ALTAMIRA, Brazil — With thousands of intentionally set fires raging across its enormous expanse, Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has been a smoky mess in recent weeks: Roads and airports enveloped by a soupy fog. Local governments declaring emergencies and advising people to stay indoors. Many coughing and spitting, their lungs clogged with irritating particles of dust.

For almost everyone who lives and works in the Amazon — as well for environmental activists around the globe — the fires are considered an unmitigated disaster, not only posing immediate health threats but also devastating huge swaths of a forest that plays an essential role in soaking up carbon dioxide and helping to keep global temperatures from rising further.

For a very select few, however, the smoke is the smell of money: Many of the these fires were started by ranch owners, a powerful force in the Brazilian economy, as a way to clear land for more grazing for their gigantic cattle herds.