Forests for Sale: How Land Traffickers Profit by Slicing up Bolivia's Protected Areas

[Judi Lynn]

This is encouraging news for the wealth of wildlife these areas support, and also for the Chiquitano and Guarasugwe Indigenous groups that live within the areas and depend on the forests for their livelihoods.

December 31, 2021 by Mongabay



Eduardo Franco Berton

Shortly after Bolivia’s Bajo Paraguá Municipal Protected Area was established in February 2021, authorities began receiving reports of invasions and deforestation in and around the new protected area.

Local sources say land traffickers are illegally buying up plots of protected land to resell, often repeatedly, to third parties.

Mongabay spoke with one of these third parties, a man who said he purchased access to land in Bajo Paraguá from land traffickers before being evicted by the same traffickers so that they could sell the land to someone else.

The man said traffickers have resorted to threats of violence to intimidate local communities from reporting incursions.

SAN IGNACIO DE VELASCO, Bolivia — On Feb. 12, 2021, Bolivian conservationists joyfully celebrated the creation of the Bajo Paraguá Municipal Protected Area. Located in the municipality of San Ignacio de Velasco in the Bolivian department of Santa Cruz, the new reserve was established to protect 983,006 hectares (2.4 million acres) of Amazonian and Chiquitano forest.

The news was celebrated internationally. U.S. actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio who wrote on his Instagram account: “This is encouraging news for the wealth of wildlife these areas support, and also for the Chiquitano and Guarasugwe Indigenous groups that live within the areas and depend on the forests for their livelihoods.”

More:
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/forests-for-sale-how-land-traffickers-profit-by-slicing-up-bolivias-protected-areas/