'Everything's burned': Indigenous Bolivians walk across fire-ravaged region to pressure Morales
Record ID:
1434136
'Everything's burned': Indigenous Bolivians walk across fire-ravaged region to pressure Morales
- Title: 'Everything's burned': Indigenous Bolivians walk across fire-ravaged region to pressure Morales
- Date: 29th September 2019
- Summary: SAN JOSE DE CHIQUITOS, BOLIVIA (SEPTEMBER 27, 2019) (REUTERS) INDIGENOUS CHIQUITANOS BANGING DRUMS IN PROTEST DEMANDING ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION VARIOUS OF CHIQUITANOS MARCHING VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS CHANTING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION PROTESTER HOLDING FLAG OF CHIQUITANOS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MARCH ORGANISER, JOAQUIN ORELLANA, SAYING: "There has been no declaration yet of a national disaster, despite all the misfortune that we have gone through. Where I live everything has been burnt, we don't know what to do, from here on there will be diseases coming. And another thing that causes (wildfires) is the uncontrolled (agricultural) burning that spreads to settlements, to the settlements that he (President Evo Morales) has allowed, inter-cultural communities that have settled in indigenous territory." VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS MARCHING VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS CHANTING AS THEY MARCH (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MARCH ORGANISER, JOAQUIN ORELLANA, SAYING: "It seems the President's (Morales) goal is to bring in inter-cultural communities, to get them into the soya and coca business. We have also fought with the TIPNIS (authorities in charge of the Indigenous Territory of the Isiboro National Park) because the President's intention is to build a road, and that's the same thing he wants to do here. (He wants to support) Inter-cultural communities that he wants to and which support him in return, but what are we to do? This government has been abusing us and now we are saying enough is enough." PROTESTER WAVING BOLIVIAN FLAG LOCALS GATHERED AMBULANCE AND PARAMEDICS FROM INDIGENOUS REGION WOMAN HOLDING HER BABY GENERAL VIEW OF COMMUNITY WHERE MOBILE HEALTH CLINIC HAS BEEN SET UP VARIOUS OF MEDIC WITH PATIENT LOCALS SITTING ON GROUND (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATION OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF BOLIVIA, TOMAS CANDIA, SAYING: "We are fighting for the planet, against global warming. Our Chiquitania (indigenous region) is burning, we are seeing the environment in Chiquitania get hot. Living here we feel the heat and we can't handle it, the climate is changing. We are calling on the world to help us with the park, with the forest because the world needs fresh air." VARIOUS OF LOCALS GATHERED TO RECEIVE HATS THAT ARE BEING DISTRIBUTED TO PROTECT FROM HEAT SUPPLIES THAT HAVE ARRIVED FOR LOCALS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATION OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF BOLIVIA, TOMAS CANDIA, SAYING: "Up to now there have been three million hectares burnt. For us, the Chiquitanos, it's painful because we are not going to have anything left, we're not going to have anything with this fire, that is why we are calling on the world (for help), for the government to declare a national disaster, to call for help for indigenous peoples, for territories and for protected areas because the situation can't stay like this." TENTS SET UP IN INDIGENOUS AREA
- Embargoed: 13th October 2019 16:39
- Keywords: indigenous protest march wildfires environment Bolivia forest San Jose de Chiquitos
- Location: SAN JOSE DE CHIQUITOS, BOLIVIA
- City: SAN JOSE DE CHIQUITOS, BOLIVIA
- Country: Bolivia
- Topics: Disaster/Accidents,Wildfires/Forest Fires
- Reuters ID: LVA001AYPLF0N
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:In Bolivia's fire-ravaged lowlands, a caravan of indigenous protesters is marching hundreds of miles to demand President Evo Morales declare a surge in wildfires a national disaster, a move they hope will unleash international aid.
Morales has been reluctant to make the designation as he campaigns for a fourth presidential term ahead of Oct. 20 elections, despite growing calls that he acknowledge the fires - which have already burned an area bigger than Costa Rica - were beyond his government's control.
Some 200 protesters - most indigenous Chiquitano people from Bolivia's east - have joined the caravan since it departed earlier this month from San Ignacio de Velasco, a ranching hub where fires have forced villagers from their homes and threatened pastures that sustain half a million head of cattle.
Protesters, including women with young children and elders, have camped out in empty lots and relied on donations of food, water and clothes from villages along the march's 500-kilometre (311-mile) route.
Morales, South America's longest-serving leftist leader, is Bolivia's first indigenous president, hailing from Bolivia's largest indigenous group, the Aymara. His government has said declaring a national disaster would turn a sovereign issue over to foreigners, echoing concerns voiced by neighbouring Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has sparked a global outcry over his handling of fires in the Brazilian Amazon.
Protesters want Morales to repeal a law his' government passed this year that expanded slash-and-burn agriculture in drought-stricken regions now alight with blazes that some blame on Aymara and Qechua settlers, soy farmers and cattle ranchers.
(Production: Santiago Limachi, Monica Machicao) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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