Jorge Banegas Franco: Ranger from Bolivia among global award winners | Guardabosque de Bolivia entre ganadores de premios mundiales

At the IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress, twelve rangers and ranger teams from around the world received an International Ranger Award today for their extraordinary commitment to protecting nature and helping local communities. Photo: @GABRIEL CHÁVEZ SEOANE Kigali, Rwanda, 20 July 2022 (IUCN).- Winners of the second International Ranger Awards, presented by the International Union for…

Natural parks, land of drugs | Parques naturales, tierra de drogas

Editorial, El Deber: The national parks of Bolivia are abandoned, the State does not take care of them and, as a natural consequence, drug traffickers appropriate them to install their cocaine factories there, when the settlers are not the ones who arrive first to occupy land, to clear and settle illegally with the help of…

Drug factories multiply in the depths of protected areas – Se multiplican las fábricas de droga en las entrañas de las áreas protegidas

Silvana Vincenti, El Deber: Historical data between 2017 and 2021 from the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) shows an increase in drug factories within protection zones, forest reserves and indigenous territories “Payroll: Calicha, Negro, Adam, Maira; 4,956 (Kg)”, says the notebook found in May of last year by agents of the Special Force…

Forests for Sale: How Land Traffickers Profit by Slicing up Bolivia’s Protected Areas

by Eduardo Franco Berton Shortly after Bolivia’s Bajo Paraguá Municipal Protected Area was established in February 2021, authorities began receiving reports of invasions and deforestation in and around the new protected area. Local sources say land traffickers are illegally buying up plots of protected land to resell, often repeatedly, to third parties. Mongabay spoke with one…