‘Couldn’t make it up!’ Amazon forest felled to build four-lane highway for Cop30 climate summit
A controversial four-lane highway is being carved through protected Amazon rainforest to prepare for the Cop30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.
The new road aims to ease traffic for the more than 50,000 attendees, including world leaders, expected at the November conference.
State officials have promoted the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but the project has sparked outrage among locals and conservationists.
Critics argue the deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.
The partially built road stretches more than 13km through the rainforest into Belém, with construction equipment clearing wetlands and forest.
Claudio Verequete lives just 200m from the planned highway. His livelihood harvesting açaí berries has been devastated.
“Everything was destroyed,” he says, pointing to the clearing. “Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”
He has received no compensation from the state government and now relies on savings.
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The road will have walls on either side, leaving his community disconnected rather than served by it.
“For us who live on the side of the highway, there will be no benefits,” Verequete explains. He fears further development now the area is more accessible.
“Our fear is that one day someone will come here and say: ‘Here’s some money. We need this area to build a gas station, or to build a warehouse.’ And then we’ll have to leave.”
Scientists worry the road will fragment the ecosystem by leaving two disconnected areas of protected forest.
Prof Silvia Sardinha, a wildlife vet and researcher at a university animal hospital overlooking the construction site, has raised serious concerns.
She rehabilitates injured wild animals before releasing them back into nature.
“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss,” she said. “We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species.”
The highway will also restrict wildlife movement. Sardinha added: “Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side too, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”
Prof Sardinha later criticised the summit’s approach, saying that while discussions happen “at a very high level, among business people and government officials”, those living in the Amazon are “not being heard”.
Adler Silveira, the state government’s infrastructure secretary, defended the project as a “sustainable highway” and an “important mobility intervention”.
The highway is just one of 30 infrastructure projects underway to prepare Belém for Cop30.
Brazil’s federal government is investing more than $81million (£62million) to double the airport capacity to 14 million passengers.
A new 500,000 square mile city park is under construction, featuring green spaces, restaurants and sports facilities.
Some local business owners welcome the development despite environmental concerns.
“The city as a whole is being improved,” Dalci Cardoso da Silva, who runs a leather shoe stall at the Ver-o-peso market, said. He believes the improvements will boost his sales and income.
João Alexandre Trindade da Silva, who sells Amazonian herbal medicines, acknowledges construction causes problems but feels the outcome justifies it.
“We hope the discussions aren’t just on paper and become real actions,” he said.
World leaders attending Cop30 will face growing scrutiny over whether their global travel and the infrastructure required to host them undermines the climate cause.
The Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has framed this as “a Cop in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon”.
He suggested the summit will highlight the forest’s needs and showcase conservation efforts.