85
^
União
Bandeirantes
was founded
in 1999, in
a protected
rain-forest
area. It’s
a hub for
illegal
deforestationthe largest city in the Amazon. Yet within a few years,
the 550-mile road fell into disrepair, reclaimed by
grass and weeds. Jaguars and anacondas would cross
the asphalt, flecked with meter-wide potholes and
rusting road signs.
Now the BR-319 is stirring again. On this road lies
Realidade, which frontiersman Bertola has called
home for the past six years. There, the lumberyards
are opening fast and the telltale fish-bone tracks al-
ready mark the jungle. Today, Realidade has 21 evan-
gelical churches and three chainsaw repairmen. It is
a harsh life in the midst of the forest; the newly ar-
rived face the threats of malaria, deadly snakes and
persistent torrential rain. At times it feels like the for-
est is fighting back against the invasion. “Everyone
who comes up this road comes with a dream to find
wealth,” Bertola says with a sigh. “Here, they only
find suffering. But we do not desist.”
Bertola, like around 5,000 fellow travelers in re-
cent years, moved in anticipation that the BR-319
would be repaved. But, despite much debate, noth-
ing was done, and the road deteriorated. In July, Bol-
sonaro committed to repaving the highway “with all
certainty.” But paving the road will “transform the
geography of deforestation” by creating easy access
to an area of forest bigger than Germany and Holland
combined, according to Philip Fearnside, a profes-
sor at the National Institute of Amazonian Research.
Fearnside co-authored a recent study that shows pav-
ing the road and another highway, the AM-364, would
lead to a 277% increase in deforestation in the re-
gion by 2050. “This highway will accelerate us to-
ward the tipping point because it cuts in half a very
rich water basin and an area of high biological value,”
says Ricardo Mello, head of the World Wildlife Fund’s
Amazon Program.
Those praying for the rehabilitation of BR-319
aren’t thinking about that bigger picture. Bertola
builds houses for newcomers out of wood from the
forest. He’s bought a plot deep in the jungle and plans
to deforest half of it, build a cattle enclosure and buy
livestock. He hopes Bolsonaro will help him achieve
his goal of starting to earn from the land in 2028. By
then, the logging boom will have subsided and cattle
ranches will take over. Eventually, this too will be-
come soy fields. Ultimately, Bertola says, he will put
his family first.
But if the worst happens, it will be felt first by
those forging livelihoods on the frontier. The de-
cline in rainfall would parch farmland and cause
widespread drought. Lower river levels would have
a knock-on effect on boat transport, the fishing indus-
try and hydroelectric power generation. If the tipping
point is reached, the Amazon’s economy would be
largely destroyed. But the wheels of expansion con-
tinue turning unabated. In February, near the foot of
the BR-319, not far from where the asphalt turns to
dust, the piercing sound of drills rings out over the
forest. The metal frame of a new slaughterhouse is
already taking shape next to the road.
In the Karipuna’s reserve, the once distant hum of
chainsaws and gunshots grows louder. Katicá worries
every day about the future. The invaders, she says,
“do not understand that they are in a place that is not
their own.” But it is the prospects facing her grand-
children that worry her most; she cannot imagine a
future for them without the forest.
The tribal lands are her world, she says. As the
sun glows through the branches in a clearing near
her village, and spider monkeys scamper in the can-
opy above, her eyes remain alive with defiance. “If
I die,” she says, “I die here.” —With reporting by
shanna hanbury, flávia milhorance and alice
Kasznar/rio de Janeiro. This story was supported
by the Pulitzer Center