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Brazil's Lula backs highway through Amazon that could drive deforestation

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, after months of hedging on the concern, has actually dedicated his government to completing a roadway through a. pristine part of the Amazon rain forest, a relocation scientists say. will bring dreadful logging.

Lula is under pressure to complete paving the BR-319 as an. option for transportation now that the Amazon is dealing with a. record dry spell that has decreased river water levels and hindered. navigation on major waterways connecting the north of Brazil, such. as the Madeira river.

While the Madeira river was navigable, the highway did not. have the value it has now. We are going to finish it with. the best obligation, Lula said on Tuesday.

The paving of BR-319 is an uncommon political stance that Lula. keeps in typical with his bane, ex-President Jair Bolsonaro,. who presided over sky-rocketing logging and likewise. promoted the highway.

Federal highway BR-319, a roughly 900 km (560 miles) stretch. from Porto Velho near Bolivia to the Amazon's biggest city of. Manaus, was first bulldozed through the forest in the 1970s by. Brazil's military dictatorship, but was then abandoned and the. jungle overgrew the majority of the roadway.

Sections at both ends have been paved, but more than 400 km. in the middle are still dirt roadway that turns to blockaded mud. in the rainy season.

Researchers and environmental activists state completion of the. road will open access to illegal loggers and miners, and farmers. who clear the forest by setting fires to open the land for. livestock ranching.

One study estimated the project would lead to a five-fold. rise in deforestation by 2030, the equivalent of an area larger. than the U.S. state of Florida.

Lula's Environmental Minister Marina Silva opposed the. highway, saying it was not practical in financial and ecological. terms. But in June a Transportation Ministry working group. contradicted her, concluding that the roadway was viable and her. view has lost ground in the administration.

DROUGHT AND FIRES

Going to the region on Tuesday, Lula denied Silva opposed. paving the highway, which was suspended in July by a federal. judge due to the absence of safeguards versus logging.

Speaking alongside Amazon state Governor Wilson Lima and 2. conservative senators who likewise back the project, Lula proposed. working out a certain option to recover the highway.

Much work needs to be done to end up the highway, including. reconstructing 2 bridges that collapsed and the construction of a. new bridge across the Igapo-Acu river, where trucks need to line. approximately make clear on a ferry barge.

The repercussions of the present dry spell are evident in the. unprecedented number of fires burning along the BR-319,. damaging countless hectares of rain forest, as experienced. today by a Reuters professional photographer.

Experts state fires in a tropical jungle do not ignite on. their own however are started by people, typically purposely to clear. land for farming. The flames spread out quickly through the. vegetation parched by drought. Paving BR-319 can just increase. destruction by fire, they state.

As extraordinary dry spell and fires ravage the Amazon, the. paving of the BR-319 highway will release a catastrophic wave of. deforestation that further intensifies today's crisis, with dire. international climatic ramifications, stated Christian Poirier, a. representative for Amazon Watch project group.

Lula's choice to continue with the highway opposed his. administration's avowed objective of including damage of the. Amazon.

He rejected global pressure to preserve the. rain forest that environment experts say is vital to slow global. warming.

The world that buys our food is demanding that we preserve. the Amazon. And why? Due to the fact that they desire us to look after the. air they breathe, he said, mentioning that Brazil will not keep. the Amazon as a sanctuary for humanity but will develop the. region financially in a sustainable method.

(source: Reuters)