Road threatens Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park, a Natural World Heritage Site

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A proposed Bill intends to reopen the road that crosses the Natural Heritage Site, one of the last reserves of Atlantic Forest in the South of the country. If approved, the proposal could also put other conservation units at risk.

The dispute, already decided in court 35 years ago, runs the risk of creating a U-turn in Brasília. The bill (PL984/2019) attempts to reopen the Colono Highway, closed in 1986 due to the environmental damage it caused when crossing the Iguaçu National Park. The park has been declared a Natural World Heritage Site by Unesco and is the second most visited conservation area in the country.

Authored by congressman Nelsi Conguetto Maria (PSD-PR), better known as Vermelho, the current proposal calls for the creation of a new category of conservation unit, the Park Road. In this way, it would be possible to reactivate the 18-kilometer-long road between the cities of Serranópolis do Iguaçu and Capanema, both in Paraná state.

Generating a wave of protests including the invasion of the stretch by residents and even the threat of losing the title given by Unesco, this is the most recent episode in the long history of attempts to reestablish the Colono Highway.

“The bill does not only impact Iguaçu. It is intended to allow the opening of roads in all the [national] parks, putting all the conservation units in Brazil at risk. That is why it is so serious,” argues Angela Kuczach, biologist and for seven years executive director of the National Pro-Conservation Units Network.

The Road of Discord

Officially created in 1939, the Iguaçu National Park, famous for its waterfalls, is one of the last contiguous remnants of the Atlantic Forest in the South of the country. The Brazilian biome is the most threatened, especially in Paraná, where little more than 2% of the original area of this native vegetation remains in conservation units.

On the state road map, the first records of the Colono Highway date from the 1950s. Before this, the route was a trail through the middle of the forest, used in the past by indigenous people and later by migrants during the westward expansion.

In 1986, a first court decision determined the closing of the road. Several initiatives have tried to reopen it, after the occupation of the route by local residents and injunctions obtained in court. The most recent episode was in 2003, when the Federal and State Police were deployed to the region to guarantee the judicial decision.

Since then, with the recovery of the Atlantic Forest, the bed of the old road disappeared. An eventual reactivation of the route would cause a major deforestation, the dimension of at least 50 soccer fields. “This would affect hundreds of species of flora and fauna, including endangered species,” warns a technical note on the subject written by the Public Prosecutor (MP).

“Can you imagine the image flashing around the world of the first tractor felling the first tree in the Iguaçu National Park, one of the most emblematic in Brazil and the world? It would be an absurdity, a scandal, and cause inestimable damage to the region’s image,” comments Kuczach.

Asphalt vs. park

The deputy is the third to attempt this legislative maneuver. In the early 2000s, Irineu Colombo (PT-PR) started the discussion that later became a Bill signed by Assis do Couto (PDT-PR). Neither of these two was reelected.

The current justification of Vermelho in the House is that the proposal would solve a logistics problem in the state and would make the municipalities more dynamic. He argues that the cities suffer from economic stagnation and population decline due to the lack of road connections with larger centers.

Contrasted with this position, according to the MP’s technical note, the data on the economy of the cities, “does not corroborate the political discourse in defense of the opening of the road”.

Serranópolis do Iguaçu, a city with 4,500 inhabitants, receives ICMS Ecológico, which, the note points out, corresponds to more than 20% of the city’s revenue. The Master Plan, in fact, does not recommend the reactivation of the road, but highlights the positive aspects of the park, such as rural tourism, quiet life and beautiful scenery.

Because it is close to the triple border (with Argentina and Paraguay), the road also represents a threat to national public security, points out the document of the MP. In the past, the route through the park was used to transport smuggled goods, drugs and even weapons.

Capanema, on the other hand, with 19 thousand inhabitants, registered a population increase above the expectations of its Master Plan and already has a road network that connects the city to other more developed regions.

Jaguars and the Atlantic Forest

The Iguaçu National Park, which received 2 million visitors in 2019 alone, is the last green island surrounded by large plantations, mainly soybeans. “When the road was opened, we still had a western Paraná full of forest. Today, all that is left is Iguaçu,” Kuczach recalls.

Conservation has made it possible to increase the population of jaguars, the largest feline in the Americas, which is in danger of extinction. The last census released by the Onças do Iguaçu project, in 2019, indicated a 27% increase in the number of these animals over the previous two years.

For Mario Mantovani, director of SOS Mata Atlântica, “there are all the justifications in the world for not reactivating the road. Besides the successful history of preservation of the park, the surrounding municipalities have the possibility to explore ecological tourism”, says Mantovani, who participated in debates on the subject in local public hearings.

He evaluates the chances of approval of the bill, as excellent. “Now, with the current government, the environment has become hated. It is an escalation of violence against whatever the natural and collective heritage there is,” he says, referring to the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

Source: DW