Portugal-Sized Area Of Bolivia Burned In 2024 Displacing 10s Of Thousands; Now, "If Not Fire, We'll Be Killed By Hunger"
As she walks away from the house where she raised her family, Isabel Surubí pauses to point at the bed of a stream, now covered with dry leaves, that once supplied her entire community. “The water used to come from here,” she says. In 2024, wildfires in Bolivia burned more than 10m hectares (about 39,000 sq miles) of forest, farmland and savannah – an area greater than the size of Portugal. After the fires, and the drought that preceded them, the spring feeding Surubí’s village of Los Ángeles in Bolivia’s tropical dry forest ran dry. Lacking water in their community, Surubí and her family were forced to move to the nearest big town, three hours away. “It hurts to leave everything behind,” she says.
Last year’s wildfires in Bolivia, from July to November, were the country’s largest to date, burning more than 10% of the country’s forest, according to a report by the environmental organisation Fundación Tierra. Driven by slash-and-burn agricultural techniques employed by large-scale agroindustrial operations, these intentional blazes often spread out of control. The tropical dry forests in the country’s eastern Chiquitanía region were hit hardest.
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Research has found that breathing smoke and other fine particulate matter released by wildfires can be deadly. A 2024 study in the journal Science Advances found that at least 52,000 premature deaths over 10 years in California were due to exposure to wildfire smoke. Studies have also linked long-term wildfire smoke exposure to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Beyond acute health conditions, communities also struggle with access to nutritious food due to wildfires and other environmental changes driven by the climate crisis.
Verónica Surubí Pesoa, a city councillor in San Javier, says drought and an unseasonal frost affected crops in August, while fires continued to burn. As a result, much of the cassava crop, a staple in the region, was lost. It was “work in vain” for many farmers, she says. With growing challenges in producing food locally, buying imported products is the only option for many in the community. Many people who used to live off the small plots of land they cultivated have had to find jobs on large farms and ranches, which typically pay less than $10 (£8) a day.
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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/20/bolivia-chiquitania-wildfires-climate-crisis-drought-food-shortages-health-disease-women-sexual-violence