The Deputy Director of the BPC/PUC-Rio, Maria Elena Rodriguez, participated in the panel “A 360º Look at Infrastructure in the Amazon” at Estação Amazônia Sempre in the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi

The panel sought to reflect on how, over recent decades, large transportation, energy, mining, and logistics projects have been implemented in the Amazon without adequately considering socio-environmental impacts and without dialogue with affected communities.

The prevailing logic in these discussions treats the forest, rivers, and ecosystems as inputs for infrastructure, without recognizing that they themselves constitute the vital infrastructure for life, ignoring ecological and sociocultural connectivity and traditional ways of living. In this sense, infrastructure projects planned as “transport corridors” often fragment territories, cause deforestation, violate the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples, and generate territorial conflicts. The lack of transparency, social participation, prior assessment of cumulative or synergistic impacts, and the absence of less harmful alternatives in the planning and licensing stages of such projects were also highlighted in the discussion.

Watch the full debate at: