Politicians fiddle while Bolivia burns

Wildfire smoke engulfs over Santa Cruz de la Sierra in October, 2023. Photo: Maicol Albert, puntitos Ojalá.

Opinion • Stasiek Czaplicki Cabezas • November 2, 2023 • Publicada por Revista Nómadas el 26 de octubre 2023, traducida por Ojalá.

Wildfires are raging through forests, plains and other ecosystems in Bolivia. Previously, fires generally took place only in September, but a drought that has been ongoing since mid-year due to El Niño, as well as a delay in rainfall, led to a sharp increase in large and small fires through the end of October.

This surge places Bolivia among the countries with the highest number of hot spots in the world, which is a rough indicator of fires and of cities with the worst air quality. As of last week, Bolivia had more hot spots than all of of Brazil, and the latest government report shows more than two million hectares burned, including nearly half a million hectares of forest.

It wasn’t until the smoke reached Bolivia’s major cities, though, that outrage and concern began to spread among the general public as well as to political pundits. Air pollution is visible to the naked eye and along with it, serious health problems, especially among the most vulnerable.

It’s hard to witness another year of extreme burning on such a large scale, with all the ecological and social destruction it implies. All of this is obviously very concerning. But what’s even more worrying is that these issues only seem to become important when they affect urban populations.

Isn’t the state of the forests and rural populations worrying enough? How did we get to this point?

Disputed narratives

In the midst of this situation, the very same powers that authorize and promote deforestation are trying to control the narrative and impose their version of events. The only time they raise their voices is when they can capitalize on public anger, blame their opponents and advance their political agendas. This is an opportunistic attitude that shows disdain for social and environmental issues, as well as for forests and public health. The fires provide justification for decision-makers to point to the discourse of elite groups, thereby evading their own responsibility for creating a problem that they will later go on to ignore.

First, there is the narrative of the segment of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS), specifically the wing of the party led by Evo Morales. Paradoxically, together with former officials from eastern Bolivia, they are outraged that there have been no protests against the government. They have criticized the inaction of Luis Arce’s government, even accusing him of causing the fires.

These are the same people who, when they were in office during the mega-fires in 2019, and who responded late, and in a theatrical and negligent manner, even in the face of massive protests. Now, they insist that in 2019 they were victims of politically motivated social pressure, and claim that the environmental concerns expressed then were opportunistic. This is a dishonest interpretation and failes to account for what took place four years ago. Those fires were much larger and more persistent than they are today, which, while alarming, are nowhere near the nearly six million hectares that burned in 2019.

The current administration’s narrative has mostly focused on alleging criminal activity, without providing evidence or names. In recent days, however, as social pressure triggered by the influx of smoke into the cities rose, the Forestry and Land Authority (ABT) announced it had initiated the process to levy 127 fines for the fires, a tiny number in the face of what is taking place.

The ABT also announced that it is drafting a new regulation to introduce heavier penalties [for those deemed responsible for starting fires]. This is very badly timed and, of course, it isn’t retroactive. In any case, we’re familiar with this scapegoating strategy, which doesn't change the fact that the fires have been occurring for years and continue to go unpenalized.

Just a few months ago the government was boasting about the success of its public policies in reducing forest fires. Today, it insists on avoiding any responsibility and is overly concerned with denying elaborate conspiracy theories claiming the fires were started by burning tires dropped from airplanes.

Although the government claims it is controlling the fires, the only thing that extinguishes forest fires in Bolivia is rain. Nor the gargantuan efforts of professional and volunteer firefighters, nor the government's negligible operational capacity, can stop the fires. This doesn’t mean more efforts shouldn’t be made to control fires and protect communities and areas of high ecological value. But a true fire management policy must act in a timely and preventive manner, not spring into action once fires are uncontrollable, or simply declare “environmental pauses” [a stoppage to burns lit to clear land for agriculture]. In fact, a ban was introduced on slash-and-burn farming techniques on August 1, 2023.

A more proactive policy would see the government repeal the laws that allow for fires, and develop an effective public policy of control and prevention by the Forestry and Land Authority, which today is missing in action. Instead, the ABT has focused its fire prevention policy on a campaign of “education of its roles and responsibilities” which was carried out via a caravan that toured 11 municipalities in Santa Cruz and nine in Beni.

The long hand of agribusiness

Another narrative is that presented by agribusiness corporations and officials with departmental and municipal governments in eastern Bolivia. It involves denying their key role in the emergence of hotspots, and shifting blame onto another scapegoat: the small farmers who have arrived from elsewhere to prepare the land for agriculture [through burning], as well as the land distribution policies of the central government. While these sectors certainly share some of the responsibility for the fires, the private sector is far and away the most important root cause.

The environmental group Fundación Tierra notes that agribusiness is the main driver of deforestation in Bolivia, and therefore of a large part of the fires. An analysis of land tenure would help to better understand the responsibility of all parties—especially the private sector—as it would indicate where the fires started and where charred scars have been left behind. But land tenure data is not publicly available, even through rumour has it that some land traffickers have access to it.

In cases where it’s no longer possible to hide their responsibility, agribusiness companies use an even more cynical argument. They claim the central government is to blame, claiming they have been forced them to cut down forests in order to comply with Economic and Social Function (FES) regulations. While it is true that FES compliance does not currently allow for land uses compatible with standing forest. However, the government suspended FES inspections years ago, and has no real capacity to conduct field audits. When it does, it doesn’t carry out land restitution or expropriation. This claim by the agribusiness sector claim is unjustified and paradoxical, as illegal burning and deforestation is considered a violation of the FES, and all slash-and-burn operations were banned starting August 1, 2023.

Blaming the poor

To make matters worse, there are pundits in Santa Cruz who claim the fires stem from the poverty and greed of those who burn the forest instead of logging to clear the land. I can’t imagine more disgusting rhetoric than linking the fires to the social and economic conditions of sectors of the rural population. This discourse depends on ignoring the fact that logging can also be the cause of fires, which are started to dispose of residual dry plant matter that would cause significant losses if it were to catch fire during the planting or harvest season.

In general, this narrative seeks to absolve malicious entrepreneurs from wrongdoing and is in line with the idea of blaming Indigenous peoples and, by association, the [central] government. What is clear is that while slash-and-burn (chaqueo) is an ancient practice and the lowland land redistribution program is several decades old, recurring mega-fires are a post-2016 phenomenon.

It’s especially important to take a critical look at the narratives being pushed by the media as pollution makes our eyes burn and dries out our noses. We need to critically assess how narratives are created and whether they’re coming from actors whose sole motivation is opportunistic posturing and pushing their own agendas. The manipulation of environmental issues by dominant groups is real, and more than anything else, it gives them an opportunity to clean up their image and blame their opponents. Meanwhile, deforestation and forest fires are complex problems which are worsened by the expansion of agriculture, cattle ranching and the impacts of climate change.

It is high time the narrative of the “successful” development model in Santa Cruz, as well as its underlying myths about food security and other issues, be questioned. So too must we question the government’s narrative of successful and good faith policymaking.

When the smoke and unrest blow over, will we keep ignoring the alliances between agribusiness and the government? How many mega-fires and severe droughts do we have to experience? How much forest do we have to lose, before we finally change course?