The new four -lane highway that runs through tens of thousands of hectares of protected rainforest Amazon is being built for the Cop30 air conditioning in the Brazilian city of Belém.
It aims to facilitate traffic towards the city, which will host more than 50,000 people at a conference in November – including world leaders.
The state government is a “sustainable” highway credentials, but some locals and conservators are outraged for environmental impact.
Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say that this forest derivation is contrary to the purpose of the climate summit.
Along the partially built roads, lush towers of rainforests on both sides – a reminder of what used to be there. The logs accumulate high in a cleaned soil that extends more than 13 km (8 miles) through the rainforest in Belém.
Kopača and machines pass through the forest floor, and sprinkle over the swamp area to reach the road that will break the protected area.
Claudio Verequete lives about 200 m from where the road will be. He made a revenue from the harvest of the Açaí berry from the trees that once occupied the space.
“Everything is destroyed,” he says, gesticulating on the clearing.
“Our harvest has already been reduced. We no longer have this income that supports our family.”
He says he has not received a fee from the State Government and is currently reliving on savings.
He cares that the construction of this road will lead to more forests of forests in the future, now that the area is more accessible for companies.
“Our fear is that one day someone will come here and say, ‘Here’s a little money. We need this area to build a gas station or build a warehouse.” And then we’ll have to leave.
“We were born and grew up here in the community. Where are we going to go?”
His community will not be connected to the road, given the walls on both sides.
“There will be no advantage for us who live on the highway. There will be advantages for the trucks that will pass. If someone gets sick and we have to go to the center of Belém, we will not be able to use it.”
The road leaves two unrelated areas of the protected forest. Scientists are worried that they will fragment the ecosystem and disrupt the movement of wild animals.
Profl Silvia Sardinha is a veterinarian of wildlife and researcher at the University Hospital for Animals looking at the place of the new highway.
She and her team rehabilitate wild animals with injuries, mostly caused by humans or vehicles.
Once he hesitated, they let them back into the wild – something that says it will be harder if he has a highway on their threshold.
“There is a loss from the moment of forest craving.
“We will lose the area to let these animals into the wild, the natural environment of these species,” she said.
“Land animals will no longer be able to move to the other side, reducing areas where they can live and grow.”
Brazilian president and environmental minister say this will be a historic summit because “he is a police officer in Amazon, not a police officer about Amazon.”
The president says the meeting will give the opportunity to focus on the needs of the Amazon, show the forest to the world and present what the federal government has done to protect it.
But prof. Sardinha says that although these conversations will happen “at a very high level, among business people and government officials,” those who live in Amazon “will not be heard”.
The Pará State Government has published the idea of this highway known as Avenid Liberdade, as early as 2012, but has repeatedly been deposed for environmental care.
Now many infrastructure projects have been resurrected or approved to prepare the city for COP Summit.
Adler Silveira, the Secretary of State Government, listed this highway as one of 30 projects that happen in the city for “preparation” and “modernization”, so “we can have a legacy for the population and, more importantly, serve people for the COP30 in the best way possible.”
In an interview with the BBC, he said it was a “sustainable highway” and “important intervention of mobility”.
He added that he would have the cross -country crossings to cross the animals, bicycle strips and solar lighting. New hotels are also being built, and Luka is remodeled so that cruise ships can get there to adapt to surplus visitors.
The Brazilian Federal Government invests more than £ 81 million (£ 62 million) to expand the airport capacity with “seven to 14 million passengers”. In the construction of a new city park of 500,000 mm, Parque da cidade. It will include green areas, restaurants, sports complex and other facilities that will then use the public.
Some owners of companies on a huge outdoor town of Ver-o-Peso agree that this development will bring opportunities for the city.
“The city is improved as a whole, it is repaired, and many people are visiting from other places. This means that they can sell more and make more money,” says Dalci Cardoso da Silva, who runs the leather stans of shoes.
He says this is necessary because when he was young, Belém was “beautiful, well maintained, worn well,” but since then he has been “abandoned” and “neglected” with the “little interest of the ruling class”.
João Alexandre Trindade da Silva, who sells Amazon herbal medicines in the market, admits that all construction work can cause problems, but he thought the future influence would be worth it.
“We hope that discussions are not just on paper and become actual actions. And the measures, the decisions taken, are really in practice so that the planet could breathe a little better, so that the population will have a little clean air in the future.”
It will also be the hope of the world’s leaders who decide to attend the Cop30 Summit.
The examination grows about whether the flying of thousands of them is around the world, and infrastructure is needed for their catering, the subordination of the cause.
