settlers to abandon their land and cut more forest elsewhere. because this requires more land all the time, it is a form of extensive agriculture. it's called "shifting," "swidden" it's pcticed inany ngs or "slash-and-burn" cultivatio until the forest runs out. this land waabandonedby sgs a few years earlier. the sight of new trees led chris uhl to a surprising and controversial revelation. l: whenirststted wog wn , i really thought that the las were extrely fragile wasn'a ssse,t was abdoor sture l: whenirststted wog wn , and yet, if u look over he i woulveueed that ts ece of land

woulha stayesort ofegdeold l i woulveueed that ts ece of land d ye's clearly going backrest. woulha stayesort ofegdeold l this is really a surprise for me. digiatort co bk.almeetnk w giofand beganin ourtoe that geeyoknow, maybe ese systems arnotk w giofand beganin ourtoe as as i had exctedan ifact, ae sot n really a whe no lofeseaors se h hancols to devise development guidelines for ranchers, farmers and foresters. and plan their logging roadsd cut lessestrtively,ctively trwould regrow more quickly areas whehey ha worked. satellite images show why that is so important. here is an area where loggers worked the old-fashioned way when they cu many suounding ees we eangled

inhe same nes budozersamaged largereas trying to remo and store e ees. vines were cut from sected trees e year before. narrowccess ads allowed rubber-wheeled skidders to remove just the desired trees with much less damage. uhl: now, if we look into the following year, the forest scar, the logging scar here has disappeared. up here, we can still see some of that scar. openings up here are so big that one year later, they still haven't been covered by regrowing vines and regrowing forest vegetation. here they have. narrator: the method allows the logger sustainable harvests over many decades, and it helps everyone in the amazon avoid a growingroblem. the reduced canopy from the indiscriminate harvest and allows the sun to drythe amazon e forest floor,roblem. just adding to the fire haza.

fire and smoke plus reduced vegetion actually chang the micro-climate, decreasing the rainfall and further increasing fires. it's a vicious cycle that is broken by careful tree harvests. as chris uhl learned, e ees grow backif youive em. s scovery len even bigger: if ranchers and farmers could use their land more efficiently and for longer periods of time, perhaps both developmentalting new and environmental needs could be accommodated. it has to do with the difference between extensive and intensive agriculture. and byinnsive" we aning about as a viable alternative is,

that a g pofdwiite,l taeaafteyer now, t tineacapoaustainable. of course, narrator: read there are some successfumodels. near belém, small farms have been practicing intensive agriculture for decades. by mixing a variety of crops and by using locally produced organic and mineral fertilizers, thanontinue to farm the same piece of la fony e nepstad: these systems include trees or other perennial crops, fruit crops, black pepper, cacao-- which is chocolate. even cattle ranching can be made to be more or less sustainable. narrator: intensification means experimenting with new breeds of cattle and grasses, and it mean allowing some pastures to recover while cattle graze in others.

( speaking portuguese ) translator: because grazing was degrading my fields, the farm didn't have a means to produce new grass. ( continuing in portuguese ) so, i decided to research what i'd seen done in other places and i intensified my planting. of course, there was an initial cost, but the return has been good, and it's paying for itself. narrator: these practices work well on a small scale in the eastern amazon, but can they be used throughout amazonia? this remains to be seen. the first results of this research showed that we have aroun 50% to 60% of the state apopriate for loggg. that we have aroun and whene put together... state narrator: imazon has determined that, overall, about 20% of pará state's land area

could potentially be developed. with the use of regional maps, imazon is helping to plan a future that is acceptable to both environmentalists and developers. in doing so, they walk a thin line. ...that are not appropriate for logging. aroacwhceaiy'd characterize asvalundouslywoer dersityprese i rlizehat this landss ind, will continue toe inhabited. and the goal is to come up with win/win situation in sense thaconsertion of the forest occurs, that bio-diversity is preserved, and also that people that live in this landscape have a high and just quality of life. narrator: this balancing act must take place in an environment that is more resilient than scientists once thought.

ate pressures on t forestse tha: thgi th include further drying provoked by deforestatio by el niño, by global warming. they include extensive agriculture, which provides abundant sources of ignition for forests that are rendered flammable by drought or by logging. and all of those are coming together in an expanding frontier that's going to move up along the roads that are being paved into the heart of the world's largest rain forest.

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org annenberg media ♪ for information about this and other annenberg media programs call 1-800-learner and visit us at www.learner.org.