There is no institutionality regulating and controlling the state of forests in the country, which leads to a pronounced loss of biodiversity. Experts say this is the result of an economic model with few effective environmental and social safeguards.
ISSUE 128 | 2024
Vesna Marinkovic U.
We must recognize that Bolivia was one of the countries with the greatest forest mass in the past. More than two-thirds of the country were forests, and we are not only talking about the Amazonian Forest, but also the Andean and Chiquitano Forests; the latter, a unique forest worldwide,” emphasized Magdalena Medrano, president of Lidema, acknowledging that Bolivia went from having 63 million hectares of forest in 1985 to 55 million hectares in 2022.
Medrano was emphatic in pointing out that, in socio-environmental terms, Bolivia is going through an extremely critical period, characterized by a pronounced loss of biodiversity in terms of landscapes, ecosystems, species, and ecosystem functions; intense pollution and deterioration of rivers and wetlands; as a result of large-scale extractive processes and mega-projects in protected areas (PAs) and indigenous territories; just to mention some of the causes that result from the pressures derived from the prevailing development mode, focused exclusively on economic growth with few effective environmental and social safeguards.
She maintains that mining and oil extraction, large-scale road and hydroelectric projects, or large-scale deforestation associated with immense fires, are causing profound impacts on nature, livelihoods, and ecological reserves of the country, jeopardizing the sustainability of current and, above all, future generations.
She asserts that the violation of socio-environmental rights of individuals, organizations, and institutions defending the environment tends to worsen, while the state of the country’s natural and cultural heritage deteriorates rapidly, due to pressure on natural resources, the limited and partial information reaching the public opinion, and the omission in fulfilling duties by State bodies, mainly the Executive and Judicial branches, as well as subnational governments or other instances or offices of the State.
For Medrano, the government’s discourse of presenting Bolivia as a megadiverse country sustained by the conservation of its forests that perform fundamental ecosystem functions for the stability of large regions and for the entire country, such as carbon absorption, climate regulation, rainfall provision, and flow control and regulation; is merely an “artificial” discourse at the international level that is not applied nationally, while emphasizing the consequences of not properly managing the country’s forest mass, which even affects the water and eternal snows’ volatilization: “if we lose the Chiquitano Forest, we lose the snow-capped peaks in the highlands,” she stressed, citing as an example the disappearance of snow on Chacaltaya in La Paz and El Tunari in Cochabamba.
MULTIPLE CAUSES
In turn, Juan Pablo Chumacero, director of the TIERRA Foundation, stated that the causes for this situation are multiple, but highlighted as important the economic policies aimed at promoting the agro-industrial export model of monocultures, implemented in Bolivia for decades and based on the expansion of the agricultural frontier through deforestation.
In this line, he mentioned that nearly 8 million hectares have been deforested, noting that a significant portion is in the Chiquitano Dry Forest, another important part in the Chaco Forest proper; and also in the southern Amazon area, emphasizing that there is a growing deforestation rate in recent years.
“If five or ten years ago we talked about around 270,000 hectares deforested per year, from 2021 to 2022, almost 400,000 hectares have been deforested annually…”
“If five or ten years ago we talked about around 270,000 hectares deforested per year, in 2021 and 2022, almost 400,000 hectares have been deforested annually, and this puts us in third place worldwide among the most deforesting countries; only after Brazil and the Republic of Congo,” said Chumacero.
In his view, this worrying growth in deforestation has at its core the existence of a productive economic development plan based on the expansion of the agricultural frontier, for which fines for clearing are forgiven, authorizations for deforestation are facilitated, agricultural settlements in forested areas are promoted, under the responsibility of institutions such as INRA and ABT that play a “sad role” in these matters. In this way, he questioned the irrelevant role that the Government would be playing in favor of environmental protection in the country.
In this line, both agreed that “the opposition of the Bolivian President, Luis Arce, to the final declaration of the Amazon Summit, held in Belém, Brazil, in 2023, opposing the host country’s proposal to adopt goals to stop deforestation,” caused astonishment, recalling that Brazilian representatives blamed the Bolivian delegation for not achieving the goal of stopping deforestation in the Amazon.
DEFORESTATION RATES
Regarding deforestation rates, the document entitled “The Socio-environmental State of Bolivia 2023,” by Lidema, maintains that between 1995 and 2005, an annual rate of between 80,000 and 168,000 hectares/year was managed, clarifying that the figure rose to more than 300,000 hectares/year since 2003, a rate that would have increased in recent years.
Another concerning fact, provided by Lidema, is that around 30% of the total forest cover in the country is within Protected Areas (PAs), highlighting significant areas in the Kaa Iya, Madidi, Noel Kempff Mercado National Parks, San Matías ANMI, TIPNIS, Manuripi, and Pilón Lajas Reserves. “For these forests, being within protected areas does not mean a guarantee, as they face constant threats of land encroachment and deforestation, such as the case of Kaa Iya NP, San Matías ANMI, Carrasco NP, TIPNIS, and Pilón Lajas,” the document emphasizes.
En this framework, it refers to the most threatened forests in the country, by deforestation or fires are; Subhumid-Dry Chiquitano and Guarayos Forests (Santa Cruz); Humid Amazon Alluvial Forest (Pando, North of La Paz, North of Beni, North of Santa Cruz), Piedmont and Pre-Andean Amazon Wet Forests (Beni, Cochabamba, La Paz); Montane Wet to Pluvial Forests in the Yungas of La Paz, Cochabamba, Beni, Santa Cruz, and Tarija, and of course the Chaco Forest.
DEPREDATORY AFRICAN PALM
In Magdalena Medrano’s opinion, “now we have to make the effort to repopulate the forests, but not as the Government’s economic model is proposing, that is, with African Palm, to cover our energy deficit in terms of fuels,” ensuring that “the African Palm has been rejected worldwide because it is a devastating species, it is a species that does not even contribute organic matter to the soil, accelerates the loss of biodiversity in its territory, threatens the food security of indigenous peoples who live off the forest fruits and is therefore decisively predatory”.
“This economic model, wrongly called productive-industrial development, is really mistaken in its guidelines, in its development patterns,” Medrano asserted, pointing out that energy projects such as biodiesel production can be supported without the need for African Palm, ensuring that there are prominent species that do not need irrigation, expertise, technology, or international patents to produce biodiesel cleanly based on native and territorial species.
In conclusion, Chumacero said that there are many actors involved in deforestation issues, “it is not only the producer, whether small, large, or medium, there is also the Government, intermediaries, encroachers, land traffickers, there is also a component linked to migration, interculturalism, companies, banks, and a lot of actors with whom action must be taken to show a change linked to environmental reasons with the aim of stopping deforestation,” he emphasized.
In this line, he raised the need to generate citizen movements that can influence Government decision-making for a change in the development model in the medium term and that, for the moment, we would have to find ways to make it at least more sustainable. For now, there is an almost dystopian scenario in terms of forest management in Bolivia, which would require, at least, an update of the Environmental Law 1333, enacted on April 27, 1992.
