Alessandra Bastos
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Costa Marques (RO) - Brazil's 3,400 kilometer long border with Bolivia will be controlled by nine new border posts begining this year. The first border post was inaugurated on Friday (March 17) by minister of Justice, Marcio Thomaz Bastos, in Costa Marques, Rondonia.

The Bolivia-Brazil border is an area of illegal lumbering and fishing, not to mention drug traffic. "We will respect Bolivian territorial rights, which means we will seek to halt these illegal activities on the Brazilian side of the border. But when we do that, most of the activity just moves across the river into Bolivia," explains Nebio Casara, of the Brazilian Environmental Protection Institute (Ibama).

Each of the nine border posts will have tax, animal and plant sanitation, and environmental protection agents. Their work will be coordinated by the Federal Police which will have 54 agents in the region.

Translation: Allen Bennett