The Guardian • Bolivia opens up national parks to oil and gas firms • 7/06/2015
The Madidi National Park in north-west Bolivia is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. One particularly astonishing fact: the park hosts 11% of the world’s bird species, according to Bolivia’s park service, SERNAP, and the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society. Bolivia’s government calls Madidi a “protected area”, but really it’s no such thing. 75% of its 1.8 million hectares - which includes both the park itself and a “Natural Area of Integrated Management” (NAIM) - are overlapped by oil and gas concessions held by Spain’s Repsol, Brazil’s state oil and gas company Petrobras, and PetroAndina, a joint venture between...
