A little way south of the equator,
I'm heading to the state of Rondonia.
Here, around the small city of Porto Velho,
the Amazon faces its greatest threat.
In the surrounding area,
illegal logging is decimating the rainforest and it's hard to control.
It may not look like a big operation, but, undetected,
a network of camps like this
could clear a section of forest in no time.
We decide to stay on the scene until first light.
But, at dawn, a radio call comes in.
Suspected illegal loggers have been spotted
making their way down the track.
The crew and I jump on the back of a police vehicle.
I don't really know what's going on, to be honest.
It just went from everybody standing around to all action
stations and two vehicles sped off.
We've got a vehicle stopped up ahead.
Can't really tell what's going on.
Most of them get away, but one man loses control of his motorbike.
He don't want to cooperate, that's the problem.
You know, everyone who come here, do all this devastation,
they don't want to cooperate because they don't know the big mess
they are doing here.
Whatever the truth of this is, he's not a rich guy,
he's not making hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
They receive 250 reais.
That'll be like $80.
If he help me, I can get the big fish -
but I never saw that. They don't want to talk.
I really can't help but feel sorry for this guy
cos you look at him, he's like got a tattered old shirt, he's not
some big fish, he's sort of the pawn in this sort of bigger issue.
Many locals here are caught in a trap,
where supporting a family means working with criminals.
For this man, it ended in arrest.
But whoever employs him will get off scot-free.
Putting an end to illegal deforestation will take far
more than this.
More than 70% of this illegal wood go to other countries.
We need the help of everyone in this fight.
This is not a Brazilian fight. This is a world fight.