Bolivia opens up national parks to oil and gas firms

In his 2015 article for the Guardian, David Hill outlines the results from the study ‘Identidad Madidi’ as well as the potential impacts these discoveries would face from the new law that opens up protected areas to hydrocarbon exploration contracts. He also claims the law violates Bolivian indigenous communities rights. “In addition, there are coca farmers and gold-miners, and the threat of a long, long-mooted plan to build an enormous hydroelectric dam, El Bala, which president Evo Morales has been talking up, and which is slowly moving forward and would flood a huge swathe of the park.”