Professional services abound for Amazon land grabbers seeking legitimacy

By Fernanda Wenzel NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil — It’s Aug. 15, 2022, a public holiday in Brazil’s Pará state, and the day has just begun in the southern municipality of Novo Progresso. But this town of 25,000, located by the BR-163 federal highway, isn’t in a holiday lull. While the first wave of customers arrives at the gold stores, half a dozen men try to recover from a busy night in the red-light district, ahead of another day of work burning, mining or clearing land. At their offices, realtors and chartered engineers file the paperwork to round out this grab of public land. Novo Progresso is Br…

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