A decree legalizes illegal settlements in Choré

The deafening noise of politics silences the voices of the depredated nature in Choré. Its surface of more than 770,000 hectares, located in two provinces and three municipalities of the department of Santa Cruz, is no longer a full forest reserve. A recently promulgated supreme decree has divided this territory and opened it to become an integrated management area, where the presence of peasant and intercultural communities can be consolidated, who will be able to process permits to clear-cut forests, cut down trees, plant agricultural products, etc. Decree 5202 was promulgated on Wednesday and has already set off alarm bells in this department because specialists and scholars see that with this legal tool the possibility of acting in the same way with other protected areas and forest reserves is opened.

The Tierra Foundation organization recalls that it was precisely in Choré where last year there was a wild forest fire, which left a desert area, loss of wild animal lives and forest resources. The consequences were felt in the main cities of the department, where the strongest contamination in recent years was felt. At that time, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform and the ABT denied the granting of permits for these practices to be carried out. It was learned that the perpetrators were members of peasant and intercultural communities who were illegally settled in the area.

In October of last year, a commission from the Legislative Assembly and the departmental Executive inspected the Forest Reserve. There they found that more than 54,000 hectares had burned. They also found wooden houses with some plants planted and some vehicles already installed in the depredated areas. The National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) denied the titling of that area; however, the new decree reverses all this because in a transitory provision it establishes that the Ministry of Environment and Water will approve the regulations of requirements and procedures for the granting of permits for the use and sustainable exploitation of natural resources.

A forest reserve is an area of ​​forest that is used for sustainable forestry. According to Bolivian regulations, these reserves are inalienable (i.e. human settlements and deforestation are not permitted). However, the new supreme decree cuts 220,000 hectares to convert them into Integrated Management Areas, which according to the definitions are areas where environmental protection and the use of natural resources must be compatible. In other words, the decree legalizes the presence of communities, invaders, etc. This means that the INRA will issue property titles in an area that was previously a sacred sanctuary of natural resources. With it, permits to clear and burn.

The possibility of changing land use is also validated, with the area ceasing to be a forest and becoming a crop area, which affects environmental preservation and favors desertification, drought and global warming.

Furthermore, Fundación Tierra warns that a large part of the ‘beneficiaries’ of this title are members of the Movement Towards Socialism, in what has been defined as a geopolitical objective to obtain votes where historically it has not obtained them. The worst thing is that it also raises the alarm that those who access titles and ownership of these properties are land merchants, in other words, traffickers and predators.

These are serious actions that occur while the political class entertains the citizens with other debates. The word of the Government of Santa Cruz is expected, which has maintained a worrying silence in the face of this new norm approved by the Government of Luis Arce.