Brazil is building a brand new, four-lane, eight-mile-long highway that will make travel to the small city of Belem easier. Called “Avenida Liberdade” by the state government, it’s being touted as a “sustainable mobility project, incorporating wildlife crossings, solar lighting, and bike lanes,” according to Carbon Pulse.
The road required clearing tens of thousands of acres of Amazon rainforest. But it will be worth it. It’s being built to speed up travel to Belem for the 50,000 government officials, NGO big shots, activists, protesters, celebrities, and hangers-on who will attend the 30th annual Conference of the Parties (COP).
Tens of thousands of acres of protected rainforest cut down in the Amazon for a **CLIMATE SUMMIT** highway
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 12, 2025
Even climate activists are upset about the road. The logs are piled high on either side of the road, which tore up protected wetlands. “Everything was destroyed,” said Claudio Verequete, who made a living from harvesting açaí berries from trees where the road is now.
“Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”
Brazilian President Lula de Sliva brags that the conference will be “a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon.”
Professor Silvia Sardinha fails to see any advantage. Sardinha rehabilitates animals injured by humans in vehicles and says, “From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss.”
“We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species,” she said.
I’m all for progress, and if a snail darter or a rare nesting bird is inconvenienced, that has to be weighed against what is gained. I think, in this case, the greens have a point. Cutting down an Amazon rainforest for a conference that’s trying to save the Amazon rainforest is just plain nuts.
Adler Silveira, the state government’s infrastructure secretary, listed this highway as one of 30 projects happening in the city to “prepare” and “modernise” it, so “we can have a legacy for the population and, more importantly, serve people for COP30 in the best possible way”.
Speaking to the BBC, he said it was a “sustainable highway” and an “important mobility intervention”.
He added it would have wildlife crossings for animals to pass over, bike lanes and solar lighting. New hotels are also being built and the port is being redeveloped so cruise ships can dock there to accommodate excess visitors.
Brazil’s federal government is investing more than $81m (£62m) to expand the airport capacity from “seven to 14 million passengers”. A new 500,000 sq-m city park, Parque da Cidade, is under construction. It will include green spaces, restaurants, a sports complex and other facilities for the public to use afterwards.
I am sick to death of people who try to tell the rest of us how to live, who turn around and do exactly what they wag their fingers at us to stop doing.
No one ever throws red paint on them. No one ever shouts them down. The fripping, nauseating hypocrisy of the entire green movement needs to be called out early and often.
“Scrutiny is growing over whether flying thousands of them across the world, and the infrastructure required to host them, is undermining the cause,” writes the BBC.
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