The Bolivian government of Evo Morales is about to build the Vila Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway, that will cut through down the middle of a National Park and the Isiboro – Sécure (TIPNIS) Territory of the Indigenous People. This part of the Amazon Rainforest is very fragile (no wonder it is protected), but aside from the ecological damages, the construction work can be a historical and social disaster. The vice-minister of the environment, Juan Pablo Ramos, and one of his directors, Luís Beltran, always knew this and fought within their own government so that the environmental licensing process ran inside legality. However, pressures were so great that both asked out in July this year.

The TIPNIS is a natural protected area by the State of Bolivia, located in the region of the transitional Andean Amazon that ranges from 3 thousand meters above sea level, where the river heads of the Amazon basin are located, to the plains of the department of Beni, at 189 meters. It is in this region where, since many years before Spanish colonization, small settlements of indigenous people of the moxenhos–trinitarios, yuracarés and chimanes ethnic groups lived and probably other isolated tribes as well.

The national park was declared in 1965. In Bolivia, the category of National Park has a goal to strictly and permanently protect representative samples of ecosystems and resources of plant life and fauna, geomorphologic, scenic or of a landscaping nature. But in 1990, the government acknowledged the same place as a territory of indigenous people, with a total area of 1,236,296 hectares, homologated in 1998. Since then, the area is considered non-divisible, indispensable, untransferable and that cannot be embargoed. Since a conversion into a Source Community Land (TCO) is a condition of land ownership and not a protection category, the government established that the land of indigenous people was compatible with the park, while the tribes themselves must submit to the special regime of the National System of Protected Areas.

Unfortunately, since the decade of 1970, the TIPNIS has been the setting for massive settlements and the advancement of colonization, currently facing serious threats due to the proliferation of coca leaf plantations, drug trafficking, timber exploitation, as well as the exploitation of oil and hunting. All this added to the dispute over geographic boundaries between the departmental governments of Beni and Cochabamba. Up to today, these threats have been combated, but this has been no easy task. The inhabitants themselves, the chimanes, moxenhos and yuracarés, have been for a very long time fighting against the several political and private interests of the lumber business and farmers to preserve their territory.

The road

Technical details •    Length: 306 kilometers. •    Modality: Handing over of keys, in which the construction company obligates itself to design, build and deliver a given construction work in functioning conditions, which was previously designed by the company itself for a predefined price with the client. This type of contract puts an emphasis on the global responsibility undertaken by the construction company. •    Awarded company: OAS Ltda. •    Financing sources: the Brazilian Government (80%) and the Government of Bolivia (20%). •    Total cost of the project: 415,000,425.39 dollars

But among all these threats, none have been as serious as the building of the Vila Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway. This is a project that is part of the regional integration program of the departments of Cochabamba and Beni, that intend to improve the conditions of commercial exchange between both regions, since it reduces the distance from 900 to 306 km, according to the explanations given by Noemi Villegas, the social and environment manager of the Administradora Boliviana de Caminhos (ABC), an institution responsible for the planning and management of the highway network in Bolivia. Aside from that, the road is also part of the IIRSA project (the Integration of the South-American Regional Infrastructure Initiative), through which the commerce between the Pacific and the Atlantic will flow.

In the year 2008, the construction of the road was granted to a Brazilian contractor called OAS Ltda., in a controversial “handing over of keys” bidding process, as the only company to submit an offer of drawing, building and financing the construction work with credit from the National Bank of Social and Economic Development of Brazil (BNDES). “In this manner, an old dream is being fulfilled”, said Evo Morales (a 415 million dollar dream), and a dream financed by President Lula who, in August 2009, signed the contract of credit for Bolivia.

From then on, suspicions began to pop up about the contract with the Brazilian construction company, as indicated by Bolivia’s Engineers Society (SIB), through its Cochabamba branch, referring to the reference value of the construction work of 415 million dollars. According to the president of SIB Cochabamba, the contract defines a reference price of 415 million dollars per kilometer of highway, when in Bolivia costs vary from 500 to 700 thousand dollars. Taking into account technical estimates of similar constructions undertaken in Bolivia, the total cost of the Vila Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway should not be more than 315 million dollars, 100 million less than the total established in the contract with OAS.

Environmental licenses and changes in the vice-ministry

The controversial highway construction work was planned in three sections: 1) Vila Tunari – Isinuta (outside TIPNIS); 2) Isinuta – Monte Grande (within TIPNIS); and 3) Monte Grande – San Ignacio de Moxos (outside TIPNIS). After these three sections were defined, the final route was devised for sectors one and three, since they are outside TIPNIS, while studies for sector two are on standby waiting for the authorization of local indigenous people.

Without studies of sector two (within the territory of indigenous people), and despite the complaints coming from the Indian population affected and from environmental institutions, the pressure was put on for the signing of environmental licenses for sectors one and three. So much so, that they managed to get rid of the vice-minister of the Environment, Juan Pablo Ramos, and the director of the Environment, Luís Beltrán, both acknowledged Bolivian environmentalists.

Ramos had in his hands the responsibility to evaluate the environmental impact of projects considered fundamental for the term of Evo Morales, such as hydroelectric powerplants in the Amazon and the Vila Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway. According to the press, and without official confirmation, both men were fired due to pressures coming from governmental circles to deliver the environmental licenses of the road that cuts through the TIPNIS. At the end, Ramos and Beltrán asked out, leaving these issues open.

Fifteen days later, the new vice-minister of the Environment, biologist Cinthia Silva, handed over to ABC the environmental licenses for the construction of sections one and three of the highway, explaining that while the indigenous people have not granted authorization, section two will not be built. “These two licenses enable the construction of the two highways already in existence. In neither will a single meter of virgin forest be touched or even of any territory of indigenous people within the National Park (Isiboro – Sécure)”, stated the environmental authority.

With the handing over of these environmental licenses, the setting up of a main encampment next to Isinuta began immediately, from where the construction work will be directed and that, according to the OAS construction company, will begin in December.

To try and stop the construction of this road, the indigenous people have already sought to speak to Bolivian president Evo Morales, who did not offer them any encouraging replies on their quest. “This place is our Eden, because there we have everything, and exactly through the heart of our sacred land the government wants to build a road. It is a zone where we can find refuge from the constant floods in the department of Beni (Bolivia’s lowlands)”, says Adolfo Moye, president of the organization of TIPNIS, while explaining how the road can destroy a culture of three groups of indigenous people in Bolivia’s lowlands.

Aside from the impacts to the culture of the indigenous people, deforesting is also foreseen, as well as changes to the course of rivers, damages to natural drainage and loss of biodiversity. On an economic and social level, there will also be severe impacts, bringing colonization and struggles for the ownership of land. “Reaching this territory was the result of a pilgrimage of many years and much strife for our grandfathers, until they managed to find an adequate place to live”, said Moye, who represents more than 11 thousand inhabitants of 64 communities of the moxenho – trinitario, yuracaré and chiman groups of indigenous people.