Two Spanish-language articles in Mongabay and Mongabay LATAM describe how “Illegal activities and the reduction of budgets due to the absence of tourism” present problems in reserved areas. “Specialists also consider that it is a respite from human pressure and a unique opportunity to carry out studies of changes in ecosystems.”
Despite the fact that the 22 protected areas have been closed by the Bolivian government due to the coronavirus health crisis, a boat detained in Madidi National Park was found to have an illegal shipment of fish and a tapir (an endangered species). The closure of the protected areas by the Bolivian government is the same measure that most countries in the region have taken in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Marcos Uzquiano, head of the Madidi National Park rangers expressed concern that people from the surrounding communities may enter the national park to hunt and fish to supply their family with food. “Uzquiano fears that this necessary closure will not be enough to stop the mafias that profit from the illegal sale of flora and fauna within the protected natural areas.”
Melgar, the executive director of Sernap in Bolivia, points out that 300 park rangers in total are in charge of the control and surveillance tasks in the 22 natural protected areas of the country. Of these, around 200 were within protected areas when restraint was ordered, therefore they will be quarantined at their workplace. The rest will remain in their homes for the duration of the measurement. Rangers will only patrol in emergencies, for now they remain at their checkpoints.
“In addition to the concern about illegal activities, the economic impact that the cut in income from tourist visits will bring to protected areas, which in some countries represented up to 40% of the annual budget of national parks, is also discussed. Likewise, the question of what will happen to the productive projects carried out by indigenous communities both in protected areas and in buffer zones also remains in the air.”
According to Melgar, the executive director of Sernap in Bolivia, the income from tourist visits means between 35% and 40% of the annual budget. "We still cannot quantify the impacts, because the time they will remain closed is still uncertain, it can be a month, three months or the whole year."
“Even the situation in financial terms is not critical, indicates Maikol Melgar, since they have the budget of the public treasury to cover the needs of the outstanding personnel within the reserved areas. For this reason, they have not "thought about reducing personnel," he adds.
Uzquiano also mentions that the ecotourism initiatives of the communities that live within the parks, as well as other productive projects, will have repercussions because they will not generate income. "The indigenous population will seek means to subsist. There will be people who enter the park to carry out illegal activities, "he says. The Government has not yet proposed a solution to these problems.”
“Experts interviewed by Mongabay Latam acknowledge that this crisis will allow protected areas to rest, especially those ecosystems most frequented by tourism.
"Nature returns to take its place as human activity moves," says Iván Arnold, director of the Fundación Nativa, from Bolivia, on the cessation of activities and assures that it is an "irreplaceable and unrepeatable opportunity to look at the changes that they can occur in nature ”.
For Arnold it can even be taken as an experiment to evaluate what happens in this period of rest in the protected natural areas of Latin America and the world. “Sometimes nature gives us unthinkable lessons and this is one of them. A lesson and a call to change our way of acting. If we do not acknowledge receipt, other situations like this will come ”, he adds in relation to the world crisis caused by the coronavirus.”
“José Luis Mena, director of the Species Initiative of WCS Peru, maintains that the closure of the activities in the ANP is a truce and an opportunity to make an assessment of the state of the biodiversity of the reserved areas and compare with what happens when tourism is reactivated. "It is an unbeatable situation to collect data with good methodology and then compare with the influx of tourism," he says.
Mena also refers to the possible reduction in the trafficking of species that occurs with the closure of Asian markets, such as China, whose government has for now banned the sale of wild animals.”