- Title: Bolsonaro-backed highway targets heart of Brazil's Amazon
- Date: 2nd October 2019
- Summary: AMAZONAS, BRAZIL (RECENT - SEPTEMBER 2019) (REUTERS) TRUCK KICKING UP DUST, DRIVING ALONG BRAZIL'S FEDERAL HIGHWAY 319 THAT RUNS THROUGH THE AMAZON RAINFOREST TRUCK PASSES ON HIGHWAY AERIAL VIEW OF TRUCK ON HIGHWAY AERIAL VIEW OF SAWMILL AERIAL VIEW OF HIGHWAY AND INDUSTRIAL SITE LOGGING TRUCK PASSING ON HIGHWAY VARIOUS, MEMBERS OF FREE BRAZIL MOVEMENT (MBL) WALKING DOWN HIGHWAY 319 AMAZONAS STATE LEADER OF THE FREE BRAZIL MOVEMENT, MARCELO CAVALCANTE, WALKING PERSON CARRYING BRAZILIAN FLAG (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) AMAZONAS STATE LEADER OF THE FREE BRAZIL MOVEMENT, MARCELO CAVALCANTE, SAYING: "In the winter it (Highway 319) will go back to being unpassable. Look at the state of this highway: completely lost. If it rains, nobody gets through, it turns to liquid soap." VARIOUS, SIGN ON SIDE OF HIGHWAY READING (Portuguese) "COMMUNITY OF REALIDADE" VARIOUS, VEHICLES DRIVING DOWN HIGHWAY VARIOUS, AERIAL VIEWS OF HIGHWAY 319 (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) MAYOR OF HUMAITA, HERIVANIO SEIXAS, SAYING: "Our future here depends greatly on our highway. BR-319 is the postcard for development of the city and municipality of Humaita, of Amazonas (state) and I think even of the country and the world. Because, we're here and without BR-319 we're frozen in time." AERIAL VIEW, SAWMILL VARIOUS, SAW CUTTING TREE TRUNK VARIOUS, PEOPLE AT SAWMILL VARIOUS, SAWMILL OWNER, SIDNEY POLETINI, MEASURING TREE TRUNKS (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) SAWMILL OWNER, SIDNEY POLETINI, SAYING: "Progress has these problems: it has a price and there are some things like disrespect for rules and laws." TRUCK DRIVER, CRISTOVAO COSTA, GETTING INTO VEHICLE VARIOUS, COSTA DRIVING (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) TRUCK DRIVER, CRISTOVAO COSTA, SAYING: "Highway 319 means everything to me today. It's how I make my living, how I provide for my children, the money for school that I pay for my children. It's my life. [JOURNALIST ASKS: HOW DO YOU IMAGINE (THE HIGHWAY) GOING FORWARD?] Just like I dream: that I can drive easily with less hardships. I'm sorry, but that's the reality, man." TRUCK THAT HAS BEEN DRIVEN OFF THE HIGHWAY AERIAL VIEW OF AMAZON RAINFOREST AERIAL VIEW OF HIGHWAY 319
- Embargoed: 16th October 2019 13:52
- Keywords: highway preservation forest Brazil deforestation rainforest road development Amazon
- Location: AMAZONAS, BRAZIL
- City: AMAZONAS, BRAZIL
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: Environment,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA001AZEKXFR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Deforestation in Brazil is the story of highways.
For more than 50 years, the destruction has almost always begun with a road hewn through the dense Amazon rainforest. With pavement, comes logging, then ranching and eventually commercial farming and towns.
Here in the run-down logging town of Realidade, in the state of Amazonas, ecologists say history looks set to repeat itself.
This hamlet of several dozen houses sits on the crumbling vestiges of BR-319, a highway built in the 1970s by the military and quickly abandoned. Much of the route is now impassable during the roughly six-month rainy season. Vehicles that attempt it during dry months crawl along the broken pavement, dodging epic potholes and jungle debris. Locals warn visitors who wander the section north of Realidade to look sharp for jaguars.
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.
His administration is working on an ambitious plan to begin reconstruction by 2021 as part of a broader strategy to jumpstart economic development in the region. The completed project would reconnect Realidade with Manaus, a riverfront metropolis of 2 million people that lies 600 kilometers (372 miles) to the northeast. With BR-319 out of service much of the year, Manaus is consistently reachable only by water and air travel from the rest of Brazil.
Amazon researchers said the repaved road would trigger an explosion of deforestation in Amazonas, currently Brazil's best preserved rainforest state precisely because it has few good roads.
A study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais estimates the project would result in a fivefold rise in clearing by 2030, the equivalent of an area larger than the U.S. state of Florida.
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 and warned international leaders to butt out of Brazil's internal affairs.
Bolsonaro, a former Army captain and conservative firebrand who won election by appealing to rural interests, has moved quickly.
Environmentalists and public prosecutors have used Brazil's courts to block other projects. But they have largely resigned themselves to the prospect that BR-319 will be paved given fervent local support. Rather than fight, they say they will push for environmental preservation to be baked into the project
For some Brazilians living near BR-319, construction can't start soon enough. Herivaneo Seixas, the mayor of Humaita, a city of 55,000 residents, said the refurbished highway would allow area farmers to speed fresh produce to Manaus, ushering in an agricultural boom.
"BR-319 is the postcard for development," Seixas said. "Without BR-319, we're frozen in time."
(Production: Leonardo Benassatto, Sergio Queiroz, Jake Spring) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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