On March 21, CIPÓ’s Executive Director, Adriana Abdenur, gave an interview to Mongabay about deforestation trends in the Amazon in 2021. Dr. Abdenur stressed that opening roads in sensitive biomes opens up routes for illegal activities such as illegal deforestation and invasions of indigenous lands. Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) revealed that about 1.9 million hectares (4.8 million acres) of rainforest were lost last year, similar to annual rates of forest loss in 2020 and 2019.
“We know from historical precedence that when you open up roads in these ecologically sensitive biomes, you’re literally opening routes for all kinds of illegal activities, including illegal deforestation but also land invasions of Indigenous land,” Dr. Abdenur told Mongabay.
She added, “Whenever you see a road opening up previously pristine or even secondary forest, that’s generally a good predictor that a whole range of illegal activities are likely to take place in that area.”
