Bolivia approves highway through Amazon biodiversity hotspot

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Bolivia approves highway through Amazon biodiversity hotspot

National park which is home to thousands of indigenous people loses protected status to allow for construction of 190-mile road

Dan Collyns
Tuesday 15 August 2017 13.26 BST

Bolivia has given the go ahead to a controversial highway which would cut through an Amazon biodiversity hotspot almost the size of Jamaica and home to 14,000 mostly indigenous people.

President Evo Morales enacted the new law opening the way for the 190-mile (300km) road through the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park, known as Tipnis, its Spanish acronym . The road will divide the park in two and strip it of the protections won in 2011 when a national march by thousands of protesters ended in clashes with the police and forced the government to change its position.

Speaking to supporters of the road in the Amazon city of Trinidad, Morales accused developed countries of pushing “colonial environmentalism” in Bolivia.

“This so-called colonial environmentalism isn’t interested in the indigenous movement having schools, hospitals; they’re not interested in the indigenous movement having electricity or that we have highways,” he said. The law was backed by the majority of local authorities and the governor of Beni, Bolivia’s main Amazon region.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/15/bolivia-approves-highway-in-amazon-biodiversity-hotspot-as-big-as-jamaica

[Marksman_91]

1. What happened to Evo's "Earth Mother"?

Thought he'd put her above anything else.