““poverty and desperation are fueling much of the environmental crime in Amazon. Twelve million wild birds and animals are poached in Brazil every year, according to IBAMA. Middlemen—like Moysés Israel, “Big Carlos,” and “the Captain”—may have grown fat on the trade. But the desperadoes raiding the nests and felling the timber, like the Kanamari of Queimada or the two-bit poachers nabbed by Queirós, are driven by more basic imperatives, like the need to put food on the table. We””
