1.1. Argumentation and antecedents
Bolivia is one of the 15 most biodiverse countries in the world (UN 2002, 2002a and Biodiverse online 2004) and is designed as a global priority for conservation actions. More than half of the Bolivian territory (58%) still presents a good conservation status (Ibisch et al.
2004). However, the destruction of forest and the loss of biodiversity is increasing due to settlements, the agricultural frontier, and industrial development (Gerold 1983 and 2004, Ibisch 2004, 2004a, Pacheco & Mertens 2004, Steininger et al. 2001).
Nowadays the System of the National Protected Areas of Bolivia covers 17% of the territory, but this area is not enough to protect all natural values (MDSP 2003, Ibisch 2004b, Rivera 2004). In addition, some protected areas are dispersed and without connections, therefore these areas are under threat to become islands that do not guarantee the protection of natural values in the long term.
The deciduous Chiquitano Forest, a wide area of thousands of square kilometres of natural habitat, which exists only in Bolivia, is just one example of an area with urgent conservation needs. The larger part of this forest lies outside of national protected areas and there are few possibilities to establish any big protected area there, therefore it should be protected by different conservation mechanisms. The Chiquitano Forest was almost intact until the ends of the 1990s; since then, strong economic processes have affected it. In 2000, the construction of a controversial gas pipeline across the Chiquitano Forest caused protests of many groups of the civil society and promoted the formation of the Foundation for the Conservation of the Chiquitano Forest (FCBC) in order to support the preservation of this important ecosystem.
FCBC planned and financed the design of the “Plan for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Chiquitano Dry Forest, Pantanal and Bolivian Cerrado (PCSD)” (Ibisch et al. 2002). The main purpose of this plan was to give an overview of the resources of this area and their value in order to maintain the forest and its associated regions and to prevent environmental impacts from regional development and from major projects of infrastructure executed in the area (FCBC online 2004).
The “Conservation Plan” was published in 2002 and recommended a set of conservation actions considering the socio-economic situation of the region. One of the major recommendations is the development of alternative mechanisms to achieve biodiversity
conservation on private land, in particular in the transitional region between the Chiquitano Forest and the Amazon Forest. Hence, the present study was carried out to evaluate the potential and viability of biodiversity conservation on private land in order to set into action that recommendation.
The study area, recommended by the “Conservation Plan”, is located in the East of the department Santa Cruz, in the lowlands of Bolivia. This is an important and strategic place for conservation: it is one of the last places of the transitional region between deciduous/semi-deciduous and Amazon forest, which has little human impact and still allows the natural connectivity to link both forests. This quality has a significant value for the Chiquitano forest to anticipate the negative effects of climate change. Furthermore, the conservation of the mentioned area will prevent the isolation of the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, declared as a world heritage by the UNESCO, located in the north of the department.
The content of this research presents a topic which has not yet been sufficiently studied in Bolivia: the direct participation of the civil society in the conservation of natural flora, fauna and landscapes. The study emphasises land planning as the main tool to promote conservation linking social and ecological aspects. A general view of the results shows that the private landowners’ acceptance to take part in the efforts to maintain natural values is limited, but it does not seem to be impossible to reach a certain degree of protection through private participation if government and institutions adjust certain environmental politics and procedures.
Several social conflicts in Bolivia have occurred during the accomplishment of this study, some of them related to the unequal distribution of the land, which has a direct relation to the main topic of this study. This situation shows the need of more methodologies to achieve deals and consensus with regard to the use of natural resources. In this context, the study offers some inputs to support the search of ways to conduct conservation in accordance with the society.
1.2. Questions of the study
Since 1994, Bolivia has established the concept of participation as a basic policy in order to address their development. Consequently, there is already a legal framework that allows the direct involvement of every citizen in the management and sustainable use of natural resources and in the management of biodiversity, however, up to now this potential has not been sufficiently applied to improve the Bolivian conservation issues.
In some countries good examples exist that show a positive and active integration of private landowners in nature conservancy. In the United States, the private sector protects through different measures thousands of hectares of land (LTA online 2004), private natural reserves have strengthened the systems of national protected areas since the 1990s in Latin America and The Caribbean (ELI et al. 2003). In the case of Bolivia, a first study about the success of the establishment of private reserves has demonstrated that some groups of private landowners have protected wild areas without formal support (Choquehuanca 2001).
Therefore, it seems promising to invest resources and efforts to elaborate a compendium of the possible advantages of conservation on private lands, in particular considering that the human pressure is the main reason for the destruction of biodiversity and up to now there were practically no efforts to explore conservation opportunities outside of protected areas (Ibisch 2004b).
Biodiversity conservation on private land has to be part of major national and international strategies in order to contribute efficiently to wildlife protection (Norton & Miller 2000).
With regard to Bolivia, the private initiatives should strengthen the National System of Protected Areas through (a) the formation of natural corridors between large protected areas, (b) the conservation of natural values– which are outside of the state protection measures–
and (c) the amelioration of buffer zones. But at the same time, private land conservation should offer options for the landowners who want to participate in wildlife protection.
In this context, the following main question was designed in order to analyse the case of the Transitional Region Chiquitano-Amazon (TR-CHA)
What are the potential advantages and constraints of the development of biodiversity conservation on private land in the transitional region Chiquitano-Amazon?
To answer the above-mentioned question the following specific questions were formulated:
• How is the conservation status of this region and which are the places with high conservation priority?
• Are the landowners willing to establish private reserves on their ownerships to protect biodiversity? Which factors are crucial/decisive?
• Which are the recommendations to promote the conservation on private land that should complement the major processes of conservation, carried out in national protected areas?