Mining and logging threaten Bolivia’s newest protected area

The Gran Manupare reserve was created in January 2024 in northern Bolivia’s Pando department, making it the newest protected area in the country.However, the reserve already faces threats from gold mining along the Madre de Dios River, which forms its northern border.Logging is another threat that experts warn could enter Gran Manupare, which holds highly sought-after mahogany trees.

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Bolivia’s newest protected area, Gran Manupare Integrated Management Natural Area, sprawls across an area a tenth the size of Switzerland in the municipality of Sena, in the northern department of Pando. This 452,639-hectare (1.12-million-acre) reserve serves as a refuge for rare species like the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) and the jaguar (Panthera onca).

Limbert Torres, the president of the Sena City Council, says the creation of the protected area in January this year followed exhaustive studies by various entities, including the City Council, the Center for Research and Promotion of Campesinos (CIPCA), and Conservation International Bolivia, with financial support from international organizations.

Yet this newly created reserve is already seriously threatened by illegal gold mining and logging. Its natural border in the north is the impressive Madre de Dios River, which starts in Peru and crosses the entire Bolivian Amazon. There have been reports of illegal gold mining along the river, and of residents fighting to prevent encroachment by miners.

Boats are the only means of transport for the Indigenous and campesino communities living inside the Gran Manupare reserve. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.

Sena Mayor Jaime Aguirre told Mongabay Latam that the new protected area faces “high risks,” including from gold mining. When the reserve was created, he said, it hosted half the operations of an existing mining cooperative, which authorities were only able to evict in May.

“We are doing a lot of monitoring. There was an area where they were mining, extracting gold, but the concession started operating before the law that created the protected area was approved,” he said. “Now we’ve succeeded in getting the concession out but we need to keep surveillance and remember there is mining in the surroundings of the protected area.”

Mining continues to encroach

According to data from Conservation International, 91% of the forests in the Gran Manupare are considered to be of high integrity, safeguarding about 9.2 million metric tons of carbon. The main economic activity of the 42 communities living inside the protected area is forest-based, including harvesting Brazil nuts and cultivating açaí berries.

Wildlife abounds inside the Gran Manupare protected area. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.

Conservation International says Gran Manupare is a key piece in the mosaic of conservation areas in the region, allowing wildlife to range more freely in this part of the Amazon Rainforest.

That was that prompted Bolivia’s minister of mines, Alejandro Santos, to include Gran Manupare, and all other Bolivian protected areas, in a planned list of areas where mining is banned and existing mining contracts are revoked. “The only thing we are doing is acting according to the current regulations and we will coordinate the appropriate actions for those who ignore the appeal, like by canceling the operation license of mining cooperatives,” Santos said. “We are going to comply with the law, we insist fervently.”

Yet despite the promise of protection, the reality on the ground is much murkier. Mining activity is destroying the 11 rivers that crisscross the Bolivian Amazon, dumping mercury in the water and tearing up riverbanks. In just the Madre de Dios, a tributary of a tributary of the Amazon, Pando departmental authorities recorded 546 dredgers churning up the riverbed for gold in 2023. Of these, 50% were operating illegally. The Pando government said there are likely even more of them now, including north of Gran Manupare.

Authorities and villagers in the community of El Carmen, one of the 42 communities inside the Gran Manupare reserve. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.

“The situation in Pando is concerning. The mining activity is growing without control and if we don’t stop it, it could enter the reserves. That’s if it hasn’t yet,” said Alfredo Zaconeta, an investigator with the Center for Studies on Labor and Agrarian Development (CEDLA). The institution has been warning about the growth of legal and illegal mining along the Madre de Dios since 2022. This activity is taking place right next to the limits of Gran Manupare.

Zaconeta told Mongabay Latam that gold mining in Sena municipality has doubled in eight years. CEDLA is currently working on a report that will show the results of this gold expansion in Pando.

“There are six areas [in Bolivia] where legal mining activities grew a lot. One of them is in the municipality of Sena. This area doubled gold extraction in the last few years and it’s near the new protected area. It’s alarming to see the growth of the red stain of gold mining in the northern part of the Bolivian Amazon,” Zaconeta said.

The striking vegetation in the Gran Manupare nature reserve. The protected area is named after the river that flows through it. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.

Over the last decade, illegal mining has spread across the rivers of the Bolivian Amazon. The Madre de Dios is an alarming case, with dredgers operating in protected areas and Indigenous communities, including Madidi National Park and Manuripi National Amazon Wildlife Reserve. These unlicensed boats dump mercury in the water as they operate, and the toxic element works its way up the aquatic food chain, eventually reaching the Indigenous communities that catch and eat the contaminated fish, according to a 2022 study by researchers at the University of Cartagena in Colombia and the Bolivian Center for Documentation and Information (CEDIB).

The study showed mercury levels in the waters of the Madre de Dios range from 2-8 parts per million, compared to the safe allowable limit of 1 ppm. In the case of a young woman working as a cook in the community of El Tigre, in the Bolivian capital La Paz, her body’s mercury level reached 114 ppm.

Researchers at the Higher University of San Andrés (UMSA) also carried out a study on mercury contamination in the Beni River Basin as a response to an initiative by CPILAP, an association of Indigenous peoples in La Paz. They determined that 74.5% of people tested had high levels of mercury in their hair, exceeding the 1 ppm limit.

A woman in her house in the community of El Carmen, inside the Gran Manupare protected are. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.
Gold figures don’t add up

Labor investigator Zaconeta said he’s worried about the rate of illegal gold mining in Bolivia, particularly in the Madre de Dios River. Gold production in the country went from 13.4 metric tons in 2013 to 53 metric tons in 2022. Yet even though the value of gold exports in 2022 exceeded that of oil and gas exports, the Bolivian state collected less money from the precious metal. According to Zaconeta, this was because of the different tax rates applied to mining cooperatives.

He said gold production isn’t generating sufficient revenue for Bolivia. Total gold production in 2022 was valued at $3.073 billion, but yielded only $63 million in revenue to the government. In 2023, the government earned just $60 million from total production worth $2.487 billion, Zaconeta said.

Zaconeta said the large margins enjoyed by mining cooperatives incentivize them to access protected areas like Gran Manupare, with some already reportedly eyeing sections of the Manupare River.

A boats on the Manupare River. Community members say they want to prevent mining from reaching this river. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.

According to the Bolivian Institute of External Trade, gold was the top export commodity from Pando, with 359 kilograms (11,542 ounces) of the raw metal leaving the department valued at $19.1 million. A distant second was nuts, at $11.9 million for 2,200 metric tons.

Fernando Vaca, a senator representing the department of Beni, sought information in 2023 from the ministry of mines about the number of mining permits granted in the Amazonian rivers of Pando, including the Manupare. Vaca said the ministry responded that it hadn’t granted any mining rights in these rivers, only in the Beni and Madre de Dios rivers.

“Of all the rivers mentioned in my petition, the ministry of mining only mentions permits in the Beni and Madre de Dios rivers,” he said. “There is no indication of contracts in any of the other rivers. However, if you ask the community members there, they will say that everyone is mining, that there are boats and dredgers working and the only people who don’t know are the [mining authorities].”

Rural houses in the Indigenous and campesino communities in the Gran Manupare reserve. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.
Fear of logging

Vaca said logging is also ravaging Pando’s forests. He said this activity hasn’t reached the Gran Manupare reserve yet, but without any effort to crack down, loggers could enter as the reserve holds mahogany trees, a highly sought-after species.

Known as “wood pirates,” these loggers make up criminal enterprises that operate across all Amazonian countries and have a wide network of connections. In Bolivia, they operate in five departments, with the illegally logged wood destined mostly for Europe, the United States and China.

Pando holds nearly 30% of the Amazonian forests in Bolivia. These include the most important populations of Brazil nut trees (Berthollethia excelsa), and overall provide key ecosystem services: producing oxygen, providing water, and helping stabilize the climate.

The point where the Manupare River, right, flows into the Madre de Dios in the municipality of Sena. This natural wonder lies inside the newly declared protected area of Gran Manupare. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.

Between 2000 and 2018, 200,699 hectares (495,938 acres) of forest in Pando were logged, amounting to 3.1% of the department’s total area, and 3% of the total deforestation in Bolivia. According to Global Forest Watch data, by 2020 the cumulative deforestation amounted to 224,669 hectares (555,169 acres), or 3.5% of the department’s area. Deforestation levels at present are low in Pando, but there’s a fear that this might change soon.

For now, Sena Mayor Aguirre said he’s paying attention so that the “wood pirates” don’t reach Gran Manupare. “The trees are what we care for the most in our reserve. It’s our forest and we have to respect it,” he says.

Banner image: The Manupare River winds a snaking path through Gran Manupare Integrated Management Natural Area. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas.

This story was first published here in Spanish on July 29, 2024.