Santo Antonio de Matupi sits on the BR-230 highway in the Matupi region, just north of the Campos Amazonicos National Park and south of the 151,993-hectare Campos de Manicore Environmental Protection Area. That protection area was created in April 2016, partly to control the process of occupation spreading outward from towns exactly like this one, particularly along the road being built between Matupi and the seat of Manicore on the Madeira River. The town exists because the highway exists. Without BR-230, there would be forest here and nothing else. With it, there are 9,139 inhabitants packed into 2,868 homes, 85,000 head of cattle, 612 registered producers, and 473 landowners who have carved farms and ranches out of the surrounding rainforest.

In 2010, Santo Antonio de Matupi ranked among the ten highest tax-paying communities in Amazonas state, a remarkable distinction for a place that does not even appear on most maps. The economic engine runs on two fuels: timber and cattle. All timber production is supervised by IBAMA, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, and the wood carries certification. In April 2015, the Amazonas state government launched a Rural Environmental Registration campaign in Matupi, requiring property owners to preserve 80 percent of their land as forest. Those who had already cleared more than the allowed 20 percent were required to replant. In exchange for registering, landowners received environmental licenses, suspension of existing fines, and access to credit and financing. The program acknowledged a reality that everyone in Matupi already knew: the forest was disappearing, and something had to formalize the boundary between what could be cut and what had to remain.

The Dom Pedro II municipal school tells the story of Matupi's growth in miniature. In 2002, it had 45 students. By 2008, enrollment had surged to 1,079. Then it fell back to 583 by 2011, a pattern that mirrors the boom-and-bust rhythms of frontier economies across the Amazon. The state school held 806 students in 2009. In June 2014, residents held a meeting to discuss turning Santo Antonio de Matupi into an independent municipality, arguing that the town met every legal criterion: more than 6,000 inhabitants, not located within an environmental protection area, and not on public lands. The desire for self-governance reflects a community that has outgrown its origins as a highway rest stop but has not yet been granted the political infrastructure to match its economic weight.

Prosperity in the deep Amazon attracts more than farmers and loggers. In June 2015, police investigating a murder in Matupi arrested a woman selling crack cocaine from her porch. A search of her house turned up drugs, a revolver, ammunition, dead snakes, alligator legs, and an assortment of stolen appliances. Officers also seized four vehicles, including one with Paraguayan plates whose driver carried more than 13,000 reais in cash. An official told reporters that the Matupi region was full of stolen, tampered, and cloned vehicles. The incident was not exceptional. It was, by local standards, a Tuesday. Matupi's location on the Trans-Amazonian Highway makes it a natural transit point for goods both legal and otherwise, and the same remoteness that allowed the timber industry to flourish also limits the reach of law enforcement. Electricity comes from Eletrobras. Justice arrives less reliably.