Brazil’s plan to build highway in Amazon stokes conservationists’ anger

Brazil cut through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest to build a new four-lane highway for this year’s UN climate conference.

Conservationists expressed outrage at the project’s environmental impact, with some questioning the government’s green credentials, the BBC reported.

Brazilian President Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva made protecting the Amazon a key pledge of his campaign to oust his right-wing predecessor, under whom deforestation soared, with the upcoming COP30 summit in Belém intended to showcase the government’s efforts. However despite a recent fall in deforestation, 6,000 km2 were estimated to have been cut down last year.