May 16, 2024, 10:37 PM
May 16, 2024, 10:37 PM
Thousands of liters of diesel systematically enter the country daily and without permission. Madidi National Park to carry out illegal mining activities in the face of the silence of competent authorities who turn a deaf ear to the reports that the park rangers send.
The report corresponds to SOStenibles Magazine, in an extensive report, in which it denounces that, daily, tankers and trucks enter loaded with thousands of liters that are destined for gold mining cooperatives that operate illegally within the protected area.
According to the media, the vehicle entry point is Santa Cruz del Valle Ameno, in the municipality of Apolo, Franz Tamayo province of the department of La Paz, where there is a park ranger checkpoint, but which, for some time, has already been surpassed by the miners.
One of the park rangers, whose identity was withheld for his safety, confirmed to SOStenibles that he sent the reports that support this complaint. “They do not have authorization and they have the luxury of saying that they are in contact with the police and controlled substances, they do not show us permits. They go to the mining cooperatives within the protected area. This practice is not just now. I have been a park ranger for 23 years,” said the official.
He assured that he is witnessing the increase in this incessant traffic to which is also added the entry of personnel for these activities. “We report everything to our immediate superiors and they escalate it to others higher up and nothing is done. The responses are a ‘thank you’ and there are no actions. In our meetings we decided to make these activities known to civil society. They say that we should not release that information, but we have faith that people can do something,” said the park ranger from the heart of Madidi.
This situation was also made known, through social networks, by Marcos Uzquiano, current president of the Bolivian Association of Park Rangers, Conservation Agents (Abolac) confirming that, last April, the Illegal mining would have brought in more than 120,000 liters of diesel subsidized to the Madidi National Park towards the sectors of Virgen del Rosario and Santa Rosa on the Tuichi River.
“It is inconceivable that in a country where there are Armed Forces, Police, a National Hydrocarbon Authority, a General Directorate of Controlled Substances, AJAM among others, These sectors act with total impunity to import large quantities of subsidized diesel to destroy the most biodiverse protected area in the world,” Uzquiano lamented.
According to the reports to which the media had access, in 7 days of April 53,000 liters of diesel entered the protected area through the Santa Cruz del Valle Ameno district, dividing about 6,600 liters destined for Santa Rosa and 46,640 liters of diesel to Virgen of the Rosary Santa Clara. From April 3 to 8, 22 entries to two protected areas were recorded.
According to witnesses, in other parts of the park, the communities Yours Yours and Azariamasheavy machinery also enters and fuel, but there they do not allow the presence of park rangers, much less the registration of this activity.
