Brazil’s government announced Wednesday that it will invest $75 million in the BR-319 highway cutting through the Amazon rainforest, a project environmentalists say could accelerate deforestation and worsen climate change.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration simultaneously announced an environmental protection plan to safeguard the forest from potential impacts from the highway, which connects the northern states of Amazonas and Rondonia with the rest of Brazil.
