The Brazilian dilemma: a nation struggles not to exploit its own greatest resource.

• Author: Leite, Marcelo
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT

Seen from the height of 36,000 feet aboard a Brazilian Air Force jet, the Amazon rainforest looks tranquil as we approach our destination, the town of Tabatinga, a jungle outpost in the state of Amazonas where Brazil meets Colombia and Peru. A dark green velvet blankets the land as far as we can see through the fluffy clouds below us. The monotone is free of vehicle tracks, broken only by muddy threads of rivers flowing into the Upper Solimoes, as the main branch of the mighty Amazon River is called where it enters the country on its 4,000-mile descent from the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic.

But if this five-hour flight from Sao Paulo offers a glimpse of a vast and untouched Amazon, it also highlights the checkerboarding created by recent development. To reach the wilderness from the south, we first fly over countless towns, coffee and sugar cane plantations, and processing plants covering the state of Sao Paulo. Then the flight continues northward over immense cattle areas that lay siege to the unique, biologically diverse floodplain called the Pantanal, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Passing over Rondonia state, an hour or so before we land, we see how soybean plantations--prominent newer stars in the country's growing array of exports--have replaced whole swaths of Amazon rainforest.

In sum, the flight gives the passenger a quick snapshot of a massive ecological dilemma. Of the original 1.5 million square miles of Brazilian Amazon forest, far and away the world's largest, some 82 percent remains intact. This entire area, roughly the size of India, is home to only twenty-four million people and is endowed with incredible biodiversity of global significance. But it continues to give way to logging, cattle, and soy plantations.

The big question is whether this southern giant will follow the development path favored by many Brazilians, once again plundering Amazonia's natural capital and suffering the severe consequences of deforestation. Or will it learn from unsustainable prior experience along its Atlantic coast, and resist dragging the Amazon rainforest into the same trap?

The recent news has been good. According to satellite photos taken by Brazil's highly regarded National Institute for Space Research, deforestation rates have been dropping steadily since 2004. That was the year that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, responding to increasing pressure from the international community and a growing contingent of ecologically...