Socio-Environmental Impacts
Various NGOs and other entities dedicated to monitoring as ONGs the progress of the Transoceanic Highway have noted that the project was approved without a definitive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Typically, in order to be approved, a project of this magnitude must have an EIA which includes, among other things a) consideration of other development alternatives, and the reasons why they were not chosen; b) identification of risks which proposed works pose, within the environmental, social and institutional context of the project; c) a broad discussion of the environmental and social impacts that may result from the project; and d) a presentation of the proposed actions that will be taken to avoid or minimize said impacts in the environmental, social and institutional spheres. In the case of the Transoceanic Highway, very little analysis of this nature has been done.
Not long ago, Marc Dourojeanni, ex-Environmental Advisor for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), wrote a report on the projected social and environmental impacts of the Transoceanic Highway. His report states that the negative impacts of the highway could be enormous in the tri-national “MAP” region as a whole, but emphasizes that the impacts will be especially grave in Peru. The financial institutions on the Peruvian segment of the project either do not have socio-environmental regulations or policies (as with BNDES), or rely on a system in which the donor government is responsible for taking measures to avoid and mitigate the impacts of the project (as with CAF). The report compares the institutional capacity of Brazil with that of Peru and determines that the Peruvian government does not have the capacity to ensure compliance with their weak socio-environmental mitigation laws.
The Peruvian sections of the project would pass through several indigenous territories and national parks in areas of immense socio-cultural and ecological diversity. Dourojeanni’s report notes that in the case of Brazil, various direct and indirect impacts have been seen as a result of highways that run through jungle areas. These impacts stretch out at least 50 km on each side of the roads, and he estimates that the impact of the highway in Peru would not be any less significant. Table 2 presents a list of possible impacts, with varying intensity, in the department of Madre de Dios which would be caused by, more than anything else, the new highway:
Table 2: Typical environmental and social impacts linked to highway projects in the amazon basin [5]
| Environmental Impacts |
Social Impacts |
- Deforestation due to legal and illegal (migratory) agriculture, on soil with low agricultural aptitude
- Degradation of the forest due to unmanaged logging without replanting
- Increased risk of forest fires
- Illegal hunting for commercial sale of meat, furs and leather and especially traffic of live animals
- Abusive fishing, often with illegal tools, dynamite and toxins
- Soil erosion due to deforestation on hillsides and poor soil management
- Chemical contamination of soil and water due to use of agrochemicals or as a result of mining
- Reduction of environmental services provided by forests (water cycle, absorption of CO2, etc.)
- Invasion of protected areas (i.e. parks)
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- Invasion of inidgenous lands by farmers, loggers and miners and eventual death of indians from disease or conflicts
- Displacement of indigenous populations, invasion of territory of other indians and generation of conflicts among them
- Land speculation and illicit appropriation of land
- Proliferation of illegal crops (coca)
- Facilitation of trafficking of drugs, arms, wild animals and contraband in general
- Stimulation of migration to urban areas, degradation of social and environmental services in cities and local villages
- Stimulation of formation of “shanty towns” or favelas
- Promotion of slave-like sub-employment (i.e. in mining or logging)
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