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Across the Amazon Basin and throughout much of South America, the continent’s economic powerhouse, Brazil, is the driving force behind a network of more than 500 economic development projects, including major highways and hydroelectric dams. One of those projects, embraced by the Bolivian government, would construct a highway through the heart of Bolivia’s Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous territory, known as TIPNIS.
Growing conflicts over development in South America have come to a head in Bolivia, where indigenous groups are resisting a highway project that would slice through a national park. How Bolivia resolves this showdown could point the way for other regions seeking to balance economic growth and the environment.
RMany TIPNIS residents are opposed to the highway, fearing it will open the way to uncontrolled logging, mining, and other activities that will despoil the forests and rivers on which their indigenous way of life depends. ...