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The Brazilian government is preparing to host the world’s largest climate summit uniquely – by chopping down tens of thousands of acres of the Amazon jungle for a new highway.
The city of Belém, more than 1500 miles away from Rio de Janeiro, will host COP30 from November 10 to 21 later this year.
COP is held yearly to assess how to reduce emissions and adapt to the impact of climate change. Former host cities include Glasgow, Nairobi, Berlin, Dubai and Durban.
To prepare for the influx of crowds for the global event, Brazil has decided the best way to cope is to build a new four-lane highway.
It is also trying to double the airport’s passenger capacity to 14million per year – no small feat to achieve in eight months at a cost of £62million. Actual footfall was less than four million last year.
But it’s not all concrete and deforestation – the federal government is also building a 500,000-square-metre city park, complete with restaurants and a sports complex. That’s half the size of London’s Hyde Park.
Machines are currently working to pave over the thick forest mud to build the new road, which runs straight through the protected Amazon forest.
In 2021, the Brazilian government pledged to end illegal deforestation by 2028, which would require a massive effort to rein in local industries.
One local who lives just 200m from the new road told the BBC his income has been wiped out – the trees he used to harvest açaí berries from have been destroyed.
Claudio Verequete said: ‘Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.’
‘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.’
Mr Verequete said those who live in communities near the highway won’t reap any of the benefits from it either.
‘If someone gets sick, and needs to go to the centre of Belém, we won’t be able to use it,’ he added.
Wildlife expert Professor Silvia Sardinha said: ‘We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species. Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side too, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.’
Last summer, deforestation prompted one of the world’s most isolated Indigenous tribes to emerge from a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon.
The Mashco Piro are thought to be the largest uncontacted tribe in the world, numbering more than 750 people, according to Survival International, a nonprofit advocating Indigenous rights.
They inhabit an area located between two natural reserves in Madre de Dios and usually do not leave the cover of the rainforest or communicate with outsiders.
Members of the reclusive tribe were seen breaking cover to look for food and move away from the growing presence of loggers, Indigenous rights group Fenamad said.
From metro.co.uk
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