A land that time forgot, but not anymore
Our visit to Igapó-Açú came near the end of our south-to north drive along the BR-319, after days punctuated by stops in small logging towns and camps. Although we rode past several protected areas as we went, none were feasible for a visit, either restricted by access or a lack of staff. Nildo’s reserve is a case apart, as the highway passes right through it.
Not surprisingly, this intimate proximity to the road poses the primary threat to the sustainable management of this reserve.
The community that lives on the banks of the Igapó Açú is divided as to the human opportunities and threats to nature afforded by the highway. When we were there, we heard complaints about the difficulty of driving the poorly maintained sections of the BR-319 in the rainy season and a lack of access to basic amenities, including an internet connection and high school. One of Nildo’s teenage daughters, for example, must travel 100 kilometers (62 miles) to attend high school in Careiro Castanho.
Nildo himself is hopeful regarding possibilities for the protected area. On a Sunday morning, he took us on his boat on a tour of the flooded forest. Sailing among the trees, he praised the great tourist potential the SDR affords, especially for groups that practice sport fishing.
Roads on all sides
Like other conserved areas in the Purus-Madeira region, Igapó-Açu was created as part of a strategy initiated in 2009 by environmentalists and government bodies to stem the pressures of unbridled occupation that improvement of the BR-319 was expected to bring to this well-preserved part of the Amazon.
Today, there are 11 protected areas totaling an impressive 6.38 million hectares (24,600 square miles) – a territory one and a half times larger than Denmark – put in place to offset the anticipated development effects coming when the BR-319 was improved and paved.
Now that the government is moving ahead with maintenance and a promise made in 2005 by then-President Lula to fully pave the 890 kilometer (550 mile) road, conservationists are worried – partly because the route cuts the moist forest ecosystem in half from north-to-south, and partly because the 11 conservation units mostly exist only on paper, without proper management or enforcement.
The BR-319, built in the 1970s during Brazil’s military dictatorship, rapidly deteriorated over the decades, taking a pounding from harsh Amazon rains, which turned it into an insufferable mudhole that swallowed vehicles. Maintenance over the last four years has now made it passable throughout the wet and dry seasons for the first time in many years.
Now, the Brazilian government, through the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT), is preparing an environmental impact study for the pavement of a 405 kilometer (250 miles) stretch, turning the entire road into a modern highway. Expectations are that the environmental license application will be complete and delivered to Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, for approval in the first half of 2019.
The chief concern to conservationists related to the BR-319 is that it transects the interfluvial zone, the slight uplift between the Purus and Madeira river basins.
This territory, with its moist forest habitat boasts rich biodiversity intensified by the intermingling of plants and animals from the two river systems. As with other regions closed in by two large bodies of water, endemic species have developed and flourish here. In addition, past neglect to the BR-319 closed the region to most people, allowing the largely unfragmented, tropical rainforest, lake ecosystems and flooded forests to flourish.
One of the major issues being addressed in the environmental licensing process is the potential construction of auxiliary roads leading away from the BR-319. Among these is the AM-366, an Amazonas state highway which when complete will link to the city of Tefé, hundreds of kilometers to the west, with the road also connecting Porto Velho to Manaus.
There is also grave concern regarding unauthorized sideroads, bulldozed by illegal and legal loggers, cattle ranchers and land grabbers once these Amazon highways are built and/or improved. Such sideroads appeared rapidly in the once remote Tapajós basin, for example, as soon as the BR-163 was largely paved, offering access to land thieves who have since carved out claims to federal conservation units and indigenous reserves.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
South Africa Today – Environment
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