Brazil highways drive Amazon development - and destruction

RURÓPOLIS, Brazil: Trucker Erik Fransuer spends months at a time driving back and forth on highways that cut through the Amazon in northern Brazil, delivering soy or corn to river ports.

"That way, there's no road," says Fransuer, gesturing in the direction of the BR163 connecting Ruropolis and Santarem, which until recently was a rough dirt track.Brazilian trucker Erik Fransuer speaks with other drivers resting on hammocks at a gas station in Ruropolis.

Deforestation followed as a wave of pioneers - rural poor enticed to the rainforest on the promise of land and a better future - began clearing jatoba, itauba, marupa and cedar for their crops. Where virgin forest once stood, herds of Brahman cattle graze on pasture or huge machines harvest grain. "Big roads and big infrastructure projects are causing a high rate of deforestation and environmental problems, and are really hurting the local population."The more than 2,000km round trip from Sinop in Mato Grasso to ports in Miritituba or Santarem in neighboring Para should take truckers three days.

An aerial view of trucks queueing on the BR163 in Brazil's Para state - one of two major transport routes that have played a key role in the development and destruction of the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest.

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