Biodiversity Conservation course inaugurated with 40 journalists and 25 university students

 Forty (40) journalists and 25 final-year Social Communication students from different universities are taking an online "Course on Communication for the Conservation of Biodiversity" in order to strengthen journalism and communication capacity on environmental issues. with emphasis on the Madidi-Pilón Lajas- Cotapata corridor. The online course is part of the project “Building communication capacities for the conservation of biodiversity in the Madidi - Pilón Lajas - Cotapata de Bolivia Conservation Corridor ” that is supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF)—comprised of Agence française de développement, Conservation International, the European Union, the Global Environment Fund, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. “CEPF is one of the few funds that focus on hotspots (hot spots), which are the richest places in terms of biodiversity, but also the most threatened. "When we talk about biodiversity, it is not just any biodiversity because when they are lost they no longer return," Jorge Mariaca (CEPF representative in Bolivia) said.

The course will provide “specialized information on topics related to: endemism, threatened species, Protected Areas, biodiversity corridors, valuation of environmental services and climate change, among others that will be articulated with the journalistic approach.” The course “includes specific modules on biodiversity and reinforcement of knowledge about environmental journalism in two large areas: a) conservation of biodiversity and b) environmental journalism.” Course speakers include biologists Daniel Larrea, Luis Arteaga and Gabriela Aguirre, as well as journalists specializing in the environment, Carlos Lara and Jimena Mercado.

Course participants who complete all four modules of the course will be eligible to compete for project funding (ten proposals for journalistic works, and six student scholarships). Material generated by the journalists and university students participating in the course will be published and promoted by the institutions promoting the course on their respective websites, channels and social networks.

Tourism collapse puts wildlife conservation in peril

The impact of the pandemic and tourism collapse on wildlife conservation is discussed in this CNN Travel article. One example that is discussed is the Serere Eco-Reserve near Rurrenbaque, Bolivia. Excerpts from the article:

“Two decades ago, Rosa María Ruiz purchased 4,000 hectares (9,885 acres) of land along the Beni River, near the small village of Rurrenabaque, with the goal of transforming it from a heavily logged patch of the Bolivian Amazon into a thriving private wildlife reserve.”

“The Bolivian eco-warrior had just had success creating what the Wildlife Conservation Society believes is the most biodiverse protected area on the planet, the nearby Madidi National Park, but her vocal criticism of Madidi's protections under government control got her kicked out. Undeterred, she set up her own private park upriver and named it Serere after a gangly bird with a blue face and punk rock hair.

“Fast-forward to early 2020, and Serere Eco-Reserve was home to more than 300 species of birds and some of South America's most elusive mammals, including dwarf leopards, night monkeys, jaguars, tapirs and giant anteaters. The revival of this small swath of the Amazon was made possible thanks to the support of foreign eco-tourists who paid around $100 a day for all-inclusive overnight stays filled with hiking, conservation lessons and family-style meals sourced from the onsite garden.”

“Then, of course, the pandemic hit, and Serere hasn't welcomed a single visitor since March 23. With no incoming funds, and little in the way of savings, Ruiz had to cut staff from 40 to just seven rangers who've already chased off poachers and seen around 7 acres of forest pillaged for lumber (a trend echoed across the Amazon Basin).”

"We can't keep going at the rate we are now without further support," she says, noting a GoFundMe campaign created to tackle the emergency. "It's evident that if we don't have a presence and protection in Serere, especially because of the economic crisis everyone's living now, then those who are hard-up will continue cutting down the trees and selling lumber for easy money."

“Tourism has been the fragile pillar on which thousands of conservation projects stood for decades, helping to protect wild, trafficked and refugee animals, restore vital habitats and educate the public about sustainability. When that pillar crumbled overnight amid global travel bans, the system collapsed.”

“Not only does the presence of eco-tourists keep poachers and loggers at bay, but at well-managed reserves, their money funds rangers, veterinary programs and animal rescue centers in parts of the globe that lack robust public park systems.

It also provides a vital source of revenue for rural and disenfranchised communities.

A 2019 estimate from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) put the direct value of wildlife tourism at $120 billion. It generates 21.8 million global jobs and is particularly vital in Africa (where it makes up 36.3% of the travel and tourism sector), Latin America (where it's 8.6%) and Asia-Pacific (where it's 5.8%).

This income has virtually evaporated as a result of Covid-19, leaving the animals -- and those who care for and depend on them -- at risk.”

“A 2019 WTTC study found that the average time from impact to economic recovery following disease outbreaks is 19.4 months for the travel industry. That is, of course, just an estimate. If there is one thing certain about the current pandemic, it's that everything remains uncertain.”

“China, the largest market for illegal wildlife products, has suspended wildlife trade and vowed to impose a permanent ban on the sale and consumption of wild animals (though this has yet to be finalized). Moreover, a recent Wildlife Justice Commission report found that the trade has been severely crippled by current travel restrictions.”

“Governments have been so preoccupied by the human emergency of Covid-19 that there has been little investment in the natural emergency. Yet, the two are intrinsically linked.”

“Coronavirus is caused by zoonotic disease transmission, which occurs most often when wild animals come in close contact with each other and humans. There is the greatest likelihood of this at wildlife markets and in human-animal conflict such as poaching.”

“By protecting wild animals and their natural habitats, we might just protect ourselves from the next pandemic.”

The virus threatens to bury indigenous ancestral memory

According to this Spanish-language article published in Pagina Siete, “in addition to the extractive megaprojects that are advancing in their territories, indigenous people now also face the loss of those who keep their memory.”

The United Nations dedicated this year’s International Day of Indigenous Peoples to the topic "Covid-19 and the resilience of Indigenous Peoples."  On August 9, the United Nations stated that “it is more important than ever to safeguard these peoples and their knowledge. Their territories are home to 80% of the world's biodiversity and can teach us a lot about how to rebalance our relationship with nature and reduce the risk of future pandemics ”.

The “elderly”, those who are most vulnerable to Covid-19 —remarks Ruth Alipaz Cuqui, from the Amazon community of San José de Uchupiamonas in Bolivia— “are our libraries, our library of knowledge that must be transmitted to the next generations. The death of an old man means a lot of loss for the indigenous peoples ”.

“n the Amazon basin, a territory inhabited by 511 peoples and distributed in nine countries, there is a state of alert. Indigenous communities not only face the advance of mining, oil projects or deforestation for the expansion of industrial agriculture.” Over the past 5 months, they now have to contend with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Panamazonic Ecclesial Network (Repam) and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (Coica) have documented 34,598 cases of indigenous people infected with Covid-19 and 1,251 deaths in the region as of August 4. “Almost 15 indigenous brothers are infected daily in the Amazon basin. Five or six siblings die every day ... There are towns with 40 inhabitants, if the Covid arrives there, the town ends ”, highlights José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, from Coica.”

“"Indigenous peoples have always lived like this: abandoned to our fate", remarks the Bolivian indigenous Ruth Alipaz Cuqui, from the National Coordinator for the Defense of Indigenous, Native, Peasant and Protected Areas (Contiocap)… In Bolivia, where half of its inhabitants are indigenous, it was not until July 8 that it was announced that there would be an aid plan for this population.”

“Ruth Alipaz explains that , in Bolivia, the government has allowed extractive activities , such as oil exploitation, to continue in the Chaco region. Mining also did not stop in the Bolivian Amazon and this has caused , according to Alipaz, that indigeneous populations who are in initial contact, such as the Yuquis, “are already beginning to register infections….Megaprojects are justified with words like “development” or “sources of employment.”

“From the institutions they say that these projects are going to give work, but they do not say everything that we are going to lose; we are going to lose the land ... Our existence is linked to the earth, the cosmos, the water, the stones. How are we going to maintain the bond with the earth if they destroy it, if they end our way of existing? ”Asks Wilma Esquivel.

Not even those countries whose governments “said they had an indigenous profile”, Ruth Alipaz points out: “In 2009 the Plurinational State was born (in Bolivia) and we believed that it was consolidation, that we, the indigenous peoples, represented plurality. That has become mere political speech. The Constitution has been filed on a shelf ”.

Even with the transitional government in Bolivia, things did not change. The previous government’s efforts to encourage clearing of land for agribusiness through burning were not annulled—the burning of more than 5 million hectares of Chiquitano forest has been legalized

“Indigenous peoples also have limited political rights, highlights Ruth Alipaz. In the case of Bolivia, a law was passed stating that no one can participate in political life if it is not through a party.”

“The organizations that are part of Coica and others that are in the region are promoting a moratorium on extractive activities in the Amazon, have filed legal actions against governments such as Brazil and will begin a global campaign that will have as main issues climate change and the protection of the Amazon. This campaign starts on this International Day of Indigenous Peoples and will run until September 22, as part of World Climate Week.”

“Despite the fact that they live in different geographies, Wilma Esquivel, Lizardo Cauper and Ruth Alipaz, Gregorio Díaz and Wilson Herrera agree that the pandemic has not only further exposed the abandonment faced by indigenous peoples. Also, they point out, it has been a trigger for reflections and for strengthening their capacity for collective organization.”

A version of this article was also published in Tec Review and Animal Politico.

Indigenous people denounce mismanagement in protected areas

According to Pagina Siete, “communities that live in national parks constantly send notes that do not receive a response from the National Service of Protected Areas.” The new administrators of the National Service of Protected Areas (Sernap) made appointments and dismissals of the directors of these reserves illegally and without consultation. They point out that in the midst of the pandemic, the park rangers were dismissed and rotated.

“In Pilón Lajas a director was appointed who did not have consensus. Our TCO (Community Land of Origin) is 90% indigenous territory of Mosetenes and T'simanes and the rest is a biosphere reserve. That is why it was always managed” in a collaborative way between the indigenous peoples and Sernap. “But this time they have bypassed the communities, they have run us over with an interim director hand-picked, failing to comply with the merit contest. We have filed a complaint but to date we have no response ”, said the representative of the Central of Indigenous Peoples of La Paz (Cpilap) Gonzalo Oliver.”

Also, in Madidi National Park, Otuquis, Kaa-Iya and in the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve, “the indigenous communities that inhabit the territory were left aside in decision-making. Those affected affirm that their management committees were unknown or declared illegal, leaving them out of any type of control.”

Their hand-delivered letter was rejected because “we had a mistake of a letter in the second surname of the director…We inquired about the appointment but we were told that it comes with an external budget.”

Indigeneous communities in other areas of the country (e.g., communities of Quetena Chico and Quetena Grande in the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve) have experienced similar treatment.

“These complaints and many others were made known through a letter sent by various management committees to Sernap with a copy to the Ministry of the Environment.” But, there has been no response. 

Indigenous people are affected by mining activities

According to this Spanish-language article in Pagina Sieta, “despite quarantine and other containment measures, foreign companies carry out gold operations in rivers on which many indigenous peoples depend.

The mining companies that operate in the high regions of La Paz and Beni during this pandemic time continue to work and generate direct impacts on indigenous peoples living on the banks of rivers, such as the Lecos, Mosetenes, Chimanes, Tacanas and Uchupiamonas.

"They are Chinese and Colombian companies that are affecting with high degrees of mercury contamination in rivers and despite the fact that the government ordered quarantine and then other measures against the coronavirus, they have not stopped these extractive activities that afflict our territories ”Said the indigenous leader of the Amazon, Alex Villca, in an interview with ANF.

According to the bulletin “Monitoring our territories”, from the Bolivia Documentation and Information Center, one of the regions hardest hit by legal and illegal gold mining, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, are the municipalities of Teoponte, Guanay, Tipuani, Mapiri, Apolo and San Buenaventura in La Paz and Rurrenabaque in Beni.

During this quarantine, these companies have not stopped and continue to operate, leaving the waste of mercury and other elements in the rivers, from where the indigenous people source, fish and live.”
 

World Ranger Day: stories of effort and passion of those who live dedicated to nature

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”

Heat sources increase by up to 30% in seven protected areas

“Between February 1 and July 28, 2020, 3,155 heat sources were reported in seven parks and protected areas in the country, 32 percent more than in the same period of 2019, when 2,383 heat sources were reported, according to” Forest Information and Monitoring System data from Bolivia’s Ministry of Environment and Water.

“According to the report, in the period from February to July 2020, 47,179 heat sources were reported throughout the country, 44,024 of these were outside protected areas and 3,155 within protected areas.”

Minor increases were seen in Madidi National Park and Pilon Lajas.

More information here.

Protected areas are at risk from drug trafficking, burning and exploitation of resources

On July 31, Los Tiempos reported that “the coronavirus pandemic has accentuated the crisis that for more than a decade has placed protected areas under extreme threat on a national scale.”

“According to a detailed report on the situation of the Madidi, Kaa Iya, Iñao and Otuquis parks and the Pilón Lajas, Manuripi and Eduardo Avaroa reserves to which Cabildeo Digital had access, during the health crisis the illegal incursions did not stop, the drug trafficking activities , the indiscriminate burning and the intensive exploitation of natural resources, in the midst of a management by the National Service of Protected Areas (Sernap) that cut budgets, left unpaid bonuses and salaries and dismissed key officials even from the prohibition due to the health crisis.

Alex Villca, spokesperson for the National Coordinator of Native Peasant Indigenous Territories and Protected Areas (Contiocap) assured that “Among all the threats that lie in wait for our territories, such as the construction of dams, oil exploration, illegal mining, the opening of roads and new settlements, one of the greatest dangers is the expansion of illegal coca plantations for drug trafficking. "

German Góngora, president of the Manuripi National Reserve Management Committee, added that “unfortunately in a pandemic, these risks have been accentuated by the total state abandonment” and an erratic management of the Sernap that does not differ from the dynamics imposed during the 14 years of government of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) period in which the Protected Areas "miraculously survived, by the impulse of the park rangers and the management committees of indigenous peoples".

Cabildeo Digital tried to contact the director of the Sernap, Maikol Melgar, and verified that for several weeks he has not been attending his offices in La Paz and that he has withdrawn to Santa Cruz, where he lived before assuming that position.

Economic crisis, drug trafficking and extractivism

The pandemic has disrupted the economy of the inhabitants of the protected areas.” Due to closure of all tourist activities in Madidi and Pilón Lajas. Villca recalled that "a large part of the resources for financial sustainability came from the visitor collection system (Sisco), which generated, on average, 1.2 million Bolivians per year, but due to the pandemic, these resources are not being generated", and regretted that "the most biodiverse tourist destination, which in February received international certification as a sustainable world destination, does not have the necessary impetus from either the central government or the municipalities. People suffer the impacts, many guides, cooks, motorists, drivers of the communities have been left without a job, they have to look for other forms of survival and they increase hunting for the sustenance of families,And that impacts biodiversity.”

“But other problems also threaten the region. The risk of drug trafficking is one of them…the park rangers confided to Cabildeo Digital that "the drug trafficking route enters the Madidi national park, park ranger camps like the one in Colorado have been evacuated by threats from drug gangs, each time we are retreating due to the lack of state presence."

With the opening of roads, said Villca, mining is another of the strong threats: "the waters of the Beni river are totally contaminated, the contamination passes through Mapiri, Guanay, from the Kaka river, where the Chinese dredges are, it contaminates the areas protected ”.

Destiny changes and layoffs amid pandemic

“In Bolivia, this July 31, International Park Ranger Day, the more than 300 park rangers distributed in the 22 national parks and reserves of the country, do not have much to celebrate, on the contrary, they have many reasons to ensure that the balance is not very encouraging .

After several months of acephalia, the management positions of the Madidi National Park and the Pilón Lajas Reserve were appointed without merit competition and were entrusted to local businessmen with evident conflicts of interest. Although the Sernap ordered the withdrawal of a large part of the personnel and the closure of the parks and reserves to tourism, the latent threats in those territories forced the rangers to resume their activities, although their work was seriously affected by the lack of budget for operating expenses and the absence of police and military personnel to support control patrols.

Even though they did not stop working during the pandemic, many were dismissed, others were relocated and had to bear the costs of moving to their new operations centers.

According to the story of the park rangers, who asked Cabildeo Digital to keep their names confidential for fear of reprisals, "there is a situation of job insecurity and uncertainty about the future of the institution because, in the face of any claim, the authorities assure that collapse is imminent financial institution, although for new appointments have been set salaries above 16,000 Bolivians.”

“They reported that at least 70% of park rangers are temporary, in many cases for 10, 15 and 20 years, without any type of benefits or social benefits. "In the Madidi of 26 park rangers, only six are permanent personnel, 20 are temporary, and in Pilón Lajas, five, four are temporary," said Villca.”

In the face of the coronavirus advance, indigenous people from northern La Paz ask not to abandon them and give them health care

According to this Spanish-language article published in ERBOL: In view of the COVID threat in their territories, the Amazonian indigenous peoples of the north of the department of La Paz urgently demand humanitarian health care from government authorities and ask civil society and intermediate populations not to abandon them in the face of the scourge of the pandemic, reported journalist Ana María Oblitas for the ERBOL network 

According to the report, in a nearby sector, in the municipality of San Buenaventura, at least thirteen people, including the Mayor, were confirmed with coronavirus. It is vulnerable due to its sanitary conditions and its remoteness from large urban centers.

Thus, indigenous communities and park rangers are strengthening control and surveillance in the El Suse (or Susi) Strait, on the Beni River in order to contain the advance of COVID-19, at the same time as stopping hunting and fishing. illegal in their ancestral territories and the Madidi and Pilón Lajas protected areas.

The leader Miriam Pariamo, representative of the indigenous women of the northern Amazon, denounced that to date they have not received any kind of benefits such as solidarity bonds and no help has come to indigenous peoples who are far from the headquarters of their municipalities. 

One of those territories where state bonds did not arrive is the Community Land of Origin (TCO) of San José de Uchupiamonas, according to the report. The inhabitants of said TCO must also go out and expose themselves in the urban centers where they go, hoping to receive some help from the authorities. 

The report states that the authorities have so far not heeded the pleas for help.

For this reason the indigenous people ask the sister populations to show solidarity with them since they have ended with the self-consumption of their own agricultural products and to date “they do not have even a kilo of rice” to satisfy the food needs of their families.

Bolivian coca cultivation jumped by 10% in 2019, UN says

The Washington Post reported that coca cultivation jumped 10% in Bolivia in 2019… partly because of reduced eradication efforts amid rising social and political conflicts.”

“Thierry Rostan, the agency’s representative in Bolivia, noted the expansion of coca fields in six of the country’s 22 national parks where a “significant degradation of ecosystems and the environment” was seen. The most affected park was Madidi National Park in the Bolivia’s Amazon."

A novel policy of “self-control” by coca growers implemented by Morales lost relevance in the last year of his government, when the coca voluntarilly eradicated was less than the increased area, Rostan said.

Morales, who led Bolivia’s largest coca-growers union, expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from the country in 2017 and nearly doubled the amount of legal coca destined for traditional uses to more 20,000 hectares…

“It is very likely that the area under coca cultivation will increase in the producing regions, due to lower levels of rationalization/eradication activities carried out for the control of surplus crops. These activities were temporarily suspended as of March 2020,” it said in the report.