Major environmental issues in Bolivia include managing its forests, preserving the country's levels of biodiversity, maintaining ecologically important protected areas, coping with the effects of

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, and dealing with the environmental consequences of agriculture,

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

and gas development, and

transportation infrastructure Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...

. Bolivia’s history of

slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed veget ...

agriculture,

overgrazing Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature res ...

, and industrial pollution has caused significant concern among environmentalists. Soil erosion, made worse by seasonal flooding, and contaminated water supplies are Bolivia’s most pressing environmental problems. The National Service for Protected Areas, established in 1998, currently manages 21 protected areas.

Deforestation

Bolivia holds an important share of global

forest cover Forest cover is the amount of forest that covers a particular area of land. It may be measured as relative (in percent) or absolute (in square kilometres/square miles). Around a third of the world's surface is covered with forest, with closed-canop ...

. , its

primary forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological feature ...

cover was 36.2 million hectares, the 13th largest national area in the world and representing 2.8% of the worldwide total. It is the country with the seventh largest amount of tropical rainforest. Overall, forests made up 51.4 million hectares, 46.8% of the country's total area, in 2013. Included in Supplemental Material S1. Both primary forest and overall forest cover have been declining in recent decades. Bolivia has 7.7 percent of the Amazon rainforest within its borders. Bolivia had a 2018

Forest Landscape Integrity Index The Forest Landscape Integrity Index (FLII) is an annual global index of forest condition measured by degree of anthropogenic modification. Created by a team of 48 scientists, the FLII, in its measurement of 300m pixels of forest across the globe ...

mean score of 8.47/10, ranking it 21st globally out of 172 countries. Annual

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

averaged 173,994 hectares in net forest lost per year between 1990 and 2000, and 243,120 hectares per year between 2000 and 2010. Table 6. The final figure (2.8%) represents the percentage of worldwide total in 2015. Source: MMAyA-OTCA, summarized by Andersen et al 2016:S1.

References

{{South America in topic, Environmental issues in Environment of Bolivia