Cesar Bascope, a Madidi National Park ranger, is featured In this Spanish-language Mongabay article. César “arrived in 2005, after a long process in which he left behind 36 other young people who were looking for the same job. His life had always been linked to nature and in particular to the Madidi as he grew up in Apolo, one of the entrance areas to the protected area. However, when he finished high school he traveled to La Paz, but his father encouraged him to return to apply as a park ranger to Madidi.
There are more than one million hectares of the Madidi National Park and Natural Area of Integrated Management that covers ecosystems from 180 meters above sea level to 6040 meters high. In this extension there are mountains, glaciers, lagoons and extensive biodiversity, as the expedition carried out between 2015 and 2017 has shown. Bascope well remembers the expedition that was made in the Madidi and mentions the results of all the species that managed to register the scientists: 314 species of fish, 109 amphibians, 105 reptiles, 1028 birds, 265 mammals, 1188 butterflies and 5515 plant species. "The Madidi is listed as the synthesis of biodiversity and one of the most biodiverse on the planet." In addition, more than 10 indigenous tribes inhabit it.
Just as there is vast biodiversity, it also has great threats such as the presence of poachers, mechanized mining, deforestation, forest fires, wildlife trafficking, drug trafficking, and the threat of the expansion of the agricultural frontier, among other challenges. “We face people who commit these crimes and many times we are threatened. We have lost several park rangers in the line of duty, ”he says.
In the last 20 years, at least 18 park rangers in Bolivia have died while doing their duty, says Bascopé, and currently there are park rangers affected by the coronavirus in eight protected natural areas.
Al Madidi has not entered the virus and it is the park rangers who are on the front line to prevent people carrying evil from entering. “We help indigenous peoples to carry out preventive controls. We are like shields, if we contract the disease, the indigenous peoples could be infected, ”says the Madidi park ranger.
Forest fires are another permanent threat, especially this season. In 2019, the fires left more than five million forests burned in Bolivia. Currently there are already fires on the borders with Paraguay and Brazil. There are comrades who are fighting against the fire ”, explains Bascopé.
During an exploratory patrol, Bascopé and his companions reached the source of the Colorado River and found beautiful waterfalls. “We installed our tent in that area and at night tapirs, pigs, deer arrived. There were more than 10 species and they looked at us as if we were part of nature. The place is incredible ”. They are expeditions to pristine places and to which they will return this year.
Bascopé believes that to be a park ranger you have to be born with conviction. "We carry green blood in our hearts," he says”