Brazil: Socialists Revamp Highway Cutting Through ‘Planet’s Lungs’ Amazon Rainforest

Socialist President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced on Wednesday that his government is allocating $75 million for the rehabilitation of BR-319, a highway cutting through a “sensitive” part of the Amazon Rainforest that has not been usable since 1988.

Lula, a radical leftist running for a fourth term in office this year, acknowledged widespread opposition to the project from environmentalists and others concerned with the status of the rainforest, but claimed the finished product would be among the world’s greenest infrastructure projects.

The Amazon Rainforest, the largest in the world, is often referred to as the “planet’s lungs” or “lungs of the world” for its prodigious ability to produce oxygen, given the expansive amount and variety of plant life residing in it. As a unique biome, the Amazon has also become a cause celebre for many concerned with the environmental health of the planet and,