Illegal roads have brought deforestation, fire and other environmental damage to the Amazon. Indigenous territory in many areas has blocked them.

The Ashéninka woman with the painted face radiated a calm, patient confidence as she stood on the sandy banks of the Amonia River and faced the loggers threatening her Amazonian community.

The loggers had bulldozed a trail over the mahogany and cedar saplings she had planted, and blocked the creeks her community relied on for drinking water and fish. Now, the outsiders wanted to widen the trail into a road to access the towering rainforests that unite the Peruvian and Brazilian border along the Juruá River.

María Elena Paredes, as head of the Sawawo Hito 40 monitoring committee, said no, and her community stood by her.

She knew she represented not just her community and the other Peruvian Indigenous communities, but also her Brazilian cousins downstream who also rely on these forests, waters and fish.

The Indigenous residents of the Amazon borderlands understand that the loggers and their tractors and chainsaws are the sharp point of a road allowing coca growers, land traffickers and others access to traditional Indigenous territories and resources. They also realize that their Indigenous communities may be all that stands in defense of the forest and stops invaders and road builders.

October’s elections in Brazil and Peru could be a turning point away from deforestation, unsustainable road building and the targeting of Indigenous lands – or the election results could continue to escalate the pressure.

Explosive growth of illegal roads as government pulled back

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Amazon rainforest has witnessed explosive growth in informal and illegal roads.

The Amazonian departments of Ucayali, Loreto and Madre de Dios, Peru, saw road expansion increase by 25% from 2019 to 2020 and 16% from 2020 to 2021. In the Brazilian Amazon, roads are being built at such a rapid pace that researchers are turning to artificial intelligence to map the expansion.

Roads are the most damaging infrastructure in the tropical rainforest, bringing deforestation and a host of related cultural and environmental impacts.

Research shows that Indigenous lands are crucial to safeguarding the forest ecosystems and immense carbon stores. These territories, covering about a third of the Amazon region, act as a buffer against road expansion, reducing both deforestation and fires.

But the Indigenous communities near the border between Peru and Brazil are experiencing an onslaught on their homelands.

When the pandemic forced governments to reduce monitoring and law enforcement in the remote rainforests, the illegal road builders, loggers, miners and traffickers increased their presence and work rate. The state’s absence gave them a relative respite from law enforcement, and in Brazil, they were goaded on by the anti-environment, anti-Indigenous and anti-science rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro.

A combination of road-building, climate change-induced forest heating and drying, and related deforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest toward a tipping point that could turn the world’s largest rainforest and reserve of terrestrial biodiversity into a sparsely wooded savanna in just a few decades. Thousands of fires are burning in the Brazilian Amazon as I write this in late September 2022.

Elections could turn the tide

A few hours downriver from where she confronted the loggers, Paredes and other Peruvian Indigenous leaders met with their Brazilian counterparts in September 2022 to discuss strategies to stop the invasions. The Brazilian leaders include Francisco Piyako and Isaac Piyako, two Indigenous Ashéninka brothers running for election at the federal and state level.

The Brazilian election’s first round of voting on Oct. 2, 2022, includes more Indigenous candidates than any in Brazilian history, with the 175 candidates representing a 37% increase over 2018.

The future of the Amazon is very much at stake.

On one side of the election stands Bolsonaro, a populist who has derided Indigenous people, environmentalists and science while weakening environmental and Indigenous agencies and inciting miners, loggers, ranchers and agribusiness leaders to cut down the forest.

On the other side is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – commonly called Lula – a Workers Party veteran and former Brazilian president who is arguing for zero deforestation.

More important than national rhetoric may be the success of Indigenous candidates like the Piyakos who are committed to sustainability, transboundary cooperation and cultural diversity.

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