Bolivia’s newest protected area, Gran Manupare Integrated Management Natural Area, sprawls across an area a tenth the size of Switzerland in the municipality of Sena, in the northern department of Pando. This 452,639-hectare (1.12-million-acre) reserve serves as a refuge for rare species like the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) and the jaguar (Panthera onca). Limbert Torres, the president of the Sena City Council, says the creation of the protected area in January this year followed exhaustive studies by various entities, including the City Council, the Center for Research and Promotion of Campesinos (CIPCA), and Conservation International Bolivia, with financial support from international organizations. Yet this newly created reserve is already seriously threatened by illegal gold mining and logging. Its natural border in the north is the impressive Madre de Dios River, which starts in Peru and crosses the entire Bolivian Amazon. There have been reports of illegal gold mining along the river, and of residents fighting to prevent encroachment by miners. Boats are the only means of transport for the Indigenous and campesino communities living inside the Gran Manupare reserve. Image courtesy of Revista Nómadas. Sena Mayor Jaime Aguirre told Mongabay Latam that the new protected area faces “high risks,” including from gold mining. When the reserve was created, he said, it hosted half the operations of an existing mining cooperative, which authorities were only able to evict in May. “We are doing a lot of monitoring. There was an area where they were mining, extracting gold, but the concession started…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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