Highway through Amazon could lead to rainforest destruction

Supporters of the highway now being built to connect Pacific and Atlantic ocean commerce in South America compare it to the settling of the American West. The massive road project will represent speed and innovation, connecting Brazilian and Peruvian businesses with a main artery for the first time.

But expansion comes at a price. The intercontinental highway will cut through the Amazon, leaving fears of even faster destruction for the world’s most diverse ecosystem. Studies show three-quarters of the deforestation occurs within 30 miles of paved roads, according to a Boston Globe report.

Tropical rainforest conservation group Monga Bay reports Texas-based company Hunt Oil is already moving in to set up shop in Peru, just weeks after indigenous protesters were killed.

NPR reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro is traveling the under-construction highway, telling of the prosperity and destruction the highway is bringing to small towns along the way.

She talked to biologist Pedro Sentero, who has witnessed Peruvian migration patterns to cut down rainforests for farming and gold mining.

“The problem is that Peru has some very good laws on the protection of flora and fauna, but the issue is those laws are not enforced,” he says. “The government is in charge of making sure those laws are observed, but it does nothing, practically speaking.”

And there lies the crux of the problem. Brazil and Peru, South America’s largest and fifth largest economies, need to take on responsibility for their rainforests. A healthy dose of international pressure wouldn’t hurt here either. Not to say the U.S. isn’t hypocritical in making such suggestions, however. It didn’t take long for us to decimate the bison population and turn the great plains into a dust bowl.

Nevertheless, the Amazon is too important not to save. If a highway cuts through it, it should be clear through legislation and conservation that it is to connect two economic hubs, not open up the Amazon to chainsaws and mudslides.