'It's as if we've learned nothing': alarm over Amazon road project

[Judi Lynn]

Memories of Brazil’s dictatorship as plan threatens biodiverse home of three indigenous communities

Tom Phillips and Caio Barretto Briso in Rio de Janeiro
Sat 26 Dec 2020 01.00 EST

Brazilian activists have voiced alarm over their government’s plans to bulldoze a 94-mile highway through a biodiverse corner of the Amazon along the border with Peru that is home to at least three indigenous communities.

The planned road is an extension of the BR-364, a 2,700-mile highway that links São Paulo with the Amazon state of Acre, and would connect the town of Cruzeiro do Sul with the Peruvian border town of Pucallpa.

Backers of the “transoceanic” project, who include Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, argue it will boost the economy of this remote region by creating a transport hub through which agricultural products can be shipped to Pacific ports in Peru and on to China.

“This project won’t destroy the forest, it will bring sustainable development to the region by heating up commercial and cultural relations [with Peru],” said Mara Rocha, a centre-right congresswoman from Acre who supports the idea.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/26/alarm-over-amazon-road-project-brazil-bolsonaro-biodoverse-indigenous-communities

Please take a moment to scan google images of irreplaceable fauna, flora in the Serra do Divisor National Park. Not one more square foot of this vital area should be altered:

https://tinyurl.com/y73x466u

Also posted in Environment and energy:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127142355

[Judi Lynn]

1. 'Project of death': alarm at Bolsonaro's plan for Amazon-spanning bridge

Residents of riverside communities in the state of Pará are unconvinced by the Bolsonaro government’s claims of jobs and other benefits that a dramatic extension of a trans-Amazon highway would bring

by Dom Phillips in Santíssima Trindade
Tue 10 Mar 2020 04.00 EDT

From the veranda of her wooden home, Joaci da Silva looked out across her garden towards the waters of the River Amazon, and shuddered as she considered the future.

“Today we live in a paradise,” she said.

But the future of that paradise is in doubt after Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro backed plans to build a bridge across the river, and extend a busy highway hundreds of miles through protected forests.

“We know there will be a big impact,” said Da Silva, 51, who – like many people in the tiny riverside community of Santíssima Trindade – fears the project will bring crime, noise and pollution. “It will bring some benefits and jobs, but there will be devastation.”

A short boat ride away from her home is the quaint colonial backwater of Óbidos; beyond that is 500km of rainforest stretching to Suriname – the “Calha Norte”, or “North Zone” of Pará state.

. . .

Auricélia Arapiun, 32, a law student and indigenous leader in Santarém, said that rather than developing the region, the government’s plans would “make the Amazon a desert”.

“This is a project of death,” she said.

. . .

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/10/brazil-amazon-bridge-project-bolsonaro