After touring drought and fire damage in the Amazon, Trump promised to pave over roads that environmentalists and some in his administration say could dramatically increase the destruction of the world’s largest tropical forest and contribute to climate change.
The BR-319 road is a mostly unpaved road through the rainforest that connects the states of Amazonas and Roraima with the rest of the country. It ends in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon with a population of over 2 million, and runs parallel to the Madeira River, a major tributary of the Amazon. The Madeira River’s water levels are at their lowest on record, hindering cargo navigation. Much of the riverbed is made up of endless sand dunes under smoky skies.
“We know that when the Madeira River was flowing, the river was navigable and had a lot of water, but the highway was not as important as it is now. We cannot isolate the two capitals, but we will do so with the greatest responsibility,” Lula said this week during a visit to the indigenous community of Manaquiri in Amazonas state. He did not say what measures the government would take to prevent increased deforestation after the paving.
Hours later, he witnessed the signing of a contract to pave 32 miles of the road and pledged to begin work on the most controversial part of the road, a 250-mile section through old-growth forest, before his term ends in 2026.
The permits for the longer stretches were issued under the Lula administration, which favored development in the Amazon and weakened environmental protections. In July, a federal court blocked them in a lawsuit brought by the Climate Observatory, a network of 119 environmental, civil society and academic organizations.
Lula’s government had contested the suspension but it waited until Tuesday’s visit before he revealed plans to go ahead with the paving, a move the climate observatory lamented.
“Without forests there is no water, and water is interconnected,” said Suelly Araújo, the group’s public policy coordinator. “Paving over the middle section of BR-319 without ensuring environmental control and government presence in the area would lead to historic deforestation, as pointed out by many experts and the Federal Environment Agency in the licensing process.”
Lula has increasingly identified as an environmentalist and deforestation has slowed significantly since he succeeded Bolsonaro, but he has also resisted pressure from wealthy countries to protect the Amazon, a precious resource for the planet that stores carbon that contributes to global warming.
“The world that buys our food is demanding that we protect the Amazon,” he said. “Why? Because they want us to care for the air we breathe. They didn’t protect their own land during the Industrial Revolution in the last century.”
Brazil is in the midst of its worst drought on record, with 59 percent of the country under drought — an area roughly half the size of the United States. In the Amazon, falling river levels have left hundreds of riverside communities stranded and without drinking water or food. President Lula announced widespread distribution of water filters and other measures during a visit to the region.
Meanwhile, much of Brazil is blanketed in thick smoke from the Amazon wildfires, affecting millions in far-flung cities like São Paulo, Brasilia and Curitiba, and reaching as far south as Argentina and Paraguay. Speaking at Lula’s event, Environment Minister Marina Silva blamed extreme drought caused by climate change for the widespread fires in the normally fire-resistant rainforest, saying it was “a phenomenon we don’t even know how to deal with.”
Mr Silva has been more cautious than Mr Lula on road paving, and in a recent congressional hearing he called Bolsonaro-era permits “fake” and praised the judicial decision to suspend them.
Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, responsible for about 3% of global emissions, according to Climate Watch, an online platform managed by the World Resources Institute. Nearly half of these emissions come from deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
Maisonnave is a contributor to The Associated Press.
