Nature pictures from Bolivia
These images are from the tropical lowlands of eastern Bolivia, including the Chaco forest and San Miguelito ranch. The photos were taken in 2019 by Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.
The images are organized into galleries, the most popular of which are presented below.
The bottom of this page includes recent conservation news from Bolivia.
Themes
Places
Wildlife
Bolivian communities push back against foreign-backed lithium projects (17 Apr 2025 12:00:05 +0000)
- In 2024, Bolivia’s state-owned lithium company, signed contracts worth a combined $2 billion with Russian and Chinese companies to mine lithium from Salar de Uyuni in the country’s southwest.
- Local communities already experiencing water shortages say they’re concerned the projects will divert large amounts of freshwater from agricultural lands.
- Experts have pointed out inconsistencies with the contracts, including the lack of environmental impact assessments required under Bolivian law, and the lack of community consultation.
- Bolivia holds an estimated 23 million metric tons of lithium reserves, or about a fifth of the global total, which is in growing demand for production of electric vehicle batteries.
Lithium Triangle mining may strain water sources more than expected, study says (04 Apr 2025 17:13:38 +0000)
- Measuring water availability for lithium extraction can still be unpredictable, especially in the high-altitude Lithium Triangle in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.
- Current models can overestimate how much water is available, potentially exacerbating scarcity for local communities, according to a new study in Communications Earth and Environment.
- The study suggests using a more accurate model as well as improving transparency and resources for gathering observational data where lithium is being extracted.
Chinese business in the Amazon generates controversy (21 Mar 2025 20:28:01 +0000)
- In recent years, several corruption scandals emerged, involving Chinese companies and businessmen in the Pan Amazon region.
- In countries like Bolivia, they were found to have bribed authorities to obtain benevolent licenses, including the sale of shares in the state-owned YPFB. In Peru and Ecuador, manipulation of the contracting system to benefit the Chinese company was reported.
- Countries that have been more successful in tackling corruption have in place better governance systems, stronger institutions and judicial systems.
Uncontacted Ayoreo could face health risks as Gran Chaco shrinks, experts warn (21 Mar 2025 18:32:28 +0000)
- The International Working Group for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (GTI-PIACI) visited northern Paraguay to better understand the threats against the Indigenous Ayoreo communities living in isolation.
- The Ayoreo live semi-nomadically between the Paraguayan and Bolivian Gran Chaco, where they’re threatened by deforestation from the expanding agricultural frontier.
- GTI-PIACI called on the Paraguayan government and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to develop more thorough measures to protect the groups and stop deforestation.
Brazil’s SUDAM scandal, a case of government-backed deforestation (07 Mar 2025 13:09:18 +0000)
- Crimes against the Amazon can also be perpetrated from government offices. In the case of Brazil, a sophisticated mechanism allowed in the late 1990s the embezzlement of millions of dollars and contributed to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Phantom companies, technical assistance for theft, fictitious loans and fraudulent reports supported the legality of the operations and consultancies of those agricultural or plantation ‘ventures’ in the Amazon Rainforest.
- The investigation, focused on activities carried out between 1997 and 1999, identified more than 150 high-value, fictitious investments. Civil lawsuits were filed against involved businessmen, public officials and legal entities, demanding compensation for damages to the public treasury.
Study unearths sophisticated year-round corn-growing system in ancient Bolivian Amazon (27 Feb 2025 17:29:19 +0000)
- Ancient Amazonians of the Casarabe culture (500-1400 CE) built an innovative dual water management system of drainage canals and ponds, enabling year-round corn cultivation in what is now modern-day Bolivia.
- These complex societies created massive earthen mounds, roads and canals, forming “low-density urbanism” across the landscape, which remained hidden until revealed by lidar technology.
- European diseases killed the majority of Indigenous populations, erasing much evidence of these sophisticated societies before they could be documented.
- Rather than deforesting the Amazon, the Casarabe people practiced agroforestry, selectively managing useful tree species while preserving the forest structure.
After LA, fire crisis reaches Latin America — from Mexico to Argentina (17 Feb 2025 12:57:34 +0000)
- As the effects of climate change become increasingly evident, Latin American countries are facing complex circumstances when it comes to defending themselves against forest fires — and urban fires.
- In Argentinian Patagonia, fires have destroyed more than 10,100 hectares (24,958 acres) of native forests, including areas of Nahuel Huapi National Park. There are also active fires in Chile that have killed three firefighters.
- Mongabay Latam talked to specialists in order to understand what is happening in some of the territories that have been hit hardest by the fires.
- Experts agree that it is urgent for Latin American governments, which often have limited capacity, to double down on their prevention efforts and allocate sufficient resources to fire management strategies, taking timely action against forest fires.
In the high Andes, a dream to restore a special forest takes root (14 Feb 2025 15:14:12 +0000)
- In 2024, the United Nations recognized seven landmark projects worldwide as outstanding examples of success under its ongoing Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030).
- One of them was Acción Andina (Andean Action), an initiative that has launched 25 restoration and conservation projects focused on the high-altitude Polylepis forests of Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and Colombia.
- More than 25,000 people from 200 communities have restored nearly 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres) of these forest and protected more than 11,250 hectares (27,800 acres) of existing woodland.
- The initiative next aims to expand into Colombia and Venezuela.
Conservation and the rise of corporations in the Pan Amazon (03 Jan 2025 14:15:21 +0000)
- Despite agreement on the importance of protecting the Amazon’s biodiversity, most people in the Pan Amazon depend directly or indirectly on conventional development and extractive production models.
- Investments by the extractive sector in the mid-nineteenth century were more successful because they were organized by multinational corporations with experience in managing operations in remote geographies (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname) or by state-owned corporations with practical knowledge of their own country (Brazil, Venezuela).
- In Brazil, some family enterprises evolved into complex holding companies that now finance expansion via joint ventures and international credit markets. A select few have chosen to raise capital by selling equity shares on domestic or international stock markets, although they typically retain majority control to maintain the family legacy.
Jaguar tracks still stained with blood in Bolivia (24 Dec 2024 12:13:15 +0000)
- In Ixiamas, an Amazonian town in Bolivia, community members are fighting to prevent jaguars from continuing to be victims of wildlife trafficking. Several jaguar deaths have been recorded between 2023 and 2024 but very little has been done to clarify the facts.
- Despite the increase in trafficking in jaguars and jaguar parts in Bolivia, there has been just one conviction, which was for the death of a jaguar in Santa Cruzand involved a Chinese citizen who was exporting fangs back to China.
- The Bolivian government has developed a jaguar conservation plan, which it plans to update next year. However, the project has not achieved the expected results.
This collection of nature photos from Bolivia is part of Mongabay's library of 150,000-plus images. Other images may be available beyond those displayed on this page.
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