In recent months, Bolivia’s Amazonian region has experienced the most disastrous flooding of the past 100 years. In the Beni department, 7 of 8 provinces and 16 of 19 municipalities are under water, with 75,000 people (more than one-quarter of the population) affected. Economic losses from the death of 250,000 livestock heads and destruction of seasonal crop lands, estimated at $180 million, are mounting daily.
The Amazon Basin is being transformed into a global economic frontier by intense global demand for commodities and energy, which is fueling rapid expansion of monocultures for grains and biofuels, large-scale hydroelectric dams, industrial mining activities and petroleum and gas development. One of the most significant changes in this wave of Amazonian frontier expansion is the growing importance of mega-development projects currently planned or under construction at a pan-Amazonian scale.
