While the highway has been discussed for decades, a $332 million loan from Brazil's National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), approved by Bolivia in 2011, facilitated the start of construction.

The purpose of the proposal was threefold: to encourage re-settlement of Cochabambinos in the region, where they could grow coca, sugar and other crops; to assist in the civilizing of the Yuracaré people, most of whom continued to resist missionary influence; and to bring Mojos into the economic orbit of Cochabamba, bypassing the control of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

On April 10, 2012, President Morales announced the cancellation of the contract, citing delays in construction as well as other technical failures on the part of OAS.

[4] On June 27, 2015, a binational Bolivian-Venezuelan military unit began construction of Segment III from San Ignacio de Moxos to Santo Domingo.

[15] On May 29, 2016, President Morales announced a $20 million government investment through the Agency for the Development of Macroregions and Frontier Zones (Agencia para el Desarrollo de las Macroregiones y Zonas Fronterizas; ADEMAF) to build the earthen platform and embankment of this road in the northern 76 kilometer stretch of this road, from Monte Grande to San Ignacio de Moxos.

[9][17] In July 2017, TIPNIS community members reported that construction is underway on two bridges for Segment II of the highway inside the park, and offered photographic evidence of it.

[8] In February 2019, the Bolivian Highways Administration announced that construction of the road itself was stalled and the project remained at "stage zero," but TIPNIS indigenous leaders said they doubted that report.

At the opening of negotiations with the protesters on October 21, Morales announced that he would veto the legislation and support the text proposed by the indigenous deputies.

[25][26] Beginning in December 2011, the Bolivian government rallied supporters of the highway, in Cochabamba, San Ignacio de Moxos, and the southernmost port of TIPNIS, in a campaign to reverse Law 180.

Conisur, an organization of communities living in Polygon 7 at the south of TIPNIS, led its own pro-highway march from December 19 in the territory to January 2012 in La Paz.

[28] Non-CONISUR TIPNIS communities and their traditional leaders rejected the proposed consultation declaring that it "is not free, but rather is being imposed by force; is not informed, insofar as there is manipulation of information concerning the reach and effects of this law, which are hidden by the state ... and does not deal in good faith"[29] The Subcentral TIPNIS and CIDOB organized a new 62-day march opposing the consultation which reached La Paz in June, but their demands were not attended to by the government.

[33] However, legislative leaders and Minister of Public Works Vladimir Sánchez announced that the government would prioritize eliminating extreme poverty in TIPNIS through the end of 2014, and defer any action on the highway project and the suggested laws.

[35] In 2017, the governing MAS party introduced legislation to repeal the intangibility protections of Law 180 and to authorize the drafting of a transportation plan.

[36] In the 2021 regional election, Alejandro Unzueta, the winning candidate for governor of Beni department, proposed that any highway to Villa Tunari should run outside of TIPNIS.

[38] In June 2022, under pressure from the San Ignacio de Moxos Civic Committee, Unzueta again raised the possibility of a highway, suggesting that it could be built in an ecological fashion without settlements or deforestation.

[39] Public works minister Edgar Montaño responded that building the highway would require prior consultation with affected indigenous communities.