A car-free town in the Amazon serves lessons for pedaling to net zero emissions

People cycle along the street in Afuá, a city in northern Brazil's Pará state, in January. Since 2002, this city on the banks of the Amazon River has been famously off limits to motor vehicles. (Stefan Kolumban)

AFUÁ, Brazil — Brazilian politicians stumping for reelection know the power of public largesse. So it was in 2010 when the incumbent governor of Pará state lavished city halls in this sprawling Amazonian province twice the size of France with tractors and motor graders to make roads.

In a remote tropical region, where tarmac is a totem of progress, no self-respecting mayor would snub such a bequest. No one except Odimar Wanderley Salomão, mayor of Afuá, who politely declined and had a good laugh — then astutely swapped his tractor chit for a riverboat.