Ray in Dialago Chino on concerns over construction of the Rurrenabaque-Riberalta highway across the Bolivian Amazon
Rebecca Ray, Postdoctoral Fellow at GEGI at Boston University, was interviewed for a recent article on the rising concerns on the impact of the Rurrenabaque-Riberalta highway construction bisecting the Bolivian Amazon.
“It would be difficult to imagine the Rurrenabaque-Riberalta highway project passing the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IADB) safeguards,” says Rebecca Ray, a researcher at the Center for Global Development Policy at Boston University, pointing out that the road cuts through indigenous territory.
Not even Rurrenabaque mayor Anacleto Dávalos, who presides over the town where the road begins, knows details about its constructors or their deadlines. Photo by Miriam Jemio.
Different funders have different environmental standards for their infrastructure projects, says Ray…“Projects that receive IADB financing have regulations that, among other things, strictly limit deforestation and impacts on the different species that inhabit the forests,” she says.