DIRECTIONS: Read the passage, noticing that each paragraph is lettered. Then choose the best answer for each question. Peru's Highway of Dreams A A new road that connects the Pacific with the Atlantic could bring riches--and environmental ruin. B Mary Luz Guerra remembers a trip she took in 2003 from the city of Cusco, high in the Peruvian Andes, to her home in Puerto Maldonado, a city in the Amazon rain forest. By plane, this 320-kilometer (200-mile) journey would have taken only 37 minutes, but Mary Luz had traveled by truck: along narrow mountain roads, across rushing rivers, and through dense Amazon jungle. It took her three days to reach home. During the long and exhausting trip, she remembers thinking, "I can't wait till they build that highway!" Almost ten years after that impossibly long journey, Mary Luz's wish came true. Bridging a Continent C In early 2012, the Transoceanic Highway opened to public vehicles for the first time. A dream of Peru's leaders since the 1950s, work on the vast network of roads and bridges began in 2006 and was completed in late 2011. Today, the east-west passageway spans 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles). From Peru's Pacific Ocean coastline, it continues across the Andes Mountains and through a large part of the Amazon rain forest in the Peruvian state of Madre de Dios. It then travels into Brazil, where it connects with a network of existing highways to the Atlantic. D The Transoceanic Highway has been celebrated as one of South America's greatest engineering feats, and supporters say it will greatly improve people's lives. Until recently, travel between the cities of Cusco and Puerto Maldonado in Peru took days by bus or truck--as Mary Luz's story illustrates--and drivers had to use narrow, partially unpaved mountain roads. Now, thanks to the new highway, the trip only takes a few hours, and is much safer. Improving People's Lives E In addition to making travel faster and easier, supporters say the highway will also be good for business. There is enormous demand in North America and Asia for Brazilian and Peruvian products, including soybeans, beef, and gold. A number of companies in Cusco and Puerto Maldonado also sell wood to different corners of the world. Many of these companies transport their lumber to the Pacific, where it travels by ship to other countries. Thanks to the highway, wood can now reach the Pacific in days; in the past, it could take a week or more. This lowers costs and allows the wood to reach a company's customers sooner, and also in better condition. In the long run, say many business owners, this will mean more profit. F The highway will also open up areas of the Peruvian Amazon that were inaccessible just a few years ago. The highway may increase activity in these areas and give people new places to live and travel to. This, in turn, could mean more jobs and money for Peruvians. Environmental Challenges G Despite the highway's many potential benefits, environmentalists are concerned. The Transoceanic passes directly through a large part of the Amazon rain forest, in the state of Madre de Dios in Peru. According to a Peruvian government study, the forested area in the western mountains of this state has the greatest biodiversity of any place on Earth, and until recently, large parts of the forest were in pristine condition. As more people are moving into the region, environmentalists are worrying about the impact this will have on the Amazon's plants and animals, many of which are found nowhere else. H Shortly after the highway opened, large numbers of people began coming into Puerto Maldonado from all over Peru--and the world--to mine gold. There's a lot of money to be made in mining, as well as in farming, says environmental photographer Gabby Salazar. "I think we're going to see a big increase in farming," she says. "Right across the border in Brazil, you see soybean farms all over the place." Studies show three-quarters of the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon occurs within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of a highway, and environmentalists like Salazar are concerned that the same thing will happen in Peru. "It's having an impact on the environment," she explains. "It's having an impact on the people as well." I Faced with these risks, many Peruvians talk about the importance of being practical. "In rural Peru, a lot of people are living in poverty, so it's very difficult to say don't build the highway," explains Roger Mustalish, president of the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research. "But every time you see a road like this going through, you soon see major changes." Will these changes be mostly positive or negative? Many Peruvians are hopeful, but only time will tell.
THE INTEROCEANIC HIGHWAY: PROS AND CONS FOR PERU’S SOUTHERN RAINFOREST
Amongst the most bio diverse regions of the planet, the Western Amazon rainforest and the corridor of national parks between Peru, Bolivia and Brazil offer an unrivalled experience for the adventurous traveller and anyone with an interest in nature and wildlife. In parks such as Manu, Tambopata and Madidi, it is not only possible to witness the diverse flora and fauna of the rainforest, but to experience raw, unfettered wilderness in what is still a relatively isolated part of the planet.
In 2013, this may well all be in the process of changing. The Interoceanic Highway, a network of roughly 2,600 kilometres of road stretching between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean – and traversing directly through the rainforest in southern Peru – for the first time directly connects booming industrial cities in Brazil to ports on Peru’s south coast. It is hoped that this grand project will not only ease the trade of commodities between the two South American nations, but also give Brazilian manufacturers and producers more direct access to Asian markets.
Aside from the fact that the road has been a remarkable feat of engineering, there is wide support for the highway locally in Peru. The economic benefits of being directly connected to the giant Brazil are widely lauded; more money is arriving with investment in regions of the southern Peruvian Amazon, improving the quality of people’s lives. I recently visited the town of Puerto Maldonado, one of the main transition points of the highway. The local people that we talked to were generally excited about the new influence from Brazil, listening to popular music from their Amazonian neighbours and sporting the latest fashions from Brazilian clothes manufacturers.
For others, as portrayed in an article in the Wall Street Journal last week, the highway presents exciting new travel opportunities and the enticing possibility of cruising between the Andes and the Amazon along the “21st century’s route 66”. It will also open up new areas to tourism in the southern Peruvian Andes and Amazon, to the north of Lake Titicaca and in the southern area of the Cusco region.
Despite these benefits, others have voiced strong concern about the unprecedented access that the highway will give to areas of the jungle previously only traversable by river. Chief amongst these concerns is that a paved highway will make it much easier for settlers and developers to contribute to massive deforestation while acquiring timber and clearing lands for raising cattle and extensive soya plantations. Illegal gold mining – already booming around Puerto Maldonado – will also be facilitated further still, it is feared.
Deforestation can already be widely seen alongside similar roads across Brazil, and it is thought that, with the highway, this process will now extend deeper into the western Amazon and ultimately to primary, virgin rainforest that was previously inaccessible. The added worry is that deforestation can only be exacerbated if fuelled by high demand for resources from Asian markets.
In November 2012, Tony Morrison and John Forrest gave the Anglo Peruvian Society in London a detailed talk on the InterOceanic Highway one year after it was inaugurated. Based on their extensive experience of travelling in the area, they demonstrated the impact that the highway is already having on the inner reaches of the Amazon and the Madre de Dios region.
When I visited the Tambopata Research Center back in December the experts I spoke to there were not able to gauge how much impact the highway – mere dozens of kilometres away from the lodge – was having on populations of Macaws and other wildlife. In addition to seeing what economic benefits that the highway will bring, only time will tell what effects there are on the precious tracts of virgin rainforest in the region and whether negative impacts can be mitigated.
Many thanks to Nonesuch Expeditions and The Anglo-Peruvian society for their investigation of the issues surrounding the InterOceanic Highway.