Plans to build a railway that would slice South America from east to west, crossing part of the Amazon Rainforest, are advancing with Chinese funding, according to a recent announcement by the Brazilian government.
Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, along with ministers and Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, met in Beijing on May 13 to discuss the proposed rail link connecting South America’s Atlantic and Pacific ports.
“The plan is, in fact, to rip Brazil from east to west,” said Simone Tebet, Brazil’s planning minister. “When we talk about cutting across Brazil, we’re talking about at least 3,000 kilometers [1,864 miles].”
The proposed railway, known as the Bioceanic Corridor, would connect Brazil’s Ilhéus Port on the Atlantic Coast to Peru’s new Pacific-facing Chancay Port. The latter opened in November 2024, following $3.4 billion in investments, largely from the Chinese shipping company COSCO, which owns 60% of Chancay port.
The Brazilian government said the project would allow exported commodities to be rerouted from Brazil’s agricultural strongholds to China via the Pacific Ocean. This would cut shipping times by up to 10 days compared with the current route across the Atlantic Ocean and around the southern tip of the African continent.
“Of what we export to the Chinese, 60% is iron ore and soy, which need to be transported by rail. It is much more efficient, not only from an economic standpoint, but also from an environmental one,” said Leonardo Ribeiro, the secretary of railway transport.
The proposed path would pass through the Matopiba region, an expanding frontier for soy and cattle that accounted for 75% of deforestation in the biodiverse Cerrado savanna in 2024. The railway would continue westward through the Amazonian states of Rondônia and Acre.
The government recently changed a previously proposed route passing through Indigenous territories reaching the westernmost municipality of Cruzeiro do Sul in Acre. The latest route follows existing highways in southern Acre, avoiding Indigenous territories and more intact forests.
“Railways cause less impacts than highways. And from the little we know so far, it will not go through any Indigenous territories,” Ivaneide Bandeira, coordinator of the Kanindé Association, a nonprofit organization in Rondônia state, told Mongabay in an audio message. But construction and resulting agricultural expansion may cause negative impacts, she added.
Dilma Rousseff, former Brazilian president now leading the BRICS Bank from Shanghai, told national media in Brazil that Chinese leader Xi has greenlighted the plan, but it still requires approval from the state-owned China State Railway Group.
Brazil’s planning minister Tebet has requested a response in the next 30 days, aiming to sign a formal agreement at the BRICS summit July 6-7 in Rio de Janeiro, national news outlet Gazeta do Povo reported.
Banner image: Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Beijing in May. Image courtesy of Ricardo Stuckert/Brazil government.
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