September 11, 2022, 4:40 AM
September 11, 2022, 4:40 AM
María René Álvarez/ national deputy
In recent years, the phenomenon of subjugation of lands protected by the Political Constitution of the State (CPE), the dispossession of territory from indigenous-native and private peoples in addition to forest concessions, has taken a highly dangerous turn in the face of the passivity of the Bolivian State, these elements are a sentence for the disappearance of protected areas.
The criminal tone with which those interested in taking state and community lands operate are nothing more than a reflection of a total lack of interest in the application of the Law. and the execution of fiscal policies aimed at their preservation, as well as control in terms of sustainability in lands subject to concessions, except for no more than two companies throughout the country.
The relaxation and violation of the norm; the crooked alliances between mining cooperatives with foreign capital, the greed of political power that manipulates the agrarian judicial system, like the rest of the justice structure, and the political action of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) to extend its partisan presence for electoral purposes , converge as a kind of colonizing gear of the Bolivian east.
One of the greatest congenital weaknesses in the creation of protected areas has to do with the lack of criteria in the sense of a system by one side, and on the other, the lack of convergence of institutional-technical sense of preservation for the comprehensive management of lands subject to special protection such as protected areas and original territories.
The deficiencies in the management of protected areas, the vulnerability of the native-indigenous territories of the lowlands and the irregular concessions that end in the deforestation of primary forests have a direct impact and affect the heritage of all Bolivians, under the complicity of the central administration on duty, nonsense that in recent years has worsened in a worrying way, even in the international context, even more so when the Plurinational State of Bolivia says it is the protector of Mother Earth.
The government’s erratic handling of unavailable public lands and the violation of the right to territory that the CPE ensures for the original peoples of the lowlands, expresses the inability of the State to comply with policies of preservation, conservation and respect for natural rights. of this heritage.
The systematic assault on the lands of the original communities, especially Chiquitano communities, with a clear colonizing partisan intention of the MAS through groups called “intercultural”, constitutes another of the complex problems that, if not resolved firmly within the constitutional mandates, condemns the disappearance of protected lands, the ecosystems that inhabit them and puts the survival of lowland peoples at high risk.
The illegal actions of assault on protected lands mainly affect six provinces: Velasco, Chiquitos, Ñuflo de Chávez, Ángel Sandoval, Germán Busch and Guarayos from the Chiquitania of Santa Cruz.
One of the forest reserves severely affected by arbitrary human settlements is Bajo Paraguá, in the Province of Velasco, department of Santa Cruz, where, according to a departmental government report, at least 300 hectares (ha) of forest were felled by groups of settlers acting with violence and outside the law, protected by the political power of the MAS.
In the complexity of this problem, the Chueca forest concessions have become large transactions that compromise high authorities of this and previous governments.
The exploitation and illegal trafficking of wood in the former Romano forestry concession, municipality of San Rafael in Santa Cruz, where nearly 50,000 ha are in question, is the clearest example of the violation of all regulations governing public land concessions, as well as as the violation of the right of indigenous communities to their lands of origin.
Romano, former concession of timber resources, overwhelmed and looted by groups outside the law, reveals the complicity of executive authorities in charge of land allocation and forest control such as INRA and ABT, condemning the forests to their depredation, whose consequences could be irreversible, such as desertification and erosion and impact on the rain cycle.
Within the framework of the efforts that make legislative responsibility, measures were taken that should force the competent authorities to give a prompt response and take immediate action in the face of the seriousness of the problem of land invasion and irregular forest concessions.
