Amazon rainforest cut down to build highway for COP climate summit

A new four-lane highway is being harvested through thousands of acres of thousands of acres of protected Amazon Renforest for the COP30 Climate Summit in Balem, Brazil.

Its purpose is to reduce traffic in the city, which will host more than 50,000 people including world leaders at the conference in November.

The state government avoids the “permanent” credibility of the highway, but some are angry at the local and protectionist environmental impact.

Amazon plays an important role in absorbing carbon and providing biodiversity for the world, and many people say that this deforestation is contradictory to the very purpose of the climate summit.

With partially built road, the succulent rainforest towers are reminiscent of what was there once there. The log is stacked high in clean land which extends more than 13 km (8 mi) through the rainforest in the belem.

Excavals and machines carve through the forest floor, floating on the wetlands on the surface of the road that will be cut through a protected area.

Claudio Varyus lives about 200 meters from where the road will be. He once made an income from harvesting of Akai berries from trees occupying space.

“Everything was destroyed,” he says, pointing to clearing.

“Our crop has already been harvested. We no longer have that income to support our family.”

He says that he has not received any compensation from the state government and is currently relying on savings.

They are concerned that the construction of this road will cause more forest harvesting in the future, now this area is more accessible to businesses.

“We are afraid that one day someone will come here and say: ‘There are some money here. We need to make this area a gas station, or to make a warehouse.’ And then we have to leave.

“We were born here in the community and raised. Where are we going to go?”

Their community will not be connected to the road, its walls will be given on both sides.

“There will be no benefit for those who live on the side of the highway for us. There will be benefits for trucks that will pass. If someone becomes ill, and needs to go to the center of the bell, we will not be able to use it.”

The road leaves two disconnected areas of the protected forest. Scientists are worried that it will disrupt the ecosystem and inhibit the movement of wildlife.

Professor Sylvia Sardinha is a wildlife veterinarian and researcher at the animal hospital of a university who looks at the site of the new highway.

She and her team rehabilitate wild animals with injuries, mainly due to humans or vehicles.

Once he recovered, they leave them back into the wild – something she says that if they have a highway at the door it will be difficult.

“From the moment of deforestation, there is a disadvantage.

“We are going to lose an area to leave these animals back into the natural environment of these species,” he said.

“Land animals will no longer be able to cross the other side, reduce areas where they can live and breed.”

The Brazilian President and the Environment Minister say it will be a historic summit as it is “a policeman in Amazon, not a policeman about Amazon”.

The President says that the meeting will provide an opportunity to focus on the needs of Amazon, show the world to show the forest and to protect it by the federal government.

But Prof. Serdinha says that while this conversation will “at a very high level, between business people and government officials, people living in Amazon are” not being heard “.

The state government of Para postponed the idea of ​​this highway, known as Avnida Liberdade, in early 2012, but due to environmental concerns it was repeatedly sheltered.

Now a host of infrastructure projects has been revived or approved to prepare the city for the police summit.

Adler Silvira, secretary of the state government’s infrastructure, listed the highway as one of the 30 projects in the city to “prepared” and “modernize”, so “we can do a legacy for the population and more importantly, serve people for the COP30 in the best way”.

Talking to the BBC, he said it was a “durable highway” and a “significant dynamics intervention”.

He said that it would have wildlife crossing, bike lane and solar lighting for animals. New hotels are also being built and the port is being redeveloped so that cruise ships can do dock there to accommodate additional visitors.

The federal government of Brazil is investing more than $ 81m (£ 62M) to expand the capacity of the airport from “seven to 14 million passengers”. A new 500,000 square meter City Park, Perk da CIDED, is under construction. This will include green space, restaurant, a sports complex and other facilities for the public.

Some trade owners in the city’s huge open-air Ver-O-Peso market agree that this development will bring opportunities to the city.

“The city is being improved as a whole, it is being repaired and a lot of people are going from other places. This means that I can sell more and earn more,” says Dalli Cardso da Silva, who runs a leather shoe stall.

He says that it is necessary because when he was small, the bellmum was “beautiful, well kept, well -looked after”, but it was then “left” and “neglected” with “a little interest from the ruling class”.

Joao Alexandre Trinded da Silva, who sells Amazonian herbal medicines in the market, accepts that all construction works can cause problems, but they realized that the future effects would be worth it.

“We hope that the discussions are not only on paper and real action is not made. And the remedy, it has been decided, in fact it is kept in practice so that the planet can breathe a little better, so that there is a slight cleaner in the future in the future.”

It will also be the hope of world leaders who choose to attend the COP30 Summit.

The investigation on the fact is increasing whether thousands of them are flying around the world, and the infrastructure required to host them is reducing the cause.