Development in Amazonia

The IIRSA´s Amazonian axis -stands for the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America- is the last bastion of colonialism in the Amazonia, the most biodiverse region of the world, as it proposes building a multimodal channel from west to east through the continent, allowing to transport, and above all, to exploit raw materials more easily. This project was covenanted by South American countries to connect the region internally and with the rest of the world with the aim of trading with emergent countries. A lot of people that consider the development as synonym of infrastructure agree totally with IIRSA plans. However, indeed does infrastructure mean development to the society directly?
In this infrastructure project we can identify two levels of impact, the environmental impact and social – cultural impact. In Amazonia, “there are more than 40.000 species of plants, 427 species of mammals, 1.294 species of birds”. However, 700.000 km2 of Brazilian Amazonia have been deforested by human action and that situation could continue if plans like IIRSA are done reality. Besides, it estimates there are 30 millions of population, including 220 ethnic groups (1) , which could become extinct in 200 years if world population and institutions not be aware about Amazonian risks and not design protection strategies to save cultural and environmental heritage.
According to Margarita Flórez (2), the main purpose of IIRSA is to insert to Latin America in the world market, “getting an overseas integration with Asia, Europe and United States”, rather than integrating the continent´s countries in an economic and political way. The IIRSA´s projects “don´t have a regional forward – looking, but there are disjointed national plans (and impacts research)”. As Timothy Killeen said, IIRSA would open access toward lands before remote, generating a fast deforestation and climate transformation in Amazonian region. Thus, this project would accelerate the global warming and the extinction of Amazonia´s biodiversity (3) .
Maquiavelo Yaci, belonging to Murui native community, argues “for the native peoples of the Amazonia, barbarian plans of national states and the majority society to access and penetrate the jungle not only does mean the exploitation of our natural resources, but it is the beginning of the our world and cosmology extermination that it formalizes the natural order of the land. Unlike of our relationship with nature, the IIRSA proposes to see to rainforest as a source of raw material, being necessary to exploit it in a big scale”. As far I know, some native people consider to IIRSA as a great danger, because it´s a way to take them out their territory.
As far as I know the IIRSA´s Amazonian axis is a strategy to exploit natural resources easier, without thinking about the future generations of the region or the world. Across Amazonian history of colonization, external actors have wanted to find exotic resources and get out toward abroad, forgetting the native populations who are the owner of this lands by ancestry right. For instance, the rubber exploitation at the end of 19th century and at the beginning of 20th century in Amazonia, period called like Caucherias, meant genocide of indigenous people, because the mistreatment, slavery and labour exploitation caused by colonizers. So, IIRSA can be a new way to exterminate local cultures and to destroy the forest, violating indigenous rights as 69 agreement of International Labour Organization.
To summarize, the IIRSA´s Amazonian axis is an infrastructure plan to transport and exploit raw material like oil, wood, gas or animal and plant species, with the aim of order to trade with financially emergent countries. However, this project doesn´t account for native people and biodiversity conservation. The great importance of Amazonia at world level is forgotten by politics and technocrats from Latin America. In this way, it´s imperative to provide more information to civil society that was unaware of this sort of problematic in Amazonian region, in order to protect the rainforest and its population, especially, native people.
So, what is the need of building roads and bridges if we are losing invaluable social and natural heritage?

(1) BBC News. Amazonas in graphics. Available in http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/specials/2008/amazonas/newsid_7404000/7404407.stm
(2) FLÓREZ, Margarita. (2007) Selva abierta. Vía Pasto – Mocoa e hidrovía del Putumayo. Bogotá: BIC. Available in: http://www.bicusa.org/es/Project.10188.aspx
(3) KILLEEN, Timothy. (2007) Una tormenta perfecta en la Amazonia: desarrollo y conservación en el contexto de la iniciativa para la integración de la infraestructura regional sudamericana (IIRSA). Alington: Center for Applied Biodiversity.