The Hidrovia waterway seems to repeat this delinquency. This irony certainly did not go unnoticed with proponents of the waterway project. They emphasized that these engineered hydrological systems have been developed in many parts of the world and have produced significant industrial and agricultural benefits for those regions. What is perhaps most striking is that these damages were hardly ever the result of a single adverse decision. No one may deliberately plan to destroy this enormous floodplain, but small-scale decisions to bring additional farmland into production, to construct yet another port, to carry out additional dredging for navigation in shallow river stretches, to dig another drainage canal to prevent flooding, and to build one more road to improve access may produce a cumulative and irreversible consequence.
Recent history shows many examples.
Instead, many smaller, ostensibly independent choices contributed to what is now one of the largest ecological restoration efforts ever undertaken. Even though the focus of the Hidrovia was on navigational improvements, this waterway would inevitably evolve into a multi-faceted, economic development enterprise, where a multitude of seemingly independent decisions and projects compete for the same resource. No one may be making the deliberate choice to destroy the Pantanal floodplain system. Instead, Brazil chose to emphasize smaller, non-structural improvements. The will to construct the Hidrovia may very well persist and, as long as there is an economic interest in increasing barge traffic on the river, the channelization could be implemented in pieces, and without environmental controls.