Foreign Policy.
ISIBORO SÉCURE
NATIONAL PARK AND INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Bolivia -- Delmi Morales Nosa never
imagined she'd need her family's bow and arrow for anything other than hunting.
But when construction started last year on
a highway set to bisect her homeland, Bolivia's second-largest national park
(known here as Tipnis), she reconsidered. "The road will ruin our way of life,
and we will defend ourselves by any means necessary," said the indigenous
Yuracaré mother of two, as she shoved wood into her outdoor adobe oven. Having
survived centuries of incursion by the Spanish, rubber traders, and loggers, the park's residents say the road -- which environmental
impact studies predict could contaminate the Isiboro and Sécure rivers and push 11 endangered species
toward extinction -- represents the gravest threat yet. Surveying the remote
wilderness around her, Morales Nosa said Tipnis residents are preparing their
traditional weapons: "We will not let the bulldozers in here," she said.
But what Morales Nosa doesn't realize is
that stopping the road might require somewhat more formidable weapons. Bolivian
President Evo Morales touts the project as vital to the country's future. "Thankfully,
[the highway's detractors] are only a few, while the great majority of
Bolivians support this project because they know that highways bring
development," he
said a year ago. Although this may be true, the controversial
152-mile stretch of pavement-to-be is also vital for something much bigger: a
continentwide infrastructure network championed by neighboring Brazil, the
region's dominant power and economic engine.
Dreams of an
integrated South America date back to the days of Simón Bolívar, the
continent's 19th-century independence hero. But geography has always been a
hindrance. The planet's longest mountain range, the Andes, practically slices
the continent in two, complicating east-west roadways. Two-thirds of the
landmass is tropical, with soft terrain that makes constructing durable roads
costly or virtually impossible. The Amazon and its numerous tributaries should
have alleviated the impasse problem (moving goods by water can be 30 times less
expensive than by land), but these rivers have portions too narrow or shallow
for large cargo ships, and their muddy, constantly shifting banks make terrible
ports. Stymied by insufficient means to reach its
resources, South America needed a bold solution if it was ever going to find
its way out of the backwaters of underdevelopment.
In 2000, one
emerged. The continent's 12 governments launched the Initiative
for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America
(IIRSA) -- a vast infrastructure offensive to power up and interconnect
the disparate continent. Brazil took the lead, offering strategic
planning and
financing in order to stimulate collective growth. "Integration is about
bringing people together and promoting development," says Esther
Bermeguy, Brazil's secretary of planning and investment. IIRSA was
hailed as visionary: $69
billion was pledged for 531 "megaprojects" aimed at stimulating economic
growth by expanding export corridors, improving accessibility to remote
regions, and increasing energy-generation capacity. (That budget has
since
exploded to almost $1 trillion.) Over half the budget was to build or
improve
highways; another quarter went to the construction of railways, bridges,
seaports, and waterways; 15 percent went toward energy projects
(primarily
hydroelectric dams); and the rest funded everything from coordinated
air-traffic
control to shared IT networks to eased border crossings. But in the 12
years
since this monumental task was announced, progress has been slow: Only
12
percent of the projects are complete, while 60 percent are ongoing (in
various
stages of completion). But the long-deferred dream of linking a
continent was
finally under way. "Without this kind of planned network of physical
integration," says Ariel Pares, Brazil's former IIRSA coordinator,
"South
America would not stand a chance in the 21st century."
