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The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is a wondrous place, home to a myriad of vibrant plants and animals. There is truly no place else like it in the world.
A Brazilian biologist is now working to make the rainforest safer for the many primate species that call it home, CNN reported. She’s accomplishing her mission by building canopy bridges across a major federal highway.
A Brazilian Biologist’s Mission to Save Primates
Brazil is a country of roads. It boasts the fourth biggest road network in the world, and is home to the BR-174, a 2,000-mile highway that winds its way through the Amazon rainforest. Unfortunately, these roads also pose a massive threat to the wildlife that live in the diverse area. According to a study in the National Library of Medicine, it is estimated that 475 million vertebrate animals are killed in road accidents every year in Brazil.
This is where Fernanda Abra comes in. According to Discover Wildlife, Abra is an associate researcher at the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas, a Brazilian NGO focused on the conservation of Brazilian biodiversity. Together with her team, she has put in place 30 artificial canopy bridges made of rope along the BR-174. Each bridge is monitored with two cameras, which record animals coming close.
The researchers found that animals began using the bridges within 30 days of their installation. Five hundred crossings have been recorded over an 11-month period. “Every time I see the video of the monkey using my canopy bridge, it’s wonderful because we are avoiding the situation of road mortality,” Abra told CNN.
Help from Indigenous People
As Discover Wildlife noted, Abra and her team had help from the indigenous Waimiri-Atroari people. Their territory, which stretches over 2.3 million hectares, is one of the most well-preserved territories in the Amazon. It is also bisected by the BR-174. Committed to preserving their home, the Waimiri-Atroari people have been lobbying for artificial canopy bridges for decades since the highway was built in the 1970s.
It has been a long and hard fight, but now more than 150 Waimiri-Atroari people helped construct and install the bridges along around 77 miles of the highway. Abra and her team hope to expand the project to Alta Floresta, a town in the state of Mato Grosso. Of the eight primate species that live in the area, five are endangered due to loss of habitat, fragmentation, and road accidents.
Abra’s goal is to train workers in federal transport and environmental agencies in nine states in the Brazilian Amazon to establish a culture of sustainable infrastructure. Sometimes the solutions to what seem to be difficult challenges can actually be very simple. The bridges may save thousands of lives and help keep the Amazon and its amazing, diverse, and rich ecosystem alive.
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