Bolivia

The Amazon region has lost 10% of its vegetation in nearly four decades, according to a new report

Cutting down trees in Bolivia’s Beni region not only damages the environment, it obliterates ancient remains: ‘That part of the archaeological archive is lost’At midday on the road into Grünland, a Mennonite colony in the Bolivian department of Beni, the only sound is a distant chainsaw.On either side, strips of deforested land extend into the […]

Meditative drama follows non-professional leads playing a farming couple being driven from their home in the Andean plateau by global heatingBolivian director Alejandro Loayza Grisi started his career as a photographer then turned to cinematography; now he makes his feature debut with this slow and beautiful-looking drama set high on the Andean plateau. […]

Mining co-ops – with oversize influence in the government – are moving into the Amazon’s Madidi national parkThe footage is jerky, perhaps shot covertly. It shows a river running through a jungle: on the far side there is still thick forest, but the near bank is a mess of churned earth and muddy tracks – yet more evidence that gold miners have moved […]

Report for Law Society says framework is essential for future interactions with the environment and biotechnologyGranting legal rights and protections to non-human entities such as animals, trees and rivers is essential if countries are to tackle climate breakdown and biodiversity loss, experts have said.The authors of a report titled Law in the Emerging […]

Swathes of rainforest have reached tipping point, research by scientists and Indigenous organisations concludesEnvironmental destruction in parts of the Amazon is so complete that swathes of the rainforest have reached tipping point and might never be able to recover, a major study carried out by scientists and Indigenous organisations has found. “The […]

He has been described as ‘the worst kind of businessman’, but we now know that industrialist Moritz Hochschild also rescued as many as 20,000 Jews from the Nazis Continue reading...

Altopía imagines the bustling working-class city that overlooks neighbouring La Paz in 2053 – with coca-chewing cyborgs and minibuses with legsTravellers flying into the Bolivian capital of La Paz land in El Alto: a working-class, Indigenous city of countless terracotta houses. Most visitors pay it little attention as the taxi whisks them down to La […]

He has been described as ‘the worst kind of businessman’, but we now know that industrialist Moritz Hochschild also rescued as many as 20,000 Jews from the NazisMoritz Hochschild was constantly on the move. In the early 1930s, he could be found in the grand hotels of London, New York or Paris, or on the back of a mule, following rough mountain trails in […]

Some see youth football tournament as former president’s latest attempt to remain in running for 2025 electionsPolitics and football have long mixed in South America, but not perhaps to this extent. On Sunday the Copa Evo, an international youth football tournament arranged by and named after Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales, kicked off in the […]

The case of Richard Choque, a serial rapist and murderer, who was placed only under house arrest, prompted outrageIn parts of La Paz, every surface is papered with layers of bleached and peeling posters: adverts for events, jobs, apartments – and missing women.In 2021, there were at least 108 femicides in Bolivia, among the highest rates in South America. […]

Court finds rightwinger defied constitution during chaotic exit of Evo Morales, from whom she took over presidencyA Bolivian court has found former president Jeanine Áñez guilty of orchestrating a coup that brought her to power during a 2019 political crisis.She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Continue reading...

Ruins of monuments, villages, causeways and canals hidden in the dense rainforest are evidence of ‘Amazonian urbanism’Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a vast network of settlements hidden beneath the undergrowth of the Bolivian Amazon, in what has been described as the clearest example yet of the complex societies that thrived in a region […]

Max Mendoza has been arrested after a judge said his 32-year enrollment at university on a government salary may be a crimeMax Mendoza has been a remarkably persistent student – and a profitable one: he has been enrolled at a public university in Bolivia for 32 years but never graduated, much of it while being paid a government salary to serve as a […]

Jeanine Áñez assumed power after President Evo Morales was driven from office – now she is facing up to 15 years in prisonWith its sterile setting and staff in scrubs, it looks like the video feed of a hospital waiting room – but the scene captured on screen is the virtual trial of Jeanine Áñez, Bolivia’s former president, who is beaming in to the […]