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Brazil judge obstructs paving of highway through heart of Amazon jungle

A Brazilian judge on Thursday provided an injunction to stop the paving of a highway through the center of the Amazon rain forest, amidst fears the road would boost deforestation and more drive environment modification.

Right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro had actually pledged to pave the BR-319 highway, a task that has massive local support in the Amazon in spite of experts and environmentalists' concerns around logging.

In his final months in office in 2022, Bolsonaro's. federal government released a license enabling it to go forward.

A judge suspended the license in a choice that mentioned the. require to have procedures in location to control logging before. paving, according to court documents on Thursday.

Justice was done. The value of this decision is. massive, stated Suely Araujo, a policy expert with ecological. lobby group Environment Observatory, which brought the suit. seeking to block the roadway.

There are no conditions to manage the explosion of. deforestation that paving the road will cause.

Paving the road would enable unlawful loggers and land. grabbers to more easily access remote and relatively untouched. locations of the world's largest jungle, environmental professionals. said. Logging is the biggest source of Brazil's greenhouse. gas emissions that assist to drive climate change.

One study estimated the job would lead to a fivefold. increase in logging by 2030, the equivalent of an area larger. than the U.S. state of Florida.

Brazil's then-military federal government developed the 900-km. ( 560-mile) BR-319 highway in the 1970s as the sole roadway. connection between the Amazon's largest city of Manaus and the. rest of the country.

However it quickly fell into disrepair and now invests much of. the year as an impassable stretch of muddy dirt roadway during the. Amazon's yearly rainy season.

Left-wing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office in. 2023, has spoken positively of paving BR-319, saying that it can. be done while likewise protecting the environment.

His government formed a working group to study the road. task but had actually not moved ahead with paving.

(source: Reuters)