Couple rescues bees threatened by deforestation in Bolivia

Reuters, Daily Sabah: A couple in Bolivia is moving honey bees to a sanctuary they created to address a staggering decline in the insects’ colonies due to deforestation and coca farming, which has encroached on their habitat. For 10 years, zootechnical engineering vet Eric Paredes and his wife Cinthya Callisaya Yujra have scoured the humid,…

Arce: manipulador – manipulative

Lupe Cajias, El Deber: Dismantle institutions or blue massacre President Luis Arce Catacora ordered public officials “to continue with the dismantling of the neoliberal model.” The words were pronounced on the same day that the last park rangers and qualified workers who take care of the main natural reserves in Bolivia were dismissed en masse…

Perniciosa demagogia – Pernicious demagogy

Manfredo Kempff, El Deber: Democracy in decline I imagine the discomfort – even outrage – that a title like this can cause among true Democrats. Worse if it comes from a subject like me who cannot display such ostentatious democratic credentials as those of those who have taken over the term. But it does not…

Why Bolivia Should Be Your Next Wine Destination

Megan Spurrell, Condé Nast Traveler: And how you can start drinking Bolivian wine right now. In 2013, Montevideo, Uruguay hosted a blind wine-tasting contest. Tasters sampled tannat wines, made with a grape originating (but not universally beloved) in France, that is now a prized export of Uruguay. The surprise winner: a Bolivian wine. It was Bolivia’s first-ever grand…

In photos: how Bolivia’s masked shoe-shiners became superheroes

Federico Estol’s series gives glamour and respect to La Paz’s marginalised community, Financial Times: There are 3,000 shoe-shiners who go out into the streets of La Paz, the Bolivian capital, each day in search of clients. They are all ages and have become a unique phenomenon: what distinguishes this tribe is their use of ski…

Water Security In Bolivia Declines From Glacier Melt

By Olivia Berntsson, theowp.org: Bolivia’s Tuni glacier has shrunk rapidly over the past decade, now putting the nation’s capital city in a critical water shortage. Located in the heart of South America, the landlocked country experiences low rainfall and regular droughts. The 800,000 citizens of La Paz have depended on water from the glaciers of the…