Ecocide and elections in Bolivia

La Loba Rata Chacal, acrylic on wood, 70cm x 50cm © Sheep María.

Opinion • Stasiek Czaplicki Cabezas • January 9, 2025 • Leer en castellano

What’s behind the massive fires and widespread deforestation that plague Bolivia? Bolivians have been discussing this very question for the past few years. In August, Bolivians will go do the polls, and the country is plunged into an extended socio-economic crisis. In this context its worth examining competing narratives that attempt to explain the fires, as well as to explore why, in spite of everything, the ecocidal and inequitable agro-export model is not being questioned.

The past decades in Bolivia have been marked by annual forest fires. But with the exception of 2010, when a severe drought triggered unprecedented mega-fires, the fires did not reach truly alarming dimensions until 2019. Deforestation intensified in 2016 and has worsened since, aggravating the impact of climate change and degrading ecosystems in a way that makes them more vulnerable to fires.

The politicization of forest fires led to a lack of information about the ownership of the lands that were cleared and burned, which made it easier for the powerful industrial-agriculture sector to spread misinformation.

A charged reckoning in a country on fire

When the mega-fires in 2019 became critical, Evo Morales’ government identified climate change and global capitalism as the main culprits. This aligned with discourses used by progressive governments internationally and allowed the government to sidestep the fact that its support for the expansion of the agricultural industry played a key role in expanding the footprint of the fires.

Bolivia’s big agro sector promoted another narrative. Challenging the official discourse, it attributed the fires to land grant policies that benefited “settlers” (who are also called “interculturals” in Bolivia), who have migrated from the Andean highlands to work collective properties granted to them by the state on public lands in eastern Bolivia. They are often called “settlers” and considered to be benefiting from favoritism on the part of the government. This has fueled anti-Andean racism in eastern Bolivia, where migrants are scapegoated for deforestation and fires.

The ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), initially identified the Indigenous movement as the central actor in the construction of Bolivian environmentalism, based on Vivir bien [good living] and respect for Pachamama. However, Indigenous organizations began to distance themselves from the government in 2019.

Indigenous groups not only stopped supporting the MAS, but many also openly opposed the government. The split dates back to 2011 and has links to the imposition of a highway project through the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS, in its Spanish acronym). This prompted the MAS to encourage the rise of a parallel leadership and to marginalize critical Indigenous organizations.

The government's refusal to respect the self-determination of Indigenous communities that opposed the highway marked a point of no return. Morales' polarizing statements only cemented the rupture. “Whether they like it or not, we are going to build the Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos highway,” he said.

This political shift stalled the distribution of land titles in Indigenous territories nationwide, leading to the failure to return 11.4 million hectares of land to Indigenous peoples. It also marked the beginning of a new era of agricultural expansion forged through an alliance between agribusiness and corporate cattle ranchers that enjoyed the support of intercultural groups.

At the same time, the government accused environmental NGOs of manipulating Indigenous peoples and spread the idea that environmental activism is a form of colonialism. Although these accusations reflect valid criticisms of conservationism and NGOs, they end up being deeply paternalistic.

These accusations led to drastic cuts in international funding for environmental NGOs in Bolivia and their gradual silencing. Prior to 2019, they released essentially no critical investigations of the government or those responsible for deforestation or forest fires in the country.

The government tolerated deforestation and fires for years, while also failing to release relevant statistics. The absence of data and lack of transparency made it easier for Bolivian agribusiness to spread its own narratives..

A narrative focused on the defense of private property, which is positioned as being under threat by invaders, became an important part of the debate. It emerges from the country's plantation history and resurfaces every couple of years and circulates internationally. The perspective fails to interrogate the origin or consequences of corporate land grabbing. It tends to equate land grabbers with interculturals, pointing out their privileged link to the MAS.

Calls for harsh punishment of “arsonists” have also grown louder. In a country like Bolivia, this can end up being a call for the material authors of the fires to face prison time, while the intellectual authors who benefit from the clearing and fires get off scot free.

Breaking the silence

We were not able to get reliable information on the ownership of deforested lands until 2022. Then, in 2023 and 2024, we got access to an inventory of burned lands. This made it possible to identify the public policies and actors that drive deforestation and forest fires. Intercultural people are involved, but so are land traffickers, Mennonites, and, above all, agro-industrialists and cattle ranchers. 

This new data allowed for a deeper understanding of the issue, but it continues to struggle to gain footing against the dominant narratives, which have been established over many years. The new information is unlikely to counteract the idea—promoted by the agricultural sector and the government—that the solution to Bolivia’s socio-economic crisis lies in deepening the very agricultural model that fuels the ecological crisis. 

The government of Luis Arce, who is also from the MAS, has pitched the production of biodiesel in a context of ongoing gasoline and diesel shortages, and argues that expanding the agricultural frontier is necessary and unavoidable. 

Arce has limited options. He faces the specter of being branded anti-private sector, in a context in which many fear that Bolivia could take a turn similar to that of Venezuela, leading to product shortages and inflation.

Paradoxically, the Bolivian agricultural sector has managed to position itself as a victim of government policies, despite receiving generous subsidies, tax benefits and financial support thanks to its political influence. 

Government support for big agro continues even as the sector makes only marginal contributions to public finances and as it concedes nothing in terms of the provision of social benefits. Even in times of extreme crisis, like during the 2019 political conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic and the return of MAS to power, the alliance between the government and agribusiness has remained intact. Decrees and laws that reorganize debt, reduce import tariffs on inputs and machinery, and grant perks without stipulating compensation from the agroindustrial sector have strengthened this alliance recently. 

Ecological crisis in the run-up to the elections

As the 2025 presidential elections approach, the political parties agree on the need for the government to support the private sector, which, they argue, the MAS government abandoned. They call for an increase in agricultural exports and, with it, the expansion of the agricultural industry. 

The MAS’s main proposals to date include measures such as the elimination of campesino, intercultural and Indigenous collective land titles, the total liberalization of agricultural exports and the further deregulation of the capitalist economic model.

Huascar Salazar recently warned of the emergence of a kind of “progressive blackmail,” in which the MAS perpetuates the status quo by positioning itself as the most progressive option without demanding a substantive change in the political or economic horizon. 

According to Salazar, MAS-weary or right-wing voters, influenced by the erroneous perception that the current economy is socialist, could be tempted to vote for more liberalization. The outlook is bleak, given the lack of a political will to confront structural problems. 

Neither the government nor the political parties are willing to dismantle the networks of economic, financial, social and political relations that sustain the agro-extractivist model. Breaking this cycle will take more than regulatory reforms: it requires a profound questioning and a radical transformation, which can only occur outside of and in opposition to the state.

In Bolivia, agricultural expansion has not fulfilled the economic and social promises that justified its growth. The dream of an ecological horizon remains distant. Bringing it into focus will require a collective effort to dismantle the current agro-extractivist model and lay the foundation for a truly inclusive and sustainable economy.