By Barbara Fraser, originally published at Forests News
In Bolivia, Mother Earth has the right to life, biodiversity, clean water and air, equilibrium, restoration and pollution-free living. That law, passed in 2012, gives humans the duty to protect those rights.
But the landlocked country in the heart of South America is also committed to expanding food production to meet the needs of its growing population, and to using its land and forests for economic growth.
As in many other tropical countries, those two goals are on a collision course, according to a study of deforestation and forest degradation in the Bolivian Amazon.
Much of Bolivia’s tropical forest, located in the country’s lowlands, has been threatened by soy farming and by the expansion of cattle ranching. Deforestation rates are stable though relatively high, at about 200,000 hectares a year, according to the study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
In the early 2000s, the Bolivian government expressed interest in making use of market mechanisms, such as carbon trading, to curb deforestation and forest degradation.
But that approach changed after President Evo Morales took office in 2006.
Besides passing legislation that spelled out the rights of Mother Earth and the duty of Bolivia’s government and citizens to protect her, the country backed away from market-based conservation incentives such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+).
“Bolivia has been working to make non-market alternatives visible in international negotiations about climate change,” said Pablo Pacheco, a principal scientist at CIFOR.
- At the Global Landscapes Forum: Bolivia is taking a “rights-based approach” to forest governance. What does a rights-based framework mean for comprehensive land use planning and landscape issues? This and other questions will be discussed in a session at the upcoming Global Landscapes Forum, 6-7 December in Lima. Click here for details.
The Mother Earth Law makes land rights a collective matter of public interest and establishes the rights of indigenous peoples, rural dwellers, and Afro-Bolivian and intercultural communities. But there are contradictions between that law and other norms promoting the expansion of industrial agriculture and food sovereignty, which could lead to more clearing of forests, the study states.
A CHALLENGING BALANCE
About 80 percent of Bolivia’s 50 million hectares of forest are in the Amazonian lowlands, traditionally occupied by native ethnic groups that used forest products without having much impact on the forest.
Large-scale logging that began in the 1960s sparked conflicts between timber companies and indigenous forest dwellers. When indigenous communities stepped up demands for territorial rights in the 1990s, the government responded by establishing “indigenous native peasant territories” (known by their Spanish acronym, TCOs) that recognized the customary rights of indigenous people to their lands.
Other legislation in the 1990s established forest concessions that supported sustainable forest management by communities. This legislation has been modified over time to support integrated forest management, and recently has been established a program for promoting timber plantations and reforestation. In addition, titling programs have helped make land tenure more secure. Increasing attention to timber legality verification, meanwhile, has decreased illegal logging, although implementation is still ongoing, according to the study.
Read full blog at Forests News
