Bolivia has been declared in a “disaster situation” because it has 3,036 fires, more than any other country, and air pollution in some areas has reached levels incompatible with human life. In response to this serious crisis, the government of Luis Arce suspended for an indefinite period the so-called “incendiary regulations” that allow “controlled burning” on agricultural and forestry properties. It thus declared an “ecological pause”, a measure that allows it to temporarily suspend ordinary legislation that regulates the management of land and forests.
The fires are set by producers to clear fields and also to clear forests in order to convert forests into crop land. They are part of a wave of fires that is hitting the Amazon, a region shared by several South American countries, which has filled the skies of the Southern Cone with smoke. The situation in Bolivia is worse than that of Brazil, despite the difference in size between the two nations. Authorities estimate that the flames have burned four million hectares, 60% of which is pasture and 40% of which is trees. This proportion is disputed by the leaders of the Santa Cruz region, the most affected by the fires, who believe that there is a greater effect on the forests.
The efforts of dozens of groups of Bolivian volunteer firefighters and members of the Armed Forces, who have been ordered to stop the fire and reforest, are being supported by specialized personnel sent by Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru and France. China has pledged financial support.
Air pollution in Cobija, an Amazonian city located in the northeast of the country, next to the border with Brazil, reached 589 on the Air Quality Index, an extremely unhealthy level. At the moment, Bolivia is one of the ten most polluted countries in the world, which has no relation to its level of industrialization. Airports have had to cancel and postpone flights because of the smoke; classes and work are intermittent in the most affected places; doctors warned about the proliferation of diseases, especially among the elderly and children.
In addition to suspending the current burning permits, the government prohibited the Forest Authority from granting others, which are common at this time for producers to clear up to 20 hectares of their properties in unprotected areas. These permits are legitimized by a set of laws and decrees approved by Evo Morales, during the 13 years he governed, with the purpose of extending the agricultural frontier. These norms benefit the powerful soybean, sugarcane and cattle sectors that operate the so-called “agribusiness” and also the “intercultural peasants.” These are internal migrants who come from the mountainous part of the country and who have been occupying some fiscal lands located in Santa Cruz, which are the most fertile in the country and have greater value due to their proximity to the markets. Their union is part of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) since its foundation and several of its members have been part of the governments of this party since 2006.
Fires are a means of avoiding the costs of mechanized or manual clearing and also of obtaining more agricultural land, which is reclaimed from forests. For this reason, one of the clauses of the Government decree suspends for five years the concession of public lands that have been burned by fire. In this way, it is hoped to eliminate the motive for many of the fires.
Agricultural and livestock companies, as well as immigrant farmers, “coexist chaotically in a territorial space plagued by illegalities,” wrote Tierra Foundation expert Gonzalo Colque. “It is like the American ‘Wild West,’ where uncontrolled expansion attracts seekers of quick and easy profit, adventurers, outlaws, migrants of all kinds, or even fugitives from the law who settle scores in duels to the death,” he wrote.
Every year, the people of Santa Cruz accuse the peasants who arrived from the west of the country, called collas, While the left insists that the greatest burden of responsibility still falls on agribusiness cambathat is, originally from Santa Cruz.
According to Colque, satellite images show that in some years there have been more fires in industrial areas and, in others, in public forest lands, which can be presumed to have been the responsibility of peasants looking for more land. Therefore, he points out, the blame does not lie alternately with “collas” or “cambas”, but with the “agro-environmental regulatory framework”, which “has been from the beginning too permissive, ambiguous and, above all, malleable to the heat of economic and political interests”, and which allows different economic actors to influence the authorities and try to take advantage of natural resources without considering the destruction of the environment.
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