In mid-April, the government of Thai Binh province on Vietnam’s north-central coast quietly issued a decision that has since spawned growing controversy. The decision removed protection from almost 90% of…
The challenges to developing waterways have focused investor’s attention on railroads. In 2020, the Amazon Hub of the IIRSA portfolio included eight rail projects, which were either completed (2), under…
JAKARTA — Critics have questioned the Indonesian government’s priorities as it prepares to evict longtime residents of a small island to make way for a $25 billion development that includes…
The main stem of the Amazon River has provided access to ocean-going cargo ships for centuries, including modern container ships that service the manufacturing sector in Manaus and ore-carriers that…
Designing roads with wildlife in mind is an idea whose time hasn’t come soon enough: nearly a million animals are killed on roads every day, just in the U.S., and…
Back in December 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador had been Mexico’s president for only a few days when he promised the public that not a single tree would be cut…
The unprotected southern portion of the Chapada Diamantina mountain range, in the state of Bahia, is in the crosshairs of mining operations, remaining vulnerable to land grabbing and deforestation. This place, known as Serra da Chapadinha, houses threatened species, water reservoirs and an endless supply of scenic beauty.
JAKARTA — Environmental policy experts are calling on the presidential hopefuls in Indonesia’s election next year to lay out their strategies for moving the country away from fossil fuels and…
HOLBOX, Mexico — The tour I’d arranged in Holbox wasn’t one of the usual packages. It isn’t advertised on social media or sold at the dozens of stalls along the…
Katavi National Park is one of the great East African parks. It's great in the sense of being an enormous, 4,471 km2 area of miombo woodland, having a high diversity…
Bolivia’s hydropower is based on medium-scale facilities located in a geographical region optimally suited for dam and tunnel (D&T) systems. The oldest of these is in the Zongo Valley, which…
In 2010, Electronorte initiated the construction of a high-tension (500 kW) transmission line to connect the power plants at Tucuruí and Belo Monte; this line was extended north to the…
JAKARTA — As Indonesia positions itself to become a key global hub for electric vehicle batteries, it’s also putting people and the environment at harm through the coal-fired plants powering…
In September 2022, researchers at BC Whales, a Canadian research nonprofit studying cetaceans in the north of British Columbia province, gasped when they saw a drone image of a humpback…
Argentina has spent the last several years expanding its investments into offshore drilling. But critics say weak regulations and a lack of oversight in the industry are raising concerns that…
The Rio Madeira was the next Amazonian tributary to attract the attention of Brazil’s hydropower developers. The river is free of rapids as it flows along the western edge of…
The oldest hydropower facility in the Brazilian Amazon is the Tucuruí D&R complex (8.4 GW) on the lower Tocantins River, about 200 kilometers south of its confluence with the Amazon…
QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuadorians have been given a chance to vote on whether or not they want oil drilling to continue in Yasuní National Park, deep in the northern Amazon…
The largest hydropower complex in Venezuela is the oldest and least sustainable facility in the Pan Amazon. The complex of dams on the Rio Caroni is operated by Electrificación del…
After highways, investments in large-scale hydropower facilities are the most controversial infrastructure investments in the Pan Amazon. Governments pursue hydropower as a sovereign source of renewable energy and driver of…
Roads are scarce in the Northern Amazon, and surprisingly, the few that exist have not triggered widespread deforestation. This apparent anomaly is largely the consequence of a development dynamic that…
Although never organized as a specific project, the Carretera Marginal de la Selva has emerged from multiple projects that have been established in the Andean foothills from Colombia to Bolivia.…
KATHMANDU — On a hot and humid day in Bardibas, a town in the lowlands of Nepal, the sun beats down on the dusty roads where vans, cars and motorcycles…
Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia all invested in major highway building initiatives in the last half of the twentieth century, motivated in part to project sovereignty over their Amazonian provinces.…
The Southern Amazon has experienced massive deforestation, coupled with the degradation of soil and water resources. The forest frontiers at the remote corners of the Brazilian highway system have remained…
The Parcel de Manuel Luís coral reef, off the coast of northeastern Brazil, is vital for the survival of 53 species at risk of extinction. Despite vetoes from Brazil’s environmental regulator, the local government seeks to give the go-ahead to oil drilling projects in the Pará-Maranhão basin.
Proposals to build an international airport on the Malaysian island of Tioman have reignited opposition from conservationists and local communities who say they’re “shocked” the project that environmental studies had…
It all starts with a road. In Brazil, the federal government commissioned the construction of mule trails and telegraph lines to link their coastal cities with long-established settlements on remote…
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines infrastructure as the ‘underlying structure’ of a country – specifically, the physical installations needed to ensure that its economy functions for the benefit of society. Modern…
The mining giant has secured permission to build a second railroad track that cuts through Amazon's Mãe Maria Indigenous Territory, prompting complaints from Indigenous leaders who say Vale applied maneuvers they consider unethical and that the extension will cause greater environmental damage.
