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BR-319: Brazil’s plan for a highway to climate chaos in the Amazon [1]
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Date: 2025-05
As Brazil prepares to host next year’s annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP30, the country’s government is attempting to send a message to the world about its commitment to environmental conservation and sustainable development, and in particular its efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest.
Yet, it is embarking on a controversial project that is at odds with these statements: the plan to rebuild the BR-319 highway through the Amazon. The proposal, which has sparked intense debate in Brazil and further afield, could disrupt one of Earth’s most important ecosystems.
The BR-319, an 885-kilometre highway, was inaugurated in 1976 by Brazil's military dictatorship to connect the cities of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, and Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônia state.
The road cut through one of the best-preserved areas of the rainforest, but its condition quickly deteriorated and it was abandoned in 1988. In 2015, Dilma Rousseff's government launched a maintenance program to revive some of the highway. Since then, various governments have made multiple attempts to reconstruct the remaining 406 kilometres, which snake through old-growth forest.
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Most recently, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged to begin reconstruction on the controversial section of the road before his term ends in 2026, claiming it is needed as the Madeira River, which is used to carry cargo between Manaus and Porto Velho, is drying up.
During a visit to Amazonas in September, Lula said: “BR-319 is a necessity for the state of Amazonas, it is a necessity for Roraima [another northern Brazilian state] and a necessity for Brazil.”
Lula and the Brazilian government may promote BR-319 as essential for regional economic development, but the project endangers at least half of the country’s remaining rainforest and puts 69 Indigenous communities, 64 Indigenous territories, and more than 18,000 Indigenous people at risk.
The president’s vow also appears to conflict with his ambition to lead on the climate agenda. Climate scientists have warned that re-paving the road could trigger a climate crisis chain reaction with severe irreversible impacts on the Amazon, Brazil and the entire planet.
Irreversible consequences
Speaking to independent media outlet AmazoniaReal last month, Rodrigo Agostinho, the president of Brazil’s environmental protection agency, Ibama, warned that the BR-319 project could become a “major deforestation front”.
This was echoed by Philip Fearnside, senior researcher at Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who told me: “Repaving the BR-319 highway would link the relatively undisturbed central Amazon to the AMACRO region [named after the states of Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia].
“Although AMACRO is promoted as a sustainable development zone, it has become a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.”
The highway could have other irreversible consequences, too, such as the loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation. The rainforest could be pushed beyond its ability to survive, causing it to cease functioning as a carbon sink and disrupting its role as a regional and global climate regulator.
On 29 October, the authorities organised a meeting at the Ministry of Environment to hear scientists’ evidence on BR-319. There, Lucas Ferrante, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo and the Federal University of Amazonas, highlighted how repaving BR-319 will impact the so-called ‘flying rivers’ that he said play a “crucial role in regulating Brazil’s climate” – potentially leading to droughts.
“Moisture from the Atlantic Ocean is carried into the continent through the north region, where it enters the Amazon,” Ferrante explained. “Evapotranspiration from the preserved forest generates high-pressure systems that produce rainfall, which then travels southward, supplying water to the southeast, central-west and southern regions of Brazil.
“For instance, 70% of the rainfall that supplies the Cantareira system – responsible for providing water to São Paulo, the most densely populated area in South America – originates from this forested region. However, deforestation along BR-319 poses a serious threat to these flying rivers.
“We will face severe water shortages in densely populated regions, leading to the death of the most vulnerable populations, industrial disruptions, and devastating impacts on agriculture, rendering these areas uninhabitable. Essentially, the collapse of the flying rivers will trigger the breakdown of the country's economic sectors, potentially causing annual losses of up to $500bn.” Ferrante warned.
Repaving more of the road – and the increased farming that this will enable – will also worsen fires in the region, Ferrante explained.
He said: “Since 2023, Manaus has experienced a rise in smoke levels during the dry season, primarily due to forest fires spreading along the newly paved sections of BR-319, where cattle farming is rapidly expanding. The presence of asphalt accelerates deforestation, and fires are commonly used to clear land for pasture.”
From January to September this year, 22.38 million hectares of Brail burned – a 150% increase from last year, according to a survey by MapBiomas’ Fire Monitor, which tracks fire scars using satellite imagery. Over half of the burned area was in the Amazon.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/br-319-highway-brazil-amazon-lula-climate-crisis-deforestation-indigenous-illegal-mining/
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