Bolivian government reacts late to Amazon fires
Acting Bolivian President Jeanine Añez on March 13, 2020 at the Presidential Palace in La Paz.
REUTERS / David Mercado
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
As in 2019, fires are ravaging the Amazon.
If so far the subject has only interested the Bolivian authorities very little, the fires are back on the front of the stage, elections oblige.
In particular, the government wants to tackle controversial decrees issued during the tenure of Evo Morales.
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With our correspondent in La Paz,
Alice Campaignolle
This year again, fires are ravaging the Amazon, Bolivia, but also in Brazil and Paraguay.
The region most affected by the fires: the Pantanal, which straddles the three territories.
On this territory, there are four times as many outbreaks as in 2019.
If, in Bolivia, fires ravaged
the national parks since March
, the news was elsewhere.
So far despite some 150,000 hectares of forest gone up in smoke in the country, there has been little reaction from the authorities.
One way to attack Evo Morales' record
But on Tuesday, September 15, the government decided to attack, while tackling the management of his predecessor Evo Morales.
Yerko Nuñez, Minister of the Presidency: “
We are not going to accept these fires.
The previous government allowed them and destroyed protected parks and reserves.
But with us, it won't be like that
.
"
This Wednesday, the so-called "
incendiary
"
decrees
, promulgated by former President Evo Morales, should be repealed in the Council of Ministers.
They caused a scandal in 2019, because they allowed a more extensive use of fires for agricultural purposes at a very dry time of the year.
If the government is only interested now in Bolivian forests, it is because the general elections are approaching.
They will take place on October 17th.
This deadline is certainly not foreign to the decision of Jeanine Añez, the interim president and candidate.
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Bolivia
Environment
Amazonia
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