"Could environmentalists learn to love this road?" is the headline of an article published online by the InterAmerican Development Bank. Admittedly the IADB is an organisation fingered by many activists as all too willing to support infrastructural projects without adequate safeguards; even so, the article is a useful introduction to a number of current issues in the Brazilian state of Acre.
As it happens, the road being discussed is the BR-364, a highway going (more or less) west from the state capital of Rio Branco; it is not, therefore, the Interoceanic highway on which most of our focus lies (and which heads off from Rio Branco in a more southwesterly direction). Still, some of the issues addressed by the article could apply equally well to the case of either road and, moreover, we're likely to be travelling along the BR-364 itself as our itinerary changes, given current events in Bolivia.
Also mentioned in the article is the Antimary State Forest, an important project in the region and one that has come to represent attempts to develop practices of sustainable forestry. It is possible (though not yet certain; as I say, recent events in Bolivia are requiring us to change our itinerary) that we'll be able to visit Antimary and to spend a couple of nights there, as we did when visiting the region in 2000. If you read the article, you'll find a great deal to look forward to should we be able to make such a visit.
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