Sharp photos show the pursuit of profit, the cutting of belts in the Amazon

The myriad ways in which deforestation in the Amazon can adversely affect the climate is not a new discovery. In fact, climate scientists and activists have long been sounding the alarm about protecting rainforests. Yet the Brazilian government recently relaxed environmental controls on several large industrial projects in the region, opening the door to even more damaging changes. Photographer Lalo de Almeida documents the rainforest, focusing on areas where new projects are already underway, as well as areas where life in the rainforest is about to change.

In the main image above, he photographed some of the thousands of trucks transporting soybeans along the Amazon Highway near Miritituba, which will be the final stop of the new railway that will be used to transport soybeans to the Tapajos River. Below, three men collect soybeans from a truck after a traffic accident, a common enough occurrence for them to make a living by recovering wrecked cargo.

In addition to the scale of agribusiness interventions in the Amazon, de Almeida’s photographs aim to capture local communities that are often considered invisible in political negotiations. “Indigenous lands, riverine communities and protected areas along the railway route will all be directly affected while none of the people in these areas have been consulted,” he said. writes about a new soybean transportation route. The children pictured below playing in a canoe live in a village in indigenous territory that will be threatened by another upcoming project that explores the possibility of oil extraction.

However, the image below offers a somewhat hopeful counterexample. Here, workers erect an electrical pole as part of a power line construction project on the territory of the Waimiri Atroari Indigenous Nation. This large-scale construction project involves members of this community with the intention of making it less harmful.

But a lot of damage has also, quite simply, already been done. De Almeida photographs burnt Brazil nuts (below) near an illegal turnoff from another road to be paved, the prospect of which has fueled deforestation and land grabbing in the region. Their charred branches, coiled and curled against the yellowing grass and blue sky, are a stark reminder that something that was very much alive had to die for commercial profits.

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