The BR-319 threatens the Amazon in the name of ‘progress’ and politics

On 15 July, Brazil’s environment minister Marina Silva and transport minister Renan Filho formally announced and signed an agreement outlining plans to reconstruct the controversial BR-319 highway.

On the surface, this appears to be a calculated strategy with promises of environmental assessments and governance structures. But beneath the political rhetoric, lies a dark, irreversible truth: the BR-319 may be the final blow that drives the Amazon to the brink of collapse.

BR-319: the path of destruction

The BR-319 is an 885km stretch of road cutting through one of the last untouched areas of the Amazon rainforest. Connecting Manaus to Porto Velho, it cuts through pristine rainforest, Indigenous lands, and vital biodiversity.

Originally built under Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, it was abandoned in 1988 for being economically and environmentally unviable. But like a ghost from the past, the BR-319 keeps returning, this time with far more dangerous implications.

Governments have tried to revive the highway for decades. Yet every credible environmental study confirms that paving the BR-319 would open a Pandora’s box of illegal roads, deforestation, degradation, land-grabbing, and violent occupation.

Lucas Ferrante, researcher at the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), highlighted the alarming consequences of Brazil’s current environmental policies and the lack of effective safeguards. He emphasised the global implications of these decisions and their impact on the Amazon region:

The country is systematically ignoring warnings from the scientific community, despite clear evidence published in leading journals such as Science, Nature, and The Lancet. This is a deliberate decision that threatens all nations across the globe.

In this context, Brazil is left without any effective environmental safeguards, and the BR-319 highway has become a route for the expansion of deforestation, land grabbing, illegal cattle ranching, organised crime, and oil extraction in the Amazon.

Governance: a dangerous illusion

The government claims it will establish a governance model to monitor the region. However, even Brazil’s federal police army have declared any governance scenario unachievable and unrealistic. Given the vast and challenging terrain, no oversight body has the resources, reach, or capacity to contain the chaos the BR-319 would unleash.

Today, more than 6,000km of illegal side roads already crisscross the region, forming a devastating fishbone pattern that grants unprecedented access to miners, loggers, land-grabbers and organised crime. The BR-319 would not just be a road, it would become an artery of destruction, feeding a vast, uncontrolled deforestation machine.

BR-319 is a death sentence for the rainforest

The BR-319 would connect the central Amazon to the AMACRO region, a deforestation hotspot named after the states of Amazonas, Acre, and Rondônia. Its reconstruction would bring catastrophic consequences, destroying biodiversity by opening one of the richest ecosystems on Earth to exploitation.

It would intensify climate change by releasing vast amounts of stored carbon. It would fuel illegal mining and logging, undermining the rule of law. It would invade Indigenous territories, violate their rights and put their lives at risk. And it would create a fertile ground for organised crime to flourish.

The damage would not be limited to the forest. The “flying rivers”, massive air currents that transport moisture from the Amazon to southern Brazil, would be disrupted. These flying rivers are essential to rainfall patterns. Without them, major cities and agricultural regions will experience crippling droughts.

Over 70% of the rainfall that sustains São Paulo’s Cantareira water system originates from the Amazon. If BR-319 moves forward, the water security of Brazil’s largest city could be at risk, leading to direct consequences for agriculture and potentially causing a collapse across the country’s economic sectors.

The human cost: disease and displacement

The consequences of the BR-319 would also be measured in human lives.

By destroying forest ecosystems and pushing deeper into wildlife habitats, this project creates the perfect conditions for new zoonotic diseases to emerge, and increases the risk of another global pandemic. Malaria cases in the region have already increased by 400%.

The spread of Oropouche fever, transmitted by the tiny Culicoides paraense mosquito, known locally as maruim, has been another alarming sign. Between 2022 and 2024, more than 6,000 cases of Oropouche fever were recorded. These outbreaks originated in the AMACRO region, and have already spread across Brazil to the state of Espírito Santo, to other countries in South America, and the Caribbean.

According to the UK government, several travel-associated Oropouche cases have been reported in the US, Europe and the UK.

Ferrante warns about the severe biosecurity risks associated with ongoing environmental destruction in the Amazon:

Deforestation and environmental degradation are already encroaching upon sensitive areas that safeguard unique zoonotic reservoirs. The Oropouche virus lineage now reaching Europe originates from this region. Nevertheless, the Brazilian government is opening a true Pandora’s box of new viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. The consequences for global biosecurity will be catastrophic.

If BR-319 goes forward, the health crisis will deepen. The Amazon will become a breeding ground for future pandemics, and Brazil will bear the cost of a preventable catastrophe.

Who really benefits from BR-319?

The benefits of BR-319 won’t go to the Indigenous people, whose lands and lives it threatens. There are 69 Indigenous territories and 18,000 Indigenous people along the path of the highway. None of them have been properly consulted, despite protections under ILO Convention 169 and Brazilian law.

Instead, the primary beneficiaries will be oil and gas giants like Petrobras and Rosneft (Russian), mining companies such as Potássio do Brasil (Canadian), and agribusiness conglomerates like JBS.

Legal and illegal mining operations will expand. Livestock farming, which is already responsible for at least 88% of deforestation in the Amazon, will be supercharged. The result will be more forests cleared, more carbon in the atmosphere, and more violence on the ground.

The highway will also strengthen the grip of organised crime. Land-grabbing and illegal deforestation are already closely tied to criminal networks in the region. BR-319 would create a corridor of exploitation and conflict.

The bioeconomy mirage

Some argue that the BR-319 is essential for developing Brazil’s so-called ‘bioeconomy’. According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the bioeconomy is projected to generate over $7.7tn globally by 2030. This concept, however, remains poorly defined and deeply controversial.

With COP30 on the horizon, Brazil is pushing this narrative hard. But what is being sold as a sustainable alternative may just be a new form of extraction.

Under the banner of the bioeconomy, projects include carbon credits, biofuels, timber and non-timber forest products, fishing, biotechnology, tourism, and even virtual platforms.

A bill has been proposed to create a bioeconomy free trade zone (FTZ) in Belém, the host city for COP30. It offers tax incentives, deregulation, and trade privileges. The beneficiaries, once again, will be corporations and elites.

Far from being a solution, the bioeconomy risks becoming another vehicle for greenwashing destruction in the Amazon.

BR-319: devastation by law

Underlying all this devastation is legislation designed to dismantle Brazil’s environmental protections. Bill 2159/21, known as the ‘Devastation Bill’, allows companies to self-license their projects without any environmental impact assessment. A simple online form is all it takes. Backed by the powerful “ruralista” bloc, large landowners and agribusiness interests, this bill paves the way for unregulated expansion in oil and gas, mining, agribusiness, and infrastructure, including the BR-319.

On 17 July, Brazil’s chamber of deputies approved the Devastation Bill, which now awaits president Lula’s approval. This marks a significant blow to Brazil’s efforts on environmental justice and climate commitments.

Another law, 14.701/2023 (previously PL490), known as the “marco temporal”, redefines Indigenous land rights. It states that Indigenous communities can only claim land if they were in possession of it on October 5, 1988, the day the Brazilian constitution was enacted.

Ferrante said:

Brazil is experiencing the greatest environmental vulnerability in its history. This decision aligns with the approval of bill 2159/2021, which eliminates environmental licensing for this type of project, and with the advancement of the so-called ‘timeframe thesis’, which invalidates the recognition of Indigenous lands demarcated after 1988.

This cruel logic ignores centuries of displacement and paves the way for violent evictions, granting military police the authority to remove Indigenous people from their own ancestral lands.

What future do we choose?

The BR-319 is more than just a highway; it’s a symbol of a dangerous choice. It forces us to decide between two futures: one where we protect the Amazon, respect Indigenous rights, and chart a sustainable path forward, and another where we sacrifice it all for short-term profits, political gain, and corporate greed.

The Brazilian government must make a real technical decision, one grounded in science, not politics, because once the BR-319 is paved, there will be no turning back. If we lose the Amazon, we lose the climate, we lose biodiversity, and we lose our collective future.

We must ask: is the destruction of the planet worth a few more kilometres of road? Is this the legacy we want to leave behind to the next generations?

Featured image via the Canary