By Entorno | 2025-08-01

On paper, the Salvador-Itaparica bridge is an engineering marvel: a 12.4km-long span that would connect the city of Salvador to the island of Itaparica across the glistening Bay of All Saints and is expected to open between 2029 and 2031.

It promises faster travel, economic growth and logistical integration for northeastern Brazil. But for many on the ground, it is something else entirely: a top-down Chinese-led infrastructure blitz that bulldozes rights, habitats and ancestral lands with little transparency or accountability.

The companies behind it, state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, have built ports, railroads and bridges across Latin America.

However, they have faced recurring accusations of opaque contracts, environmental harm and a disregard for local voices.

The Salvador-Itaparica project follows the same troubling pattern.

"We know only what we see on the news. No one has ever shown us the plans," said Antônio Salvador dos Santos, a 75-year-old retired radio host who lives near the proposed access road to the bridge, in a story published on July 3 by Dialogue Earth.

Santos bought a modest plot on the island 30 years ago, planted lemon and guava trees and hoped to live out his final years watching his grandchildren play. Now, he fears a highway may run through his backyard, though no official has confirmed it.

A road through sacred ground

While the bridge itself gets the headlines, residents say the true danger lies in the so-called Variante, a planned 18km-long highway slicing straight through Itaparica to carry traffic from the bridge to the mainland.

It would cut across the preserved Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlantica), mangroves, wetlands and communities rooted in centuries of Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous history.

The bridge is worse than the road, many locals told Dialogue Earth.

"Here we have estuaries, forests, sacred places. A road with heavy trucks in the middle is a tragedy," said Rafael Carvalho, a fisherman, filmmaker and leader of the Tupinambá Indigenous community. "We live off the sea because we still have this forest. If they tear it apart, our lives go with it."

Others fear environmental collapse. Rita de Cássia dos Santos, a shellfish harvester, can remember gathering oysters as a child with her mother. Now, it is already hard to find them. "If they pave over those mangroves, it's over," she told the same outlet.

Environmental protections may not stand in the way. The project's main environmental impact study used data from 2013–2014. Its writers finalized it before the COVID pandemic. Brazil's state public prosecutors warned in 2024 that this outdated information could lead to misjudged or unforeseen damage.

"We've asked for updated data and blueprints many times; there's been no answer. I'm very worried. It's not just a bridge; it's a system that affects Salvador, the island and dozens of towns," Cristina Seixas, who has tracked the project for over a decade, told Dialogue Earth.

Broken promises, absent voices

Despite official claims of public engagement, real consultation began only in mid-2025, well after planning, contracting and construction were under way. This tardiness likely violates Brazil's commitment to International Labor Organization Convention 169, which requires free, prior and informed consent from traditional communities.

"The only thing people have seen is a 3D image in the newspaper," said Carvalho.

In March, the Bahia state government issued an ordinance outlining public consultation guidelines, requiring the process to be completed within 60 days of the first hearing.

Sham consultation

Afro-Brazilian religious leader Moisés dos Palmares fears his Terreiro do Silêncio, a sacred Candomblé site within the Tereré Quilombo and part of Brazil's Afro-Brazilian cultural and spiritual heritage, could be demolished.

"There are hundreds of communities here. How do you hold a real consultation in 60 days?" he asked. "Itaparica isn't just a shortcut to the interior. It's where we live."

China's role raises deeper concerns. The World Bank banned CCCC from its projects over fraud. Now CCCC leads one of Brazil's largest public-private partnerships.

A 2020 deal worth $1.4 billion has since ballooned in cost: while the total contract value fell slightly in a June renegotiation, public contributions doubled.

China, critics say, is profiting handsomely, while Brazilian taxpayers and islanders shoulder the risks.

Traffic jams

Salvador itself is not ready for the influx of traffic, urbanist Paulo Ormindo, a former professor at the Federal University of Bahia, told Dialogue Earth.

He noted the risk of traffic jams.

"Itaparica will become an urban extension of Salvador, and no one has planned for that," he added.

Everyone agrees the ferry between Salavador and Itaparica is outdated, said Carvalho.

But that consensus does not mean embracing wanton destruction in the name of progress.

"We need a future, but we're being expelled from our own territory," Carvalho said.

"The bridge may come, but we will resist," he concluded.