Deforestation in Brazil is the story of highways.
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the road BR-319 highway near city of Humaita, Amazonas state, Brazil, August 22, 2019. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
Now Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has vowed to resuscitate the road. Some scientists say the project could determine the future of the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest. Fires have ravaged the Amazon this year, sparking a global outcry that Bolsonaro’s government is not doing enough to protect the rainforest. The president has defended his environmental policies as well as Brazil’s right to develop its territory, as industrialized nations have done with theirs. He has warned international leaders to butt out of Brazil’s internal affairs.
The government says such fears are overblown. Mateus Salome do Amaral, environmental management subsecretary at Brazil’s Infrastructure Ministry, says the planned reopening of BR-319 does not portend ecological disaster.“Our goal isn’t to generate deforestation,” Amaral said.Brazil’s former military dictatorship, fearful that its neighbors would steal its sparsely populated portion of the Amazon, built BR-319 in the 1970s to encourage Brazilians to settle the region.
Bolsonaro, a former Army captain and conservative firebrand who won election by appealing to rural interests, has moved quickly. The BR-319 Observatory, a coalition of six Brazilian and international nongovernmental organizations, is pressing government agencies to minimize the illegal deforestation that typically follows road projects, says Fernanda Meirelles, the group’s executive secretary.
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