Bolivia Urges Indigenous to Build Highway Through Protected Amazon Jungle

People read information before voting in a referendum in San Miguelito, part of the TIPNIS reserve, Bolivia, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

OROMOMO, Bolivia – Bolivia's President Evo Morales still wants to build a highway through a stretch of protected Amazon jungle, and he's taking his case directly to the affected communities.

Officials and international observers came to Sunday's meeting in the jungle town of Oromomo, one of 69 communities in the TIPNIS reserve that are to decide by Aug. 20 whether they want the 200-mile (310-kilometer) highway, which is funded by Brazil. Each community gets one vote.

Morales government says the project will help the nation's economy. But Bolivia's main lowlands indigenous federation has bitterly denounced it, saying it will cause environmental damage in a now-undeveloped area believed to hold deposits of minerals and oil.

The federation has urged a boycott of the consultation, arguing it is stacked in favor of Morales' side because it allows voting by recently arrived ranchers, coca farmers and other settlers whose connection to the land is less intense.

The controversy has caused a vexing problem for Bolivia's first indigenous president, setting him against some of the ethnic groups and environmentalists who had been among his strongest backers.

The consultation is the result of a new constitution that Morales helped to pass three years ago, which calls for Bolivia's indigenous peoples be consulted in matters affecting their lives and traditional lands.

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.

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