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In Bolivia, A Battle Over A Highway and a Way of Life

27 August 2012 - Carmelo Aguilera steadies the dugout canoe as his 11-year-old son, Juan Gabriel, stands precariously and aims his bow and arrow toward the Secure River below. “Fish flesh makes better bait,” says the boy, explaining why the dawn expedition begins with a hunter’s weapon rather than a hook and line.

Deep inside Bolivia’s Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, known as TIPNIS, the Aguileras live more than 30 hours by boat from the nearest city, surviving mainly on fish and a few homegrown crops. “The river is our lifeblood,” says Aguilera, 62.

Bolivia has been embroiled in conflict for the past year over the planned construction of a 182-mile highway, 32 miles of which would cut through TIPNIS, a vital ecosystem — located at the geographic heart of South America — that links the Andes and the Amazon basins. The road would be an important addition to Bolivia’s woefully undeveloped highway system. Yet environmental studies predict that the project will cause widespread damage, contaminating the park’s three main rivers, opening large areas of forest to illegal logging and settlement, and altering habitats that are home to 11 endangered species and rare primates. All that would threaten the traditional way of life of the reserve’s three dwindling indigenous cultures — the Tsimanes, Yuracarés and Mojeńo-Trinitarios.

“Our future,” says Aguilera, a Yuracaré elder, “is uncertain.”

The controversy has brought Bolivia to a crossroads, one that is emblematic of the complex choices over development now confronting much of South America. Bolivia’s highway project is part of a Brazilian-led effort commonly known as IIRSA, or the Initiative for the Regional Integration of South America — a vast network of 531 mega-projects including hydroelectric dams, highways, bridges, and electrical power systems that seeks to propel the continent into the 21st century. Although these projects are filling a major infrastructure void, most are being constructed within the fragile ecosystems of the Amazon basin, which environmentalists warn could do irreparable damage to the world’s largest tropical forest.

If built, the TIPNIS road would likely be a major transport route for moving Brazilian soybeans to Pacific ports for shipment to China. Brazil’s oil giant, Petrobras, also holds exploration rights inside TIPNIS near the planned highway. This has prompted critics to charge that the TIPNIS road and other IIRSA projects are designed primarily to benefit Brazilian industry rather than to provide economic and social advancement for the people of Bolivia and the Amazon basin. To deflect growing criticism over IIRSA, Brazil has vowed to give greater weight to the environmental and social aspects of these megaprojects and has recently renamed the effort the South American Council on Infrastructure and Planning, or COSIPLAN.

For the complete article, please see Yale Environment 360.