BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — In an unusual move, a Brazilian federal court has halted progress on a paving project a dirt road that connects the large city of Manaus to populated regions, determining it will likely contribute to climate change.
The court on Wednesday suspended a key environmental license after the Climate Observatory – a network of 107 environmental, civil society and academic groups – argued that the preliminary license could lead to mass deforestation of pristine tropical forests.
Amazon deforestation is the main source of Brazil’s climate-changing carbon emissions, and most of it occurs along roads, where access is easier and land values are higher.
The license was issued in 2022, during the government of the far-right former president JairBolsonaro. In the decision, federal judge Maria Elisa Andrade sided with the author, stating that the license ignored analyzes by the Brazilian environmental agency, Ibama, indicating that the highway project lacks a governance plan to stop rampant deforestation in the region.
“The absence of a climate impact study diminishes the quality of risk management analyzes and undermines the balance between projected impacts and measures to avoid, mitigate and compensate for damage,” states the decision.
The prior license is essential for final approval of the paving project, as it means that the project has passed economic and environmental assessments. The asphalt works have not yet started and other bureaucratic steps are pending.
With the court decision, the federal government, now under the leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvawill have to reassess the highway’s environmental impact on deforestation, indigenous peoples and the climate.
In a statement, Ibama said it would not comment on the decision until the federal judicial authorities formally sent it.
Suely Araújo, senior political consultant at Observatório do Clima and former president of Ibama, said it is unprecedented for the Brazilian judiciary to link an infrastructure project to climate change. “There is not enough environmental governance in the region to impose control on deforestation,” she said in a telephone interview.
BR-319 – which runs for around 900 kilometers – is the only highway that connects Manaus, where 2.2 million people live, to the country’s urban centers to the south. Half of its length is unpaved and impassable during the rainy season, helping to keep forest cutters away.
However, growing expectations that the road would be paved have led to an increase in deforestation in the region in recent years.
Brazil is the world’s fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing almost 3% of global emissions, according to Climate Watch, an online platform managed by the World Resources Institute. Almost half of these emissions come from the destruction of trees in the Amazon rainforest, which reached a 15-year high during Bolsonaro’s presidency.
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