EL PAÍS offers the América Futura section for free for its daily and global informative contribution on sustainable development. If you want to support our journalism, subscribe here.
Arriving in the centre of Palos Blancos, in the department of La Paz, one finds the statue of a shirtless, dark-skinned man, with a bunch of bananas and a machete on his shoulder. A simple image but with a strong meaning for this municipality, located some 250 kilometres north of the city that houses the Bolivian government. “Our region benefits from having quite fertile soils,” boasts Paulino Catari, municipal secretary of productive development. “We have a diversity of products that produce cocoa, a variety of citrus fruits, bananas, yucca, an infinite number of vegetables, and that is what people live off of.” Trucks full of these products leave every week for the city of La Paz.
In an effort to protect its production model, the municipality adopted municipal law 233 in March 2021, which makes Palos Blancos “an agroecological, productive municipality free of mining pollution within the framework of food security.” The neighboring municipality of Alto Beni quickly followed suit, approving a similar law in July of the same year. These are unique cases in Bolivia and in a region that has been ravaged by the gold industry. But these advances remain precarious and face challenges, including from the national government itself.
In June, the Bolivian vice-presidency filed a petition with the Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP) to repeal both laws, arguing that the two municipalities do not have the authority to legislate on the mining issue. “We have seen the damage caused by mining, the deformation of rivers, the contamination with mercury, and we do not want this to happen here, despite having gold resources in the Alto Beni River,” explains Ramiro López Chávez, municipal secretary general of Palos Blancos, who is concerned about the vice-presidency’s petition.
Protection against the mining threat
For Palos Blancos and Alto Beni, the potential repeal of the laws would be a catastrophe. The territory made up of the two municipalities is also the birthplace of the El Ceibo RL cocoa producing cooperative, a group of 48 cooperatives founded in 1977, which sells chocolate throughout Bolivia and exports cocoa to countries such as France, Switzerland, Japan and the United States. “Our international clients have high demands,” says Jesús Tapia, a producer from the Los Tigres cooperative and current first vice president of the board of directors of the center. “That is why we have several certifications that attest that our cocoa is organic, produced in agroforestry plots and not in monoculture,” he says from the headquarters of the center, located about ten minutes by car from the center of Palos Blancos.
The site comprises several buildings, separated by corridors full of cocoa trees. In front of a large dining room there are several platforms where the beans are dried. “We live off of cocoa production. If mining were to be installed nearby, our plots would be contaminated and it would no longer be possible to export cocoa,” warns the producer. It was the fear of this mining advance that convinced the authorities of the two municipalities that a law was necessary. “A company tried to enter with machinery, people were alarmed and with the authorities a process was able to be carried out because they had been there illegally.” For this reason, the central cooperative supported municipal law 233, which they consider as “protection against the mining threat.”
A few kilometres from the headquarters, the foundation Programa de Implementaciones Agroecológicas y Forestales (PIAF-El Ceibo), which belongs to the central, has an agroforestry plot for cocoa production. The trees grow alongside other species such as banana trees or toco colorado. “This way of producing is more sustainable in the long run because it allows the soil to remain fertile, unlike monoculture,” says Jhonny Tancara Jacinto, who works in one of the nurseries at El Ceibo. “We have species that we recommend planting with cocoa, whether they are Amazonian fruit trees such as copoazú or achachairú, or timber trees such as oak.” Each year, the 48 cooperatives produce a total of 1,800 tonnes of cocoa, 65% of which is destined for export.
Departmental law
But the desire to protect against mining advances was not limited to a municipal law. In April of this year, Palos Blancos and Alto Beni succeeded in getting the Departmental Legislative Assembly of La Paz to adopt a law declaring the two municipalities “free of mining activity and contamination.” This is a relief for the producers of El Ceibo, as well as for other sectors of agriculture. “Even if they don’t have certifications like us, many of the local agricultural producers produce organically, so it is a protection for everyone,” recalls Tapia. For the authorities of the two municipalities, who always go together when it comes to this issue, it is also a victory. “There is support from many municipalities and in the Departmental Assembly they have supported us almost unanimously,” says López Chávez. “There was opposition, but it was minimal.”
But the fight is not over yet. At the beginning of July, the mayors of Alto Beni, Beltrán Márquez, and Palos Blancos, Berman Arancibia, went to La Paz accompanied by their councillors to deliver maps of their mining-free territories to the Jurisdictional Administrative Mining Authority (AJAM) so that concessions would not be granted in these areas. This led the authorities to suspend the licensing process for mining activities in these territories in mid-August.
This is good news weeks after Bolivian Vice President David Choquehuanca presented to the TCP the project to repeal the two anti-mining municipal laws. The Government’s argument is that strategic natural resources, which include minerals and water sources, are the exclusive competence of the central level of the State. In other words, Palos Blancos and Alto Beni do not have the authority to establish laws prohibiting mining in their territories. This is not the first time that Choquehuanca has attacked environmental protection regulations. At the beginning of 2024, he requested the repeal of laws on the conservation of the natural heritage of the department of Santa Cruz, arguing, once again, a conflict of jurisdiction.
On August 17, Vice President Choquehuanca visited the municipality of Alto Beni. Despite congratulating the authorities for their work and the anti-mining laws, he reaffirmed that these norms had to be aligned with the Political Constitution of the State. “We are not repealing it, but rather perfecting it to improve it,” he argued. In addition to this pending constitutional appeal, Alto Beni and Palos Blancos are already working on having a national-level law voted on in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. “We are seeking support to present a national bill, this in order to continue with what we do. That is, to defend our future and the well-being of our population.”
#Bolivian #municipalities #banned #mining #face #government #obstacles