Highway infrastructure initiates the deforestation process, but it is almost always accompanied by some sort of agricultural activity. Depending upon circumstances, deforestation can proceed rapidly or slowly, lead to large…
Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains, home to nearly 5,000 different plant species and dozens of amphibians unique to each isolated massif, provide the world with ecosystem services worth more than $8…
The macroeconomic hypothesis that infrastructure investments stimulate economic growth assumes that these physical assets overcome a logistical or systemic constraint on production. In practice, this requires for individual projects to…
The increasing presence of Chinese companies in South America has become an issue of concern among social and political analysts. Security specialists argue they are a geopolitical threat to the…
A handful of pioneering Amazonian chocolatiers are promoting keeping the rainforest standing by taking advantage of two forest products: cacao and cupuaçu.
Rechargeable batteries have an important role to play in the fight against climate change, especially when it comes to lowering greenhouse gas emissions through the transition to electric vehicles. It’s…
The concessionaire system in Peru is managed by the Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Infraestructura de Transporte de Uso Público (OSITRAN), which oversees investments in transportation infrastructure, while the…
In spite of the ongoing build-out of infrastructure in Latin America, investment remains well below what most economists think the region needs to spur economic growth and reduce poverty. This…
With an area covering 125.76 million hectares, Indonesia's forests, which are home to 17% of the global wildlife population, constitute the world's third largest rainforest ecosystem and hold the key…
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…
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…
In May, 25 members of a growers’ cooperative in the Tawau region of Sabah became the first in Malaysia to receive certification as a group from the Roundtable on Sustainable…
The global fashion industry is widely known for the environmental pollution throughout its supply chain. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the fashion industry is responsible for 10%…
Sustainable farming, mercury-free fishing and circular trade are among the strategies Amazon Indigenous peoples have been developing to survive in one of the most hostile states for Indigenous people in Brazil.
When the sustainable development community gathers in New York on September 18-19 it would do well to answer an important call. Our ocean is calling for our help — and…
The modification of the rivers in Brazil has been driven by energy development, but investment in dams has the potential of creating an economically attractive option for shipping Brazil’s farm…
The past two decades saw a massive increase in hydropower across the Pan Amazon. The Brazilian government has scaled back investment in mega-scale hydropower projects but continues to pursue development…
The recent history of hydropower in Ecuador is similar to that described for Bolivia and Peru, particularly with respect to its recent expansion and the predominance of D&T systems that…
A recent Gallup poll found that 43% of Americans believe that economic growth should be a higher priority than environmental protection. But this is a false dichotomy. There is growing…
Peru has enjoyed historic levels of economic growth for more than two decades, mostly due to the expansion of the minerals sector, which is a large consumer of electrical energy.…
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…
How much does it cost to protect the Congo Rainforest? Where does the money come from? Who pays and how is that money used? What models of forest protection work?…
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…
The Tapajós is a clear-water river and the fifth largest tributary of the Amazon; it drops in elevation from about 800 meters above sea level in the highlands of central…
The most controversial hydropower project in the Pan Amazon is the complex on the Rio Xingu near the city of Altamira (Pará). The proposal to build a dam on the…
A billion tires enter landfills, are burned, or litter the landscape every year, and more will be dumped as auto use surges planetwide. Industry analysts and entrepreneurs are pressing for circular economy solutions.
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…
