Roads in the Amazonthe nation hope
Editorial
A Reuters report published in the Chronicle of January 19, quotes experts who say that Brazil's well-intentioned efforts to build roads into her Amazon rainforest may end up destroying it, as well as costing the country more ecologically than it gains economically. Brazil's ever increasing population had to be accommodated, the report continued, and as the poor moved into the "frontier" regions, pressure was being put on the Amazon. The researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Michigan State University, Oregon State University and Brazil itself, used satellite data to chart the impact of past development and project what would happen twenty years down the road. According to the report they found that roads which had once been confined to the perimeter of the Amazon, were now penetrating to its heart. "Illegal logging and land-clearing are rampant," they wrote. "New roads that cut into the frontier almost always initiate a process of spontaneous colonisation, logging, hunting and land speculation that is almost impossible to stop. The only way to control these processes is to control where the roads are located." According to Reuters, the researchers also predicted that the new roads would devastate the rainforest, which in turn would produce more forest fires, a decrease in wildlife and the release of the greenhouse gases which fuel global warming. While logging and mining, said the report, might not immediately clear trees in an area, it could thin that area to such an extent that it would become dry and vulnerable to fire. In a separate statement issued by one of the members of the team, it was said that there was little Brazilian government control in the Amazon frontier. Without much forethought, without much research, and without any debate, this country has now committed itself to integrate with the Brazilian Amazonian road system. In addition, we have also acceded to the construction of a deep-water harbour which would serve the interests of our neighbour alone, and certainly not our interests, given our current circumstances. If the Federal Government in Brasilia cannot control what is happening as a consequence of road-building in the Amazon, then she is surely not going to help Guyana control her nationals in our portion of the region. And her landless poor will view our forest in the same way as they do their own. Of course, proponents of the project are advocating that the road and the harbour represent 'development.' However, when making decisions of this kind, all the consequences have to be carefully weighed, and the negative implications not obscured in a haze of rosy optimism. That eventually we will have to have an artery to Brazil which bridges the rivers, there is no doubt, and in due course too, a deep-water harbour. But to do it now is to invite problems beyond our capacity to control. The project should have been conceived of in managed stages. Stage one - what we need right now - is a road linking the Rupununi with the coast. As long as it does not involve a deep-water harbour, we will not have to confront the huge problem of Brazilian container traffic which will be thundering through the rainforest reserve of Iwokrama, among other places, and which will transform the Guyana corridor into a major drug route, and invite an invasion of Brazilians. And as long as we still have a pontoon service across the Essequibo at Kurupukari, rather than a bridge, the traffic between the Brazilian states of Para and Roraima might even be manageable. Furthermore, in this initial stage we also need a development plan for the Rupununi, which would allow for that region's economic progress, before it and the rest of the nation are subjected to the full blast of Brazilian nationals, Brazilian business ventures, the Brazilian ethos, Brazilian environmental destruction and the Portuguese language - the last of which, it might be noted, has long been the lingua franca in some border areas, and may end up becoming the lingua franca for huge swathes of the country. It goes without saying too that we need to regain control of our hinterland before we surrender completely to Brazilian influence, so we can police it adequately, monitor the concessions which have been granted there, guarantee the integrity of Amerindian lands and protect the environment. Not to mention, of course, police our frontiers. At present, the Government's writ runs no further than the coastal strip, and even then, not the whole of it. Most of all, we should not be rushing to commit the same mistakes as Brazil herself.
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