The development of infrastructure is generally associated with two concepts that, currently, are antagonistic: growth and conservation. On the one hand, investment in infrastructure is associated, and rightly so, with the growth and prosperity of countries. Thus, important investments are proposed and implemented in highways, which stimulate mobility and encourage commerce; in projects for the generation and distribution of electricity, which bring energy to homes and industries; in medical centers, which offer more and better health services to the population, etc. On the other hand, infrastructure is also associated with the loss of biodiversity and deterioration of the environment and the transformation of ecosystems, which are generating social risks and risks in the sustainability of the infrastructure itself. This context presents us with a challenge: is it possible for infrastructure to generate, in addition to social and economic impacts, benefits for the biodiversity?
First of all, it is important to recognize the value of biodiversity from a perspective that goes beyond the aesthetic. Biodiversity plays a fundamental role in development, mainly in the functioning of the productive and service sectors, reducing, avoiding and mitigating their negative impacts. Likewise, thanks to healthy ecosystems, we enjoy essential services that, from a political and economic perspective, are fundamental to the social stability, peace and competitiveness of countries.
In this context, it is opportune to integrate new reflections that are the result of the recognition of current problems. A look at the past can serve as a reference, which is why the exchange of learning, positive and negative, is indispensable. It is necessary to go further, however. Our view towards the future must be open to change, with the understanding that a critical context of global warming and massive loss of biodiversity requires new answers.
In a context in which global climate change is a fact accepted by the planet’s most respected scientific circles, and is experienced on a daily basis by billions of people, it is important to ask different questions. How to reconcile the expansion of infrastructure with the recovery of environmental services? Do we have the technology, sufficient experience and the ability to reconcile investments in infrastructure with the recovery of biodiversity? In short, how do we benefit ecosystems with infrastructure that is biodiversity friendly?
The questions to be asked are not few, and the answers require a search for consensus in a context of business opportunity, regional political leadership and commitment to the maintenance of progress and the sustainable development of the region. In the current context, the environmental perspective and climate change are not secondary issues for our development. Discussion on the prevalence of an ecological point of view over the economic or otherwise, is outdated. There is, today, a consensus on the importance of working with both perspectives, and this is widely evidenced in different international agreements.
In any case, the obvious challenge is to find efficient and practical ways to distance the growth of infrastructure from the loss of biodiversity. The challenge and the opportunity that we have, in Latin America and the Caribbean, is even more important if we consider that this region is home to 625 million people and 40% of all the biodiversity of the planet. There is a unique opportunity to lead qualitative changes that lead to the development of infrastructure that is friendly to biodiversity in Latin America, and a responsibility to make this qualitative transformation on time.
