Brazil’s government announced yesterday that it will invest US$75 million in the BR-319 highway cutting through the Amazon rainforest, a project environmentalists say could accelerate deforestation and worsen climate change.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration simultaneously announced an environmental protection plan to safeguard the forest from potential impacts of the highway, which connects the northern states of Amazonas and Rondônia with the rest of Brazil.

“From an environmental standpoint, it will be the most modern road in the world,” Lula said during a ceremony in Amazonas state, accompanied by Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco.