Bolivia Diaries: Day 7, Part 7 - BLOCKADE!

In October 2010, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia learning about their food and agriculture. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for out of the trip, including learning why the rainforest is being destroyed, how eco-tourism might save it, how Bolivia fits into the drug trade (and what the US does to try to stop cocaine production), and how global warming has already impacted Bolivia.

On our seventh day of the trip, our trip came to a crisis point. There was a blockade on the road we needed to take that had now gone on for a week, and it seemed like it would not end in time for us. What would we do? Meanwhile, we had a long, hot drive from Rurrenabaque to Sapecho, which was interrupted by what seemed to be another blockade. WTF, Bolivia?

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

Shortly after we arrived in Bolivia, a blockade was announced in Yungas - right in the middle of our trip route. We had changed the order of our trip so that we would hit the blockade at the end of the trip instead of in the beginning, hoping the blockade would be over by then. It wasn't. At this point, we commissioned a few cars and drivers in Rurrenabaque to drive us to our next stop, Sapecho, and hoped we would be able to continue on our planned route from Sapecho to Caranavi, then Coroico, Chulumani, and back to La Paz. But it seemed pretty doubtful.

Daniel promised that our drive to Sapecho would be "long, hot, and dusty." I hoped he was wrong. When our three minivans showed up to drive us, I polled each of the drivers on whether their cars had air conditioning. Nope, no air conditioning. In fact, at this point, fuel was getting scarce on this side of the blockade, so even if there was A/C, we might not have been able to use it. Each of the drivers had large containers of gas in their cars to refuel with, in case the gas stations ran out.

Of course, Daniel was right about the "long, hot, and dusty" - at least for the first part of the drive. The road to Sapecho was mostly unpaved. Each vehicle we passed kicked up a huge cloud of dust behind it. Fortunately, traffic was low due to the cocaleros' blockade in Yungas, but we still passed several logging trucks. Strangely, we passed an area where there was roadwork going on. I didn't realize that dirt roads were the recipients of roadwork. I had assumed they were the result of a lack of roadwork.


The dirt road


Driving through the smoke from someone burning forest or pasture

Despite the dusty roads, our driver drove as if he were escaping a crime scene. Several times, I was sure he was going to hit dogs laying in the road, or even people. I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to see any wildlife in the rainforest (now that we were leaving for Sapecho), but I was wrong. A jochi (a.k.a. agouti) ran across the road in front of us and thankfully was not hit by our driver.


The two species that Bolivians call "jochis" - one is a paca and the other is an agouti

We came to a town that Daniel says always looks like an earthquake just hit it (it was a bit run down) and everyone stopped for bathroom breaks and snacks. I think the town was called Yucumo. While we were there, it began raining a little bit - good news to everyone who was worried that the rains were late this year, although just because it was sprinkling in Yucumo, that doesn't mean that it rained (or rained sufficiently) everywhere.

After that, we began to climb into the mountains, and the weather cooled down. We had been more or less driving around the 400,000 hectare (nearly 1 million acres or 1544 square miles) Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve, and now we came around the other side of it and, from the mountains, we could look down on it.

We came to a stop at about 1000m of elevation, on a mountain called Pilon. For whatever reason, this mountain gets a lot of moisture, and it was a birder's paradise. Daniel said that often birds were sighted here at their lowest recorded elevation. During our stop, I took the opportunity to get a close-up shot at a hanging nest, and then realized that this was a nest that was under construction as I watched the beautiful yellow-tailed birds fly to it with twigs in their beaks. These nests are so common in this part of Bolivia that often you pass trees that are literally full of them. (I've been told by one source they were Crested Oropendolas, and another that they were Yellow-rumped Caciques. Maybe we saw both. The picture of the Crested Oropendola looks like the bird I actually saw in Bolivia that was building these nests.)


A hanging nest


Tree with many hanging nests

From this point on, the drive got downright pleasant. We passed through a town called Cascada ("Waterfall") that had a cascada - albeit a small one - and saw an absolutely gorgeous sunset. We drove over a road paved in stones (which was bumpy but better than dirt) and Daniel said we could thank our U.S. taxpayer dollars for it. The road was intended to discourage cocaine production, he said. "Did it work?" I asked sarcastically. Nope. Of course not. The coca growers were like "Thanks for making it easier for us to take our coca to market on our nice new road!"

All of a sudden, we could hear a loud, shrill noise. It could have been the background music to a horror movie. It was the sound of cicadas. Then insects in the rainforest are audibly loud throughout the day, but this was something else.


A view from Pilon







It was soon after the cicadas began that we came to the "blockade." I put it in quotes because it turned out that it was not a blockade at all. But this is Bolivia, where road blockades are practically the national sport. If you have something to protest, you go out and blockade the roads. So when everyone came to several cars stopped and people in the roads, we stopped.

As it turned out, it was nothing more than a funeral of some sort. I don't know what they were doing in the middle of the road, holding up traffic. Someone from among their group began handing out bottles of Coca-Cola to the people who had stopped and got out of their cars. Our drivers each accepted one. Even once it was clear that this wasn't a true blockade, no one wanted to be the first to drive through it. Finally, a big rig truck had had enough waiting around, and he drove through the crowd. Then everyone else followed. Phew. Our Bolivian "blockade" experience was just a no-big-deal fake.


The "blockade"

Well, at least, THAT blockade experience was no big deal. The real blockade - the one in Yungas - THAT was still going on. The road from Sapecho to Caranavi was clear, but with the blockade happening somewhere in between La Paz and Caranavi, our minibus could not make it to Sapecho to pick us up. We had to come up with alternate plans for the rest of the trip.

Rurrenabaque, at this point, was beginning to run out of things. There was not much gasoline left, and someone told me they were out of carrots. Also, farmers who grew fruits to sell in the highlands were now having their fruit go rotten before they could sell it. The blockade was becoming a disaster for Bolivians who were caught behind it.

Tanya, our guide from Food First, told us our new plans as we ate a homegrown, organic, and DELICIOUS dinner in Sapecho (at an agroforestry operation that we also visited the next day, which I will cover in a future diary). Tomorrow, as planned, we would visit the El Ceibo chocolate cooperative in Sapecho. Then we would return to the agroforestry operation for lunch and a tour. That much was in our original itinerary.

It was after that the plans had to change. We would drive back to Rurrenabaque and spend the night there. Early the next morning, we would fly to La Paz, get in a minibus, and drive to Oruro, spending one night there. Then we would return to La Paz for the rest of the trip.

The change in plans ruined the continuity of our trip, which was intended to show the various agroecosystems as one travels through each different altitude from the Altiplano to the Amazon, but at least now we would see some llamas.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 7, Part 5 - The Motacú Palm

In October 2010, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia learning about their food and agriculture. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for out of the trip, including learning why the rainforest is being destroyed, how eco-tourism might save it, how Bolivia fits into the drug trade (and what the US does to try to stop cocaine production), and how global warming has already impacted Bolivia.

We spent our sixth and seventh days learning about the agriculture of the Bolivian Amazon, and we kept coming across what our guide, Daniel, called "the most important palm tree" of the region, the motacu palm. This diary is a collection of pictures and information about the motacú palm and its many uses.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

The motacú palm, which I believe is Attalea phalerata, is found in both Bolivia and Brazil. The motacú resists burning, so it's very common to see charred landscapes with nothing but motacús left standing in the Amazon, or green pastures full of cows that are dotted with motacú trees.


A motacú palm

To start with, the motacú produces a fruit:


A motacú with fruit


Peeling the fruit


The fruit


The remains of fruits eaten by jochis, large Bolivian rodents

And the seeds are useful for making an oil. Daniel recalls growing up in Bolivia, when you could buy soaps and shampoos made from motacú oils, and I think he might have mentioned candles as well.

In addition to the fruit and oil, Bolivians use the palm fronds for thatching, and they burn the flower covers for llitja, which is needed for chewing coca (see the link for an explanation).


Motacu fronds that were split down the middle lengthwise to use for thatching


The flower and flower cover still on the tree


A motacú flower and flower cover

In addition to its many uses, the motacú also serves as a home to a number of epiphytes; that is, other species that live on the motacu but are not either living symbiotically or parasitically with it. Below are a few pictures of ephiphytes living on motacú palms.







Despite the importance of the motacú to Amazonian Bolivia, I have found precious little about it on the internet. Where I have found information, I have found suggestions that the name motacú actually refers to several other species (such as the Babassu palm) or I have found suggestions of various synonyms for the name "motacú" in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, which then turn out to be names that refer to other species. And even then, there is very little about those species on the internet too.

The one solid source I seem to have found is a book called Biodiversity: a challenge for development research and policy by Wilhelm Barthlott and Matthias Winiger, which mentions the motacu on page 273 (for sale for the low low price of $135... or more). Here is part of their description:

The motacu palm is the single most important palm species in Bolivia...

Roofing made from leaves lasts for 5-7 years; the fruits are edible - and dispersed by rodents, wild pigs, cattle, and monkeys - and also can be used for oil extraction (Moraes et al. 1996). The oil of the motacu palm is used for a variety of home remedies and in the production of cosmetics. Local communities gather mature and immature fruits for oil extraction. The kernel fat content reaches 60-70% and potential oil production from natural stands is estimated to be 1.1 to 2.4 tons/ha/year (Moraes et al. 1996).

The citation here refers to "Notes on the biology and uses of the motacú palm (Attalea phalerata, Arecaceae) from Bolivia," which was published in Economic Botany in 1996 by Monica Moraes Ramirez, Finn Borchsenius, and Ulla Blicher-Mathiesen.

Lack of information about basic, important Bolivian species has been a theme since I returned home and began sorting through my notes from the trip. Bolivians possess an incredible wealth of knowledge about their natural environment and the species that surround them, and yet nearly none of it is available online. And where it is available - under scientific names, or in English, Portuguese, or even Spanish - I can rarely find online references to the terms used in Bolivia.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 7, Part 6 - This is Where Coffee Comes From

In October 2010, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia learning about their food and agriculture. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for out of the trip, including learning why the rainforest is being destroyed, how eco-tourism might save it, how Bolivia fits into the drug trade (and what the US does to try to stop cocaine production), and how global warming has already impacted Bolivia.

On our seventh day of the trip, we drove through a coffee-growing region. This is a just simple photo diary with pictures of the town.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

We left Rurrenabaque to visit a town called Sapecho in Bolivia's top chocolate-growing region. In Rurrenabaque, I had purchased a bag of coffee called Cafe Mujer. The bag claimed to be both fair trade and organic (I think), but without any of the familiar U.S. certifications, all I could do was trust. At any rate, the coffee was so cheap, they were practically paying me to take it. I pay $11 per pound for my coffee at home. The bag of Cafe Mujer was 25 Bolivianos, or about $4.

As we drove to Sapecho, we passed the Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve and drove up into the mountains. Good coffee requires elevation. Daniel, whose farm we had just visited, was in the same car as me, and he pointed out the town that produces Cafe Mujer. He said they likely have a bit of extra wealth from their coffee, and perhaps some of the families own cars as a result. I did not get any sort of in depth look at the lives the people of the town lead, but it certainly did not look like anyone there was wealthy. And this town is the beneficiary of a fair trade program (for at least the segment of their coffee sold under the Cafe Mujer brand). If this is fair trade, what does unfair trade look like?

Bolivia Diaries: Day 7, Part 4 - The Most Biodiverse Golf Course in the World

In October 2010, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia learning about their food and agriculture. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for out of the trip, including learning why the rainforest is being destroyed, how eco-tourism might save it, how Bolivia fits into the drug trade (and what the US does to try to stop cocaine production), and how global warming has already impacted Bolivia.

After spending a day with an indigenous community that runs an eco-tourism operation on the sixth day of the trip, Day Seven was a reality check. We visited Daniel Robison's farm and learned about what he is doing to try to "save the rainforest" and what his neighbors are doing, which - in some cases - is not so good. This diary is about a strange attempt to help the Amazon by building a golf course there.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

After showing us his farm, Daniel took us to a place he only referred to as his "other property." This property is 100 hectares and it backs up to the Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve, which is 400,000 hectares. Daniel asked us to guess what this property was for.

Well, if we are guessing, then it's probably not another farm, right? And he had already said that there are horses here. I was stumped. Then Daniel took out a golf club and pretended to swing it at a golf ball. A golf course? In the rainforest? Created by an environmentalist who is an expert in agroecology and soil science? Could it be???


Daniel, with a golf club

Then Daniel told us his plan. He wants to make this the most biodiverse golf course in the world. And - before we make judgments about it - he explained that the holes are separated by areas of forest, creating a lot of surface area of "edge," which wildlife loves. I know from my previous experiences in agriculture that the "edge effect" can be very helpful to agricultural productivity - edge in that case being the edge between the field and the uncultivated area next to it. In Daniel's case, edge meant the border between the forest and the wide open spaces on the golf course.


The horses, which double as lawnmowers

Daniel went on to tell about the animals he's already observed on this golf course. "From Argentina to Mexico there are a possible 6 wildcat species. We have 4 on our property," he said. I've looked it up and that might be a slight over-simplification, because there are a few more than 6 wild cats in South America, but some have small ranges or ranges that don't extend into this part of Bolivia. The cats that live in this part of Bolivia are, to the best of my knowledge: pumas, jaguars, jaguarundis, margays, ocelots, and pampas cats. Of those, Daniel and his staff have observed the jaguar, ocelot, jaguarundi, and "a smaller jaguarundi type of cat" (I have no idea what that might be) on this property.

Daniel went on to describe his plans. In addition to golf, he plans to offer horseback riding, bird watching, and hiking trails. "Bird watchers come here and they just drool," he said. "At five in the afternoon, this place is full of toucans." He also mentioned sitings of wild turkeys and macaws. He's been in consultation with birding experts, who encouraged him to have parts of the property in all different stages of succession, and to leave the dead trees in the forest to encourage a maximum biodiversity of birds. The caddies, Daniel said, won't be your typical caddies. They will be experts on the forest, pointing out interesting species to the golfers as they go.

"Do golfers actually come here?" we asked. After all, Rurrenabaque seems to be the type of tourist destination that attracts mostly young backpackers, not rich golfers. Daniel responded that his golf course is not open yet, but they are on the brink of opening the first holes. This golf course is an hour's flight from the world's highest golf course (in La Paz) so an adventurous golfer could easily visit both on the same trip.

So far so good, but really, what is a self-proclaimed agroecologist doing opening a golf course? Daniel explained that there are limited economic possibilities around here for agriculture, largely because families are willing to exploit free family labor, thus making it impossible for anyone to compete who is willing to pay a living wage. But tourism - that's where he sees promise.

With the rise of tourism, Daniel's seen an influx of local foods for sale here in Rurrenabaque. In the past, he said, it was impossible to buy local foods, even though the fruit is quite literally falling off the trees. If you go elsewhere in the Bolivian Amazon, areas without tourists, you'll still see that the food gets shipped in from La Paz. Yet now, people see a way to profit by selling fresh squeezed tropical juices, (relatively) local coffee (it's produced near here, but not here, because the elevation is too low), local chocolate, etc.

Daniel also appreciates the tourism because it is creating a demand for indigenous knowledge. Bolivia has a long history of racism and exploitation of its indigenous majority. In fact, Daniel even told us of one entire culture that was entirely wiped out, not via a planned genocide, but just because the people were simply worked to death. But now, the tourists show up and they are looking for the people who speak the indigenous languages, who are in touch with the indigenous culture, and who have the in depth knowledge of the forest that the indigenous communities here have (knowledge that Daniel says is being lost in his lifetime). That's a big deal.

I'd like to add that while I believe Daniel when he speaks of the vast improvement in locally produced foods and other goods now available here, you can see in my initial diary about Rurrenabaque that the entire town resembles a dollar store. There are many, MANY places to buy cheap crap, and only a few that I found where you can buy locally made handicrafts. I also found a few shops that served tropical fruit juices, including one called Cafe de la Jungla that sells fair trade organic coffee that was grown nearby and serves local, wild chocolate.

As for his own golf course, Daniel says that this land would support four families at poverty level if it were used for slash and burn agriculture. He plans to support 10 families with a living wage with his golf course. I certainly hope that is the case. And I am also encouraged by the successes of San Miguel del Bala and other eco-tourism operators like the Chalalan Ecolodge. I don't believe that all tourism operations will be as committed as Daniel to paying a living wage, and there are also legitimate concerns about exploitation of wildlife by tourism operations. But it does seem that this golf course, at least, is something good.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 7, Part 3 - Rainforest Destruction in Bolivia

In October 2010, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia learning about their food and agriculture. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for out of the trip, including learning why the rainforest is being destroyed, how eco-tourism might save it, how Bolivia fits into the drug trade (and what the US does to try to stop cocaine production), and how global warming has already impacted Bolivia.

After spending a day with an indigenous community that runs an eco-tourism operation on the sixth day of the trip, Day Seven was a reality check. We visited Daniel Robison's farm and learned about what he is doing to try to "save the rainforest" and what his neighbors are doing, which - in some cases - is not so good. This diary is about some of the dumbass things happening that destroy the rainforest.


"Save the Rainforest"

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

I'd like to begin this diary with a picture (actually, two pictures):

Rock formation with ocean deposits. Millions of years ago, this part of the world was under water.

These rocks contain ocean deposits, because this part of Bolivia was once under an ocean. The land here has changed quite a bit over time and will continue to change. Over the time that the Amazon has been what we know as the Amazon, it has not been a static entity. It changes. Human activities have made the Amazon what it is, just as other human activities are destroying it. In other words: the goal is not to cordon off the entire Amazon and keep people out of it. And we should also consider that proper management by humans can actually enhance this ecosystem.

There are also some people who would see the rocks in the pictures above and then start looking around the Amazon for evidence of oil. I've heard that in some parts of the Amazon, oil companies have been quite destructive. Fortunately, for whatever it's worth, I did not personally observe this happening in the area I visited.

The next relevant picture is this one:


25 years ago or so, this area was slashed and burned and planted in rice. Daniel wants to leave it alone and allow it to become tall forest, and unless the law changes, that's against the law.

Daniel is planning to pick a fight with the Bolivian government at some unspecified time in the future, unless the laws change. He does not want to burn this forest. He wants to let it grow to be tall forest, and he wants to leave it that way.

So why would the government be against NOT burning the forest (or, more specifically, not USING the forest)? To find the answer, you have to look back in Bolivian history to the time of the haciendas. Landowners would own enormous swaths of land and only use a tiny fraction of it, and at the same time, the landless people of Bolivia would be going hungry. Owning forest and doing nothing with it is seen as elitist.

After the 1952 revolution, Bolivia's government did a major land reform. From that point, and until 1995, it was illegal to own land and do nothing with it. Then, in 1995, the law changed again. At that point, it was legal for people to have "private communal forest" (as Daniel put it). And since then, that law has been eroded and things are trending the other way. (Note: I'm relying on Daniel's explanation here and need to look up the actual letter of the law to confirm this.)

Let's move on to the next picture. The picture below is of a post installed by the National Land Reform Institute. It represents that all of the landholders of the adjoining properties agree that this post marks a boundary. Daniel joked that they painted the sign in yellow because it's worth more than gold.


Daniel, standing next to a post that marks his property line.

What do these pictures have to do with rainforest destruction? Take a look at this:


Daniel's neighbor's property, two properties over. This guy is a speculator from Europe who burnt his forest to a crisp for no good reason.

and this:


Daniel's next door neighbor, who maintains a pasture here (presumably for cattle). When the next property over went up in flames, the pasture caught on fire by accident.

and this:


Daniel's property. This was forest, and Daniel intends to keep it as forest. It caught on fire after the pasture next door caught on fire.

When I took these pictures, we were visiting a second property that belongs to Daniel and his wife Sheila, one that I will explain below. About 10 days before our visit - BEFORE the first rains of the season (which is NOT when you are supposed to burn if you are doing slash and burn) - the National Land Reform Institute showed up in this area for the first time in a long while. Daniel's neighbor two properties over - a speculator from Europe - was eager to justify his right to his property. So first he had the National Land Reform Institute put in some markers to show where his property was, then he lit a match to his forest (to "prove" he's using it), and then he walked away.

The forest was extremely dry since it hadn't rained, and the fire spread to Daniel's next door neighbor's pasture. Then it spread to Daniel's property. Daniel and Sheila spent hours putting the fire out, and in the end, the only lost 5 hectares (about 12 acres) to the fire. The fire also spread into the Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve, a 400,000-hectare protected area that abuts Daniel and Sheila's property. Fortunately, after the fire spread into Pilon Lajas, it rained, and the fire went out.

So there's slash and burn agriculture, which can be practiced in an ecological way, but then there are idiots who torch their property just to justify their ownership of it. And sometimes those idiots also lose control of their fires and the fire spreads to other properties, as happened in this case.

I saw property after property burned along the road we drove out of Rurrenabaque on that day. Daniel said people get touchy when the "authorities" are around (there was road construction going on). In many cases, it looked as if the areas burned were in the early stages of succession, hinting that they had not been left fallow long enough to properly carry out slash and burn agriculture. We also passed what appeared to be a logging operation, with a yard strewn with absolutely enormous tree trunks. And we were passed by several logging trucks, including the one in the picture at the top.

In addition to speculators and accidents, there's development and - perhaps the biggest cause of deforestation - cattle ranching. In the last post, I showed you Daniel's cattle ranch. His ranch is an attempt to find an eco-friendly way to do cattle ranching in the Amazon, but it began as an experiment to show that agroforestry could be just as profitable as cattle ranching. But here's how cattle ranching is usually practiced in the Amazon:


A large pasture without trees

The picture above is of a six-year-old pasture. It's a large area without trees, and it is probably maintained by burning it annually to remove any weeds. The cows are not grazed rotationally, as they are on Daniel's ranch. Daniel said that most of the 15% of the Amazon that has been deforested looks like this pasture here - or worse. "Up in Pando," he said, referring to the Amazonian department in Bolivia that is just north of La Paz, "you have to leave Brazil nut trees, which don't survive in the open, so you end up with Brazil nut corpses dotting the pastures." Daniel calls these large tree-less pastures "low carbon cattle ranching" (i.e. there is not a lot of carbon sequestered in the ecosystem).

As I said above, Daniel and Sheila began their agroforestry farm as an experiment to show that it could be just as profitable as cattle. Over the first two years, the system cost $1000/hectare to put in, the same as the cattle. Every year he spends $100/hectare on maintenance. And over 10 years, he's gotten maybe $100 (per hectare, I assume) out of it. Compare that to $200 per hectare per year in revenues that he gets from his cattle ranch.

Daniel said he has hopes for the profitability of the lumber species growing in his agroforestry system, but if all you want is lumber, why bother maintaining the forest as he does? You could just let the lumber trees grow in the forest and then cut them down when they get large enough, without spending what he has spent in maintenance.

Out of 27 fruit species, only a few have produced fruit. There's no market for fresh palm heart, and the canneries pay so little that Daniel and Sheila just eat the palm heart themselves. They can sell pineapples. Their varieties of cacao have amazing flavor but very low productivity. I believe they've had some luck with their bananas. Daniel noted they get one peach palm harvest per year. The cupuaçu tree was saw was not really producing after 10 years.

Part of the issue may be that they are using all - or nearly all - native varieties of native Amazonian fruits. They planted cacao from seed instead of grafting in more productive varieties from elsewhere, for example. So could this work if they were using other species, or other varieties of the same species? Maybe.

Much of the problem comes down to economics. Fruits and many vegetables rot. If you harvest a bunch of mangoes and take them to market, you've got a limited window of time to sell them before they are worth nothing. So you drop the price in order to get SOMETHING for them instead of nothing. That's one reason why people around here like to produce rice: it stores well.

If you've got a cow, you can keep it alive until you're ready to sell it. If the prices aren't good, then don't kill your cow. But, meat has an elastic market. If the price drops, people buy more meat. That tends to keep the price of beef up. So for a poor farmer, cattle ranching provides more economic certainty than their other alternatives. And I get the impression that most of the cattle ranching in the Amazon is done by relatively small landholders, not millionaires with enormous herds of cattle.

Then there are a few more potential (or actual) threats to the Amazon. The Bolivian government has built several dams already, and they've suggested one on the Beni River, right where we visited. These dams, when built, flood large portions of the rainforest, thus killing it. A biologist in La Paz told us they've already built three such dams elsewhere in the Bolivian Amazon (in Pando, I believe), and Daniel told us about the one proposed for the Beni River. Daniel doesn't think the dam will actually be built - at least not now.

A more pressing threat to the area of Amazon we visited is a new sugar refinery. Daniel griped that - as with the dam - this was initially the proposal of a right-wing government and now it's being carried out by the current left-wing government. Because this isn't a very good area for sugarcane, the economics of sugar production on a large scale here don't really work.

That is, in other parts of the world, it takes 3 liters of cane juice to make 1 liter of molasses. Here, we were told, it takes 6 to 10 liters of cane juice to make 1 liter of molasses. So farmers would have to produce 2-3 (or more) times as much sugarcane (and cut it and process it) just to get the same amount of sugar (and, presumably) revenues as sugar producers elsewhere who they would compete with on the world market. And a sugar refinery would require a large area of rainforest to be converted to sugar production. Yet the government is seemingly going through with it.

And, here's one last issue in the Bolivian lowlands that should be considered:


A cholita in the Amazon!

The Bolivian government has been actively resettling highlanders in the lowlands. Normally you would not see cholitas in the lowlands, but this woman has apparently moved here from the highlands. According to Daniel, the indigenous lowlanders generally do not thing this is a good idea, and the indigenous highlanders do not understand why the indigenous lowlanders aren't for it. From Daniel's point of view, Bolivia has decades of proof that any time you resettle highlanders to the lowlands, they practice monoculture. This is a complex issue but I wanted to at least mention it.

The next installment of my Bolivia diaries will cover a strange but perhaps wonderful project of Daniel's and Sheila's to preserve the rainforest.

UPDATE: Here is an excellent excerpt from the book Whispering in the Giant's Ear about how one bishop, Bishop Ramon, provides families with church land in the Amazon. Despite his good intentions, his land giveaways result in deforestation and an expansion of cattle ranching.

But it's hard to slash-and-burn your way to salvation. Bishop Ramon falls prey to the myth that if land grows trees, it must also grow crops. Quite to the contrary, the World Bank says that less than ten percent of existing rainforests grow in soils good for agriculture. Huge areas of tropical soils are composed of nitrogen-poor silica - the fossil sands of ancient oceans. In other rainforests silica dissolves out of the underlying rocks, and alumina, iron oxide, and magnesia accumulate, yielding the typical tropical "laterite" soils infused with the bright reds and yellows, and, while containing adequate nitrogen, they don't have much calcium, phosphorus, or potassium. Rainforest plants draw their nutrients not from these pitiful soils, but rather from themselves - by penetrating directly into rotting loggs. When the forest is cleared by peasants, torrential rains quickly leach away what nutrients there are, often creating gullied badlands. The bishop might as well christen the new towns Hell on Earth.

What's more, the settlers often fall prey to malaria and other tropical diseases for which their high-altitude constitutions are ill-equipped. But with nowhere to return to and their poverty often worse, they are forced to fell deeper into the Amazon as their soil erodes, thereby inadvertently acting as the shock troops clearing the jungles for cattle ranchers. More ironic still, some of the peasants the bishop so yearns to help are only pretending to be landless. They are traficantes de tierra, or land traffickers, who already have small holdings. In front of the Bishop Ramon they bow their heads and mouth the Lord's Prayer and then deforest the jungle. Once felled, it's theirs, and they hawk the land off to cattle ranchers and others.
- Whispering in the Giant's Ear by William Powers, p. 166.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 6, Part 3 - A Day with an Indigenous Community in the Amazon

In October 2010, I spent 2 weeks in Bolivia learning about their food and agriculture. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for out of the trip, including learning why the rainforest is being destroyed, how eco-tourism might save it, how Bolivia fits into the drug trade (and what the US does to try to stop cocaine production), and how global warming has already impacted Bolivia.

Our sixth day was one of the highlights of the entire trip. We visited San Miguel del Bala, an indigenous community in the Amazon rainforest, to learn about their traditional food and farming. I've already written a few diaries about their agriculture. This diary focuses on the community itself and the day we spent with them.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

We began our day with San Miguel del Bala EARLY because we wanted to get going before the weather got hot. We met our guide, Don Felsi, at the San Miguel del Bala office downtown Rurrenabaque and then walked together a block or so to the pier. There, we boarded boats and went a short way up the river to the community of San Miguel del Bala, home to 44 families (235 people). In the highlands, the majority of indigenous people speak Aymara or Quechua. Here, the people of San Miguel del Bala speak a language called Tacana.


Boarding the boat


On the boat


A view of the river


The river

The weather felt cool and breezy on the boat. I focused on the river, looking for wildlife. There were vultures at the pier, hardly the type of exotic animals I was hoping to see in the rainforest. Someone pointed out an egret as we went along. But what about crocodiles or tapirs? How about toucans, or macaws? Or New World Monkeys that can swing by their tails (Old World Monkeys can't do this)? And how about pink dolphins? I had even gone to the trouble of learning how to say these animals' names in Spanish!

I'll save you the suspense: I saw nothing. Almost. During the trip, I did see a few species worth noting, but I saw none on this day. In addition to the vultures and egrets, we saw a cormorant and a few turtles. And BUGS BUGS and MORE BUGS. The bugs in the rainforest are HUGE. (This is not always a bad thing - as big and mean as the creepy crawlies are, the butterflies are equally spectacular.)

As it turned out, the crocodiles are mostly hunted out of this part of the river, and tapirs - I am told - are delicious, so you will hardly find them anywhere where there are people. Pink dolphins just don't happen to live in this part of the river. Big cats like jaguars are experts at hiding, so I didn't expect to see any of them. Who knows where all of the rest of the animals were hiding. The only good thing I can say about this is that it is evidence that San Miguel del Bala is a responsible tour operator, that they aren't treating the wildlife like zoo animals, stressing them out and displaying them to the tourists in ways that harm them.

After a short trip, we came to San Miguel del Bala's Eco-Lodge. There are three main buildings: a dining hall and kitchen, bathrooms, and a "Big Cabin" (Casa Grande). From the river, all you can see is the Casa Grande, but then everything becomes visible as you make the short hike up some stairs to the Eco-Lodge. The buildings were made with local, sustainable materials and they are each gorgeous and quite modern. I found out from the group's website that their Eco-Lodge facilities were made with $150,000 in donations from NGOs plus $35,000 in their own labor. Away from this main area there are several cabins where guests can sleep if they are staying for more than one day.


The Casa Grande


Ceiling of the Casa Grande


A display of traditional bows and arrows in the Casa Grande


Hammocks in the Casa Grande


The beautifully paved path to the bathrooms. At the top are real bathrooms, not a hole in the ground!


The dining hall


The kitchen

We started our day with a workout - a steep climb up a number of stairs. Thank goodness that a) it wasn't terribly hot out yet and b) we only about 300m above sea level.


A look down at the infamous steps

Once we got to the top, our tour actually began. We walked along paths, learning about the community's agriculture and about the plants of the forest as we went. As it turns out, it's not just the animals in the rainforest that can get you... some of the plants are pretty mean too. I didn't get pictures of the spiky palm trees or the little leafy plant with the bumps on it that is "the rainforest version of Poison Ivy," but check this out:


This tree is telling you: "Don't F* with Me!"

Another interesting plant we saw was the "Walking Palm." When the availability of light changes, this plant puts down new roots and actually MOVES to wherever there is light.


A walking palm


A butterfly we saw


A termite nest


A nice view from the path

After a short walk, we came to the community, located along the river, in an area with relatively good soil. The buildings and facilities in the community itself are not as ritzy as the ones that make up the Eco-Lodge. Still, I found the homes to be quite beautiful, the people were friendly and welcoming, and oh my god did they have cute kids. And everywhere you looked, there were fruit trees.

Our guide, Don Felsi, introduced us to his wife and a few of his four young children. The homes, as you will see, are made from local, sustainable materials, probably due to necessity more than out of concern for the environment. The only two buildings made of outside building materials like bricks were the church and the school.


A home in San Miguel del Bala


The thatched roof of a home


Another building - probably someone's home


The bathroom facilities in the community... not as nice as those of the Eco-Lodge.


A building with solar power. I am pretty sure this is the school.


No community's complete without a soccer field, right?


The church.


Sooo cute


This guy was my favorite. He's chewing on sugarcane and holding a baby chick.


Awww.

As you can see from the photo above, they have a church. We asked and our guide told us that the community is Catholic. However, we asked about their tradition of coca chewing and he told us that prior to chewing coca, they make an offering to Pachamama (Mother Earth in indigenous religions) and then make the sign of the cross.

His home, which I don't have a picture of here, looked pretty similar to the other homes in the pictures above. He had a small building behind his home that is mostly open, covered just in chicken wire, where he had his homemade chicha (a local alcoholic drink) and where his ducks were living. He told us that since he's become a tour guide, he no longer has to farm.

To kill time before lunch, they had an elderly woman sit before us and make a fan from a palm frond. Once it was done, they gave it to us. Daniel assured us that the woman who made the fan would be compensated for her work.


Making a fan


It's almost done!

Then, they led us down to the river, where a boat met us and took us to lunch. By this time of the day, the weather was HOT. Hot and miserable. And the more clothes one wore, the more miserable it was. I had taken the perhaps stupid precaution of covering myself from head to toe in hiking boots, socks, and an ugly but lightweight outfit from REI consisting of pants and a long sleeve shirt. My clothes certainly did not prevent mosquito bites, and there wasn't any real risk of sunburn, so honestly, I think I was probably miserable for nothing. During lunch, I zipped off the bottom of my pants and unbuttoned my shirt, leaving one button fastened to sort-of cover the sports bra underneath. Next time, I am wearing shorts, a tank top, and mosquito repellent.

Lunch was incredible. They told us they were sharing their traditional foods, but I have a hunch that some of the foods were more traditional than others. To drink, they offered orange juice, pineapple juice, chicha made from corn, and cupuaçu (a tropical fruit) juice, as well as coffee, tea, and water. The food consisted of several salads, fried plantains, and a few kinds of meats. The star of the show was the fish, catfish caught in the river that was cooked in either leaves or in bamboo.

They served me the traditional Bolivian "vegetarian tourist consolation prize" of a vegetable omelet, which I gave away to someone who wanted it. Then I helped myself to some fish, which was delicious. I am all for being a vegetarian 99% of the time, but in a foreign country when the traditional food is a sustainably produced meat, I want to try it. They also served a soup and, while I can't remember what kind it was, I remember it was delicious.

For dessert, I think they gave us papaya. This became a running joke on the trip because I do not like papaya and it must have been papaya season in Bolivia. They served it to us everywhere we went. I always gave mine to another traveler in our group.


Lunch


Fish cooked in leaves


Fish cooked in bamboo


Papaya salad


Fried plantain, cassava, and some meat thing covered in tomato sauce


Salad

After lunch, we spent a bit of time in the Casa Grande, laying in the hammocks and reading the various signs that told the story of the community's history and culture.


A poster of local butterflies in the Casa Grande. Check out the big blue ones - we saw several of those but I couldn't catch them with my camera.




A poster showing the fish they catch on the river

At some point, they told us we had several options for the afternoon. For most of us, any option that involved going back up the steps was out of the question. I would have enjoyed the tour of their traditional medicinal plants, but there was no way I was going back up the steps. Not in the outfit I was wearing, and not in that heat. Plan B was to kill time with a boat ride, and that's what most of us did.

On the boat ride, we saw children swimming, a few turtles, and a cormorant. Daniel pointed out various rock formations along the river. At one point, we stopped and got out of the boat to see ancient stone carvings. Then we went back to the Eco-Lodge to pick up our two group members who had spent their afternoon learning about medicinal plants, and, with them in the boat, we went back to Rurrenabaque.


Swimming on a hot day. I would too if I could.


Ancient stone carving. There are over 100 of these that have been found along the river.


A stone carving of two monkeys, or perhaps it's two skulls


A cormorant


A turtle


A nice view of the river bank

On the way back, we passed an enormous resort, right on the river. We were told that an Israeli developer had built this eyesore and now he was advertising it with the obnoxious and hypocritical slogan "Be one with nature!" (Rurrenabaque gets a LOT of Israeli tourists.)


Israeli eyesore of a resort

As our boat arrived at the dock in Rurrenabaque, a raft with huge logging trucks floated past us. At one point, Daniel polled several men from San Miguel del Bala, asking how many of them were illegal loggers before starting the eco-tourism business. All of them. Then he asked one man how long he had worked in logging. Ten years. I've never before thought I was doing anything good for the environment by traveling, but in this case, supporting San Miguel del Bala with your business means providing them with meaningful jobs and income in a way that makes the rainforest plants and animals more valuable alive than dead.


Logging trucks.