Evo the Environmentalist

Since news broke of Evo Morales’ election victory a few weeks ago, Bolivia’s streets have been awash with red, yellow and green — not in patriotic support but in protest. After narrowly losing a 2016 referendum on whether he could overturn the constitution and run for a fourth term in office, Morales appealed to the country’s court and was permitted to run regardless. Three years later, after beating his closest rival Carlos Mesa by 47.07% to 36.51%, he looked set to enter his fourteenth year in power imminently. Many citizens took to the streets to protest, fearing democracy in Bolivia — a nation with a not-so-distant history of authoritarianism — was once again in peril. On Sunday, in the face of increasing strikes, blockades and violence, Morales announced his resignation.

Foreign commentators have been quick to label his stepping down a right-wing coup — the forced eviction of a leader who revolutionised his country, preserving its world-leading biodiversity and consistently advocating for the rights of the poorest. However, the reality is far more complicated. As Bolivia contemplates filling the void left by Morales, it’s worth considering his legacy so as to understand where the priorities of the country’s next president -whoever it may be - ought to lie

Morales’ keenness to overstay his welcome does not mean he was a bad president during his rightful tenure. Nor does it make the neoliberal Carlos Mesa an appealing alternative. Morales’ presidency has been heralded as an example of just how successful socialism can be. His supporters say it’s thanks to ‘Evonomics’ that Bolivia is now one of South America’s fastest growing economies, with increased public spending responsible for major improvements in health, education and infrastructure. Morales presided over a reduction in extreme poverty from nearly 40 to 17%. Bolivia now has the world’s second highest number of female legislators, and — as its first indigenous president — Morales campaigned fervently against discrimination, officially renaming his country ‘The Plurinational State of Bolivia’ in 2009 to reflect the diversity of its inhabitants.

Tied to Morales’ respect for Bolivia’s indigenous cultures is his reputation as an environmentalist; he is widely regarded as a leader who was prepared to stand up to greedy land-grabbing corporations in defence of Pachamama (Mother Earth). Bolivian heritage holds all natural life to be sacrosanct, and this still seeps into the country’s mentality today: a recent poll suggested that over 70% of Bolivians would prioritise natural conservation over economic growth. The country itself is a global conservation priority, home to some of the world’s most important rainforests and wildlife; its biodiversity is also at a particularly high risk from fossil fuel development. Domestically and internationally, Morales was very successful in cultivating an image as the perfect president for such a nation. He vehemently criticised the slow progress of northern capitalist countries in fighting climate change, and was therefore instrumental in making sure such international agreements were sufficiently ambitious and fair to countries in the Global South. ‘I feel that many delegates here have no idea what it is like to be a victim of climate change’, he said in a 2010 speech at the UN Climate Conference in Cancun.

In accordance with this, Morales implemented a series of groundbreaking environmental laws. ​The notion of ‘Vivir Bien’ (Living Well), written into the country’s constitution in 2009, consolidated the place of sustainability and the flourishing of the community at the heart of Bolivia’s notion of development. ​In 2010, Morales passed a law promising rights to​ Madre Tierra​ — the first national environmental law of such scope. Theoretically, it allowed rights to all living things and ramifications if nature’s integrity was impinged upon.

However, it soon became clear to many Bolivians that Evo’s policies on the ground did not always live up to his persuasive green discourse. The forest fires that destroyed 3.5 million hectares of Santa Cruz’s Chiquitania region a few months ago — although nowhere near as high profile as the blaze in the Brazilian Amazon — saw the international community take notice as well.

It would be too simplistic to hold Morales’ government directly culpable for the fires. Similarly, the 1.5 million-strong protest that broke out concurrently in Santa Cruz was not solely motivated by concern for the environment; many in the wealthier​ media luna ​region of the country have long been opposed to Morales’s equalising land reform and distribution policies. When I spoke to Brian Cornejo, who organises sustainable tourism in Bolivia’s Madidi National Park, he told me ‘the fires were not Evo’s fault. Fires are common in Bolivia at this stage of the year’. But he did not absolve the president of blame entirely, citing his recent decision to open up new areas for farming as a contributing factor. While this benefited many small-scale farmers, it also led to increased use of slash-and-burn farming. Bolivia’s land management authority has estimated that nearly 90% of the wildfires began as illegal fires set by farmers; many of those Morales gave land to lacked the money and machinery needed to clear land and so had to resort to fire.

‘One of the things that angers me is that Evo didn’t want to declare an environmental disaster’, continues Cornejo. His government was slow to respond and when it did it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, eager to play down the significance of the blaze. A catastrophe of this scale was never going to be good PR for Morales; the Chiquitania fires may well have cost him what was left of his environmentalist image. Likewise, his insistence that everything was ok as the fires raged on points towards a larger mismatch — between what he said, and what actually happened on the ground. Morales did not always find it easy to balance rapid economic development with respect for the environment; despite the good intentions of his land distribution in Chiquitania, much of his behaviour elsewhere reflected the cutthroat Capitalism he continues to disavow to this day. It also saw him threatening the livelihoods of the indigenous people he attested to protect.

I spoke to Alfredo Romero-Muñoz, a Bolivian conservationist and Doctoral Researcher at the University of Humboldt, to get some clarity on exactly where Morales went wrong:

‘​Evo Morales has had a mixed record on environmental policy, and in practice, he has favoured the implementation of laws that actually harm biodiversity. On the one hand he has promoted some positive laws that give rise to indigenous peoples, give rights to nature, and has been a vocal advocate of nature in the international forum’, says Romero-Muñoz. ‘In contrast, starting in his second term in 2010, his government implemented an increasing number of laws that go against pro-nature laws, and have as such had a substantial impact on biodiversity. For instance, he prioritised the construction of mega-dams that would block some of the Amazon’s largest tributaries, built roads cutting through some of the world’s most biodiverse regions, despite the opposition of the local indigenous groups, and put forward several laws to expand agriculture into huge areas of forests.’

Hydroelectricity is a renewable and reliable source of energy, but the haphazardness with which the eleven new dams were proposed has meant nine fall inside or within five kilometres of protected areas — with three immediately upstream or downstream of indigenous territories. These mega-dams caused flooding, displacement and high methane emissions from stagnant water in places like the Madidi National Park, which is amongst the most important regions for global conservation. They threatened wildlife and disrupted indigenous people’s livelihoods, matching what occurred as Morales licensed agrobusinesses to cull more and more of the Bolivian rainforest to make way for pasture. A study published in ​Environmental Research ​predicts that Bolivia could lose almost all of its 50 million hectares of lowland forest by 2050 if current trends continue.

‘In his plans, expanding the agriculture frontier remained a priority, meaning large-scale devastation of some of the world’s richest forests’, says Muñoz. This is primarily due to global demand: ‘most deforestation in Bolivia and across South America occurs for the producing of beef for domestic and international markets. The second driver of deforestation is soy production, most of which is exported to Europe and China to feed pigs, chickens and cows.’

Extractivism allowed Morales to enact many of the groundbreaking redistributionist policies he is famed for. By nationalising oil and gas in Bolivia when he first came to power, he was able to increase employment and invest extensively in public services, allocating cash to the ordinary Bolivians who really needed it. However there is a sense that as time went on, Morales’ drive to expand and extract caught up with him; he failed to integrate sustainability into his quest for growth. Despite his laws on ​Buen Vivir​ and ​Derechos de la Madre Tierra​, the actions of his government on the ground showed a callous disregard for some of the most biodiverse forests in the world and the indigenous people that live within them.

Unlike Morales, Bolivia’s next leader will have to put his money where his mouth is. ​Bolivia is barely accountable for the climate crisis, but it is set to experience the brunt of its effects. ​Morales’ rhetoric on the climate has put most other global leaders to shame, and his laws would have been amongst the most groundbreaking in the world if implemented effectively. However, his citizens grew frustrated as he acted hypocritically time and time again. A leader who wishes to maintain growth sustainably will have to harness Bolivia’s potential for solar and wind in the same way that Morales harnessed its oil and gas resources. The country has one of the top levels of solar radiation on the planet — its Altiplano region could technically provide enough energy to supply the entire world — but renewable energy projects have been few and far between thus far.

Global consumption must become more ethical so as to reduce demand, but Bolivia’s leaders have a lot to learn from their citizens. Many indigenous people in Bolivia already live in accordance with the principles of ​Vivir Bien​; it’s time for the government to do the same, instead of pursuing economic growth without regard for the environmental cost.

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