BR-163
BR-163 is a highway in Brazil, going from Tenente Portela, at Rio Grande do Sul state, to Santarém in the state of Pará. The total length of the road is, a part in the heart of the Amazon Basin.. The highway was completely paved in 2019 in a cooperation between the Bolsonaro government and the Brazilian army engineering battalion and should be granted to the private sector in 2020
It was proposed to pave the road in its entirety as part of the Avança Brasil project, which in 2007 was replaced by the Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento. As of May 2016, the entire road is paved save for 200 km and a similar length of potholed road.
The highway runs past the Nascentes da Serra do Cachimbo Biological Reserve in the south of Pará, among the ten most deforested federal conservation units in the Amazon Legal. Several invasions of squatters in the park followed rumours that the highway would be paved in 2000.
Conservationists worry that paving the road will lead to deforestation in the Amazon through greater access to pristine areas, cheaper transportation costs for soybeans and other agricultural commodities, and land speculation along the highway.
