The BR-364 federal highway triggered one of the largest deforestation drives in the history of the Brazilian Amazon. Built in the early 1960s through the rainforest, it links Cuiabá, capital of Mato Grosso state, to Porto Velho, capital of Rondônia state, and was the first overland route to Brazil’s westernmost region, ending its long-standing geographic isolation. Since then, the landscape along the road has been reshaped by human settlement, with large swaths of forest cleared for commodity production. This process was driven by Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964-1985, which promoted the occupation of the Amazon Rainforest as a defense of national territory from “foreign invaders” — widely considered a conspiracy theory by historians — under the motto “integrate not to surrender.” This ideological vision opened Rondônia to agribusiness and mining expansion. Migrants from other parts of the country, especially from the southern agricultural states, were encouraged to clear the forest as they moved north along BR-364. Fueled by soybean, corn and beef production, Rondônia is now one of Brazil’s leading agribusiness states, where a pro-deforestation mindset prevails, rooted in a population largely disconnected from the forest, rivers and traditional Amazonian culture. This view gained renewed momentum under Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right president from 2019-2022, who won all 52 of Rondônia’s municipalities in both the 2018 and 2022 elections. Cutting across Rondônia, BR-364 has become a key route for moving grain, beef and minerals to ports on the Madeira River in Porto Velho. From there, commodities from Brazil’s central-west region are…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed