The Amazon town, a coral reef, big oil, and a catastrophe waiting to happen

Oiapoque, surrounded by mangroves and close to a recently discovered 600-mile reef, is divided over what BP and Total might bring and what they might destroy

Anchored in shallow, cloudy waters just a few hundred yards from the mangrove swamps that dominate this wild and empty coastline, the fishermen rolled in their nets. The three men had spent five days at sea and their catch glittered on the deck.

"It's good fishing," said Cleyton Celeiro, 26, who feeds his wife and two children with money earned on trips to the Amapi state coast, on the far north-eastern corner of the Amazon. "It's beautiful, I like it. I'm proud to be a fisherman."