South American waterway on hold
Brazilian judge wants to see potential environmental impacts
© 2000 Associated Press
December 22, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAO PAULO, Brazil, Dec. 22 — Work on a major river transportation system that links five South American countries has been halted by a Brazilian judge who has demanded a full report on the environmental danger it poses. Some studies conclude it would drain large areas of the Pantanal wetlands, upsetting the delicate ecosystem and possibly affecting migration patterns and even the weather.
JUDGE JULIER Sebastiao da Silva project could cause suspended the environmental licenses for irreversible damage to projects along a 2,135-mile-long waterway thousands of plant and that meshes the Parana and Paraguay rivers animal species that live in and runs through parts of central-western the Pantanal, a Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina and 54,000-square-mile area.
His decision put a stop to dredging activities and halted construction of highways and ports that are part of the government’s plans to develop the region through which the two rivers run in the state of Mato Grosso. Brazil’s Transportation Ministry says the project involves cleaning navigation channels and placing signals to guarantee the safety of the barges that navigate the Parana-Paraguay waterway.
Brazil uses the waterway to export about $500 million a year in grain and minerals to Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay.
HUGE WILDLIFE AREA
But the Paraguay River cuts through large parts of the Pantanal, a vast 54,000-square-mile wildlife sanctuary, and environmentalists fear the project could cause irreversible damage to thousands of plant and animal species that live there. A series of studies, including one by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, have shown that the waterway would drain large areas of the Pantanal, upsetting the delicate ecosystem and possibly affecting migration patterns and even the weather.
The Transportation Ministry, which is in charge of the project, said it would ask the attorney general’s office to take measures to overturn the judge’s restraining order.
“It makes no sense,” Eurico Batista, one of Environment news the Ministry’s spokesmen said by phone. “The Parana and Paraguay rivers are naturally regularly navigable and have been used to transport cargo since the early 1970s.”
He denied that work on the waterway would damage the Pantanal as well as environmentalists’ claims that the rivers courses are being altered, widened and straightened to enable year-round navigation.
BEYOND BARGES Environmentalists agree that the rivers are navigable, but argue that while in the 1970s only small boats plied the rivers, now giant barge convoys use the waterway. “They constantly scrape the margins, causing erosion, and their powerful engines damage the rivers’ ecosystem,” said Sergio Guimaraes, president of the Instituto Centro Vida, an environmental group that opposes the waterway.
But the biggest danger, Guimaraes claimed, is the “planned development of the region, which means the construction of roads, deforestation to plant crops and the installation of industries.”
“All of this will inevitably lead to the total destruction of the Pantanal,” he said.