In the Name of Environmental Protection

"[The Avenida Liberdade, will be 13.3 kilometres long and] will have two lanes of traffic in each direction and shoulders, as well as exclusive lanes for cyclists, ecological paving on the cycle path, and solar-powered lighting."

"[The work is 20 percent complete], the earthmoving stage is underway."

Local regional government

 

"Everything was destroyed."

"Our harvest has already been cut down."

"We no longer have that income to support our family." 

Claudio Verequete, Tree-berries harvester

 

"The city as a whole is being improved, it is being repaired and a lot of people are visiting from other places."

"It means I can sell more and earn more."

"[Belem, once] beautiful, well-kept, well cared for [has of late been] abandoned [and] neglected."

Dalci Cardoso da Silver, leather-shoe stall owner 

A drone view shows the construction of the Avenida Liberdade road ahead of the COP30 climate summit, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

 

Belem, in Brazil, a city of 1.3 million people, is preparing to host an  upcoming United Nations climate change conference in November. The conference known as the Conference of the Parties, is a hugely popular event for dedicated environmentalists and governments that give it credit for addressing a global emergency, that of Climate Change, which many among them claim is a human-made environmental disaster from the burning of fossil fuels.

 

Such COP events draw well over 50,000 attendees comprised of the presence of world leaders, their entourages, and any number of global environmental groups. For Brazil, as for many other host countries in the past and presumably the future, the events draw tourists and the movement of people accordingly represents a huge cash crop resulting from accommodation, food services, and accompanying tourism benefits.

For the first time, the UN annual summit COP30 will be held in the Amazon, in the city of Belém. (Photo: Rafa Neddermeyer/COP30 Amazônia/PR)

Belem is known as the gateway to the Amazon River. It has invested hugely in building a new central square, including a metal walkway with a lookout, kiosks, rain gardens, a picnic area, an event space, a pet space, a playground and an outdoor gym. The better to genially accommodate the hordes arriving to take part in the COP30 conference, and the invariably anticipated tourism that follows such celebrated events.

 

Such an event that has great potential for morphing into a popular venue drawing tourist dollars and associated employment opportunities for locals. And the government of Brazil viewed it as a necessary expenditure to invest in upgrading access. To do so it is building a four-lane highway to cut through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest. Its effect is meant to ease traffic to Belem.

 

Improvements to Belem's rainwater drainage system and sewage network, a cycle path and a clean energy system are all also in the planning stages. Hana Tuma, vice-governor of the area, enthuses that the Avenida Liberdade highway is "a dream, a new exit to Belem, a transformation in our capital and metropolitan region."

 

Adler Silveira, the state government's infrastructure secretary, spoke of the highway as an "important mobility intervention", a "sustainable highway". This, for a highway that will cut through the Metropolitan Belem Environmental Protection Area, created in 1993. Nonetheless, construction is taking place within the boundaries of the protected area. 

A drone view shows the construction of the Avenida Liberdade road ahead of the COP30 climate summit, in Belem, Para state, Brazil, February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

"[In the area], earthmoving, mining, dredging and excavation activities that may cause damage or degradation of the environment and/or danger to people or the environment are not permitted, nor are any industrial activity potentially capable of causing pollution, according to State Decree 1,551/1993."

Metropolitan Belem Environmental Protection Area, government document