Fernandez Weighs in On Peruvian Development Issues
Twin Articles from Inside Climate News Tap Fernandez’s Expertise as Infrastructure Investments Accelerate Development in Peru
Sabin Center Senior Fellow Luis Fernandez, Executive Director of CINCIA, has been cited in reporting on the destructive cycle fueled by illegal gold mining and the infrastructure that supports it, including a pair of articles from Inside Climate News.
“It was kind of a perfect storm.”
“It was kind of a perfect storm,” Fernandez observed of the Interoceanic Highway connecting Brazil’s western Amazon to Peru’s coast, with devastating results for the communities and ecosystems in its path. In “When a Road Goes Wrong,” Georgina Gustin relies on Fernandez and other regional experts to tell the story of the expanding highway, including the ways in which the highway encourages further in-migration, accelerates forest clearing, destabilizes the water table, amplifies Amazonian fires, and dramatically increases carbon loss.
In a separate article, Gustin reports on a Chinese megaport North of Lima that is likewise accelerating environmental and social harms in Peru. As the first major project in China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” a $1.3 trillion undertaking that may represent the most ambitious infrastructure effort in history, the port is a critical step in China’s efforts to gain access to South America’s commodities. Like the highway, the Port itself draws further aggressive development activities, prompting Fernandez to describe it as a “magnet” propelling further incursions into the Andes.
