The Waimiri-Atroari people fought with their lives to protect their land when Brazil’s military dictatorship forced the BR-174 highway through the Amazon rainforest in the 1970s, cutting the habitat of wildlife in two. The Waimiri subsequently recorded more than 20,000 road fatalities of wildlife. In this episode, Kate Humble and Edward Whitley hear from Fernanda Abra, a road ecologist and pioneer of low-cost canopy bridges in Brazil. Together with the Waimiri, Fernanda and her team have built the first 32 bridges to reconnect habitat for tree-dwelling mammals such as Capuchin and spider monkeys. Her Reconecta Project is the start of an ambitious plan to scale across the world's most biodiverse country which has the fourth-largest road network.

See Fernanda’s short film narrated by Sir David Attenborough here: bit.ly/AmazonCrossings

Edited and produced by Sarah Treanor

How to Save It highlights ingenious solutions from the world’s leading conservationists. Applications for the Whitley Awards are open! If you are leading a grassroots conservation project in the Global South that we should know about, please apply here: bit.ly/WhitleyAward_ApplyNow

Click here to donate: bit.ly/WhitleyAwards_Donate

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