Southern Bahia fears railroad will bring destruction

Reynaldo Oliveira dos Santos, 74, leaves at 3:30 AM in his eight-meter canoe. He goes with five fellow fishermen to the sea in Ilhéus, as he has done since he was 5. Zé Neguinho, as he is known in the fishing colony, learned the craft with his grandparents, uncles and parents. With artisanal fishing he raised 25 children - 24 of whom women, and five of them fisherwomen. "I've just come back from fishing. There are hake and shrimp here, but it used to be better," he says. The invasions of mangroves, construction of condominiums and environmental degradation "everywhere," as he says, take their toll on the largest fishing region in southern Bahia. Now there is a bigger threat: the construction of Porto Sul, a port project in the district of Aritaguá. "It's not causing just fear. We are in panic."

An iron mine, a port and a railroad are about to change forever the land of lush vegetation and the fish-rich sea of southern Bahia. The last piece of this logistics complex will be auctioned off on April 8 - a 500-kilometer stretch of the railroad known as Fiol, which aims to integrate Brazil's grain-producing West region with the East, ending in Ilhéus.

Authorities and entrepreneurs promise jobs and progress where environmentalists, researchers, farm owners and businesspeople see a trail of destruction of biodiversity, the life of traditional communities and local vocation. A study done in 1993 by researchers from the New York Botanical Garden identified the region as an Atlantic Forest biodiversity "hotspot" with the greatest diversity of trees in the world. There are 450 different species in a single hectare of forest.

The iron mine of Bahia Mineração (Bamin), the stretch of the Fiol railroad and Porto Sul produce controversy and resistance. "We are talking about a project that is bad business. It damages this region's economy [of the Cocoa Coast] and in the area where the iron ore project is," says Rui Barbosa da Rocha, founder of Floresta Viva Institute, in the film "Uma breve história do progresso" ("A brief history of progress"), directed by Markus Mauthe and produced by André D'Elia.

In the hinterland of Bahia, in the region where the mine is located, there are many family farmers who produce food for those who live there. "I have corn on the plantation, there is manioc, papaya, there is enough here in my region," Carlito de Carvalho, who has always lived in Taquaril dos Fialhos, a rural community in Licínio de Almeida, says in the...

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