In Bolivia's fire-ravaged lowlands, a caravan of indigenous protesters is m...
CHIQUITANO FOREST, Bolivia - 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.
“He hasn’t declared a national disaster despite all this misfortune we’ve suffered,” Joaquin Orellana, the organizer of the march, said of Morales as he walked along an unpaved road alongside protesters playing flutes and drums. 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 neighboring Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has sparked a global outcry over his handling of fires in the Brazilian Amazon.
Santa Cruz is home to large swaths of Bolivia’s biodiverse Chiquitano dry forests, named for the indigenous people who have lived in them for hundreds of years. Protesters say a declaration of national disaster would remove bureaucratic barriers to help from abroad to contain fires.
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