The area of virgin forest cleared in Bolivia jumped 32 per cent last year, fuelling concerns that government-backed deforestation could jeopardise efforts to save the Amazon.
The rate of tree clearing is now so high that Bolivia accounts for 9 per cent of all of the primary forest lost across the globe. Only Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — which are eight and two times larger than Bolivia respectively — lost more primary forest in 2022, according to the latest from the World Resources Institute (WRI).
Primary forests – those that haven’t been disturbed by human activities – are seen as the most important to protect because of their capacity for carbon storage and biodiversity.
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Based on satellite data, the report finds that of Bolivian primary forest was lost in 2022. That is equivalent to the emission of 298 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, says the WRI, making Bolivia’s per capita CO2 emission rate
Total forest cover in Bolivia has decreased from 63 million hectares in 1985 to 55 million in 2022 and the rate of loss is now about four times that at the start of the 21st century.
Bolivia is one of the few countries that didn’t sign up to the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use in 2021, which pledged to end deforestation by 2030. While the leaders of Brazil and Colombia have made net-zero and are seeing rates of forest loss fall, Bolivia’s government is actively promoting forest clearing.
Unlike in Brazil, where most deforestation is for illegal cattle ranching or mining, in Bolivia the majority of clearing is legal and by the government to increase agricultural production.
President Luis Arce’s administration has pardoned environmental crimes and is opening up new swathes of forest for development to reduce Bolivia’s imports and ramp up exports to countries such as China.
Sugarcane, corn and cattle ranching are key deforestation drivers, but soya production is growing especially rapidly. Almosthas been cleared to produce soya beans since the turn of the century, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project calculates.
The Bolivian government’s desire to expand agricultural production means that conservationists fear deforestation will only increase, accelerating the transformation of the entire Amazon rainforest.
Climate feedback loop
Most of the environmental destruction is occurring in the highly biodiverse Chiquitano forest, which extends into Brazil. The Chiquitano’s climate is than that of the Amazon, but it is directly connected to it and considered by the likes of WWF to be part of the same biome.
Climate researchers are seeing signs that the Chiquitano is changing rapidly under environmental pressures, with .
The forest also appears to be influenced by a regional feedback loop of climate change. Shifting regional weather patterns, such as longer dry seasons across the southern Amazon due to deforestation, are making Bolivia’s forests less resilient to stress, accelerating their degradation and feeding back into the same cycle.
Forest fires are a growing cause of deforestation and now make up a third of all Bolivian forest loss. A drier climate means small fires started by farmers to clear small plots are increasingly morphing into uncontrollable blazes, says Natalia Calderon, executive director of the in Bolivia.
“We’re seeing more drought and with that drought we’re seeing fires spread out of control. It’s likely at least some amount of that drought is happening because of the deforestation and land use practices in other parts of South America in the Amazon,” says , the director of Global Forest Watch and an author of the WRI report.
Bolivia was hailed by conservationists across the globe in 2011 when it enshrined the so-called Law of Mother Earth, which gave the environment equal rights to people, it hasn’t led to an improvement in the country’s environmental policies.
The Bolivian government didn’t respond to a request to comment for this article.
