Roadmap for Sustainable Infrastructure in the Amazon

The 'Roadmap for Sustainable Infrastructure in the Amazon' report by Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) proposes a framework to decouple land transport infrastructure from deforestation in the Amazon. The report identifies systemic failures in the decision-making process, the quality of socio-environmental studies, and transparency, offering twelve specific recommendations to improve project viability and reduce environmental risks.

• Land transport infrastructure is a primary driver of deforestation in the Amazon; specifically, approximately 95% of deforestation occurred within 5.5 km of a road until 2006. In the state of Pará, planned federal projects including the Ferrogrão railroad and highways BR-155/158, BR-163/230/MT/PA, and BR-230/PA could cause 6,989 km² of deforestation over 30 years.
• The current decision-making process for infrastructure projects lacks linearity and clear competencies, often resulting in projects reaching the bidding process before completing environmental impact assessments (EIA) or Technical, Economic, and Environmental Feasibility Studies (EVTEA). CPI/PUC-Rio recommends explicitly defining the steps of the process and introducing a 'pre-feasibility phase' to analyze socio-environmental complexity before the EVTEA is conducted.
• There is a significant lack of coordination between feasibility studies and environmental licensing; a CPI/PUC-Rio study found a 30% overlap between the environmental diagnosis of the EVTEA and the EIA. The report recommends that the EVTEA be conducted and considered before the EIA to enable earlier socio-environmental analysis.
• Socio-environmental studies often fail to meet their own standards; half of the EVTEAs analyzed by CPI/PUC-Rio did not comply with their terms of reference, and none of the analyzed EIAs completely complied. Furthermore, these studies frequently omit socio-environmental components cited as essential by international best practices.
• The method for defining the 'indirect area of influence' for projects is currently imprecise, often relying on simple buffers. CPI/PUC-Rio proposes a 'market access' approach to better estimate areas economically affected by projects, noting that for the Ferrogrão railroad, the indirect area of influence is much smaller when using buffers than when using the market access approach.
• Infrastructure planning in Brazil suffers from a severe lack of transparency. An analysis of ten federal rail and road concessions in the Amazon revealed that 57% of primary documents were unavailable or non-existent, and no EVTEA approvals were available despite requests under the Access to Information Law.
• The report recommends the creation of a single, publicly available database and a Geographic Information System (GIS) to track infrastructure location and condition alongside boundaries of indigenous lands, conservation units, and traditional communities. This would address current issues where data from the Ministry of Infrastructure is incomplete or fragmented across different agency websites.

APA

Chiavari, J., Antonaccio, L., Araujo, R., Barros, A. C., Bragança, A., & Cozendey, G. (2022). Roadmap for Sustainable Infrastructure in the Amazon. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Roadmap-Infra-Amazon.pdf

Chicago

Chiavari, Joana, Luiza Antonaccio, Rafael Araujo, Ana Cristina Barros, Arthur Bragança, and Gabriel Cozendey. Roadmap for Sustainable Infrastructure in the Amazon. Climate Policy Initiative, 2022. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Roadmap-Infra-Amazon.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Chiavari |first1=Joana |last2=Antonaccio |first2=Luiza |last3=Araujo |first3=Rafael |last4=Barros |first4=Ana Cristina |last5=Bragança |first5=Arthur |last6=Cozendey |first6=Gabriel |title=Roadmap for Sustainable Infrastructure in the Amazon |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=July 2022 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Roadmap-Infra-Amazon.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{chiavari2022roadmap, author = {Chiavari, Joana and Antonaccio, Luiza and Araujo, Rafael and Barros, Ana Cristina and Bragança, Arthur and Cozendey, Gabriel}, title = {{Roadmap for Sustainable Infrastructure in the Amazon}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2022}, month = jul, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Roadmap-Infra-Amazon.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }