New deal pushes Amazon’s controversial ‘tipping point road’ ahead

The 885-kilometer (550-mile) highway in Brazil between the cities of Manaus and Porto Velho, BR-319, is one of the most controversial infrastructure projects in the Amazon. Local politicians argue that repaving the road — left in disrepair for decades and unpassable during the rainy seasons — would reconnect Amazonas state, where Manaus is the capital, with the rest of Brazil, leading to a new era of prosperity in the region. Environmentalists, however, fear a catastrophe, since the road slices through one of the rainforest’s most conserved areas, home to 69 Indigenous territories and 41 conservation units. Some critics argue that BR-319’s renewal could push the Amazon to its tipping point, at which the rainforest converts into a savanna. “BR-319 is the first domino in a chain of effects that will affect South America and ultimately the whole planet,” environmentalist Marcos Woortmann told Mongabay in July. Despite those warnings, the Brazilian government is ready to announce a political deal to advance the highway’s repavement. In September, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that a “definitive deal” would be reached by the end of the month between opposing forces within his cabinet to move the project forward. “We will build the BR-319 highway, I can assure you,” said Lula in an interview with Rede Amazônica TV. “But we will do so in agreement with environmentalists, with those who need the road, and above all, to serve two capitals that cannot remain isolated, such as Porto Velho [in the state of Rondônia]…This article was originally published on Mongabay