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Environment

Bolivia's surging deforestation alarms environmentalists

Bolivia accounts for 9 per cent of all primary forest lost across the globe, and conservationists fear deforestation will only increase due to the government’s desire to expand agricultural production

By Luke Taylor

17 July 2023

Satellite photo of land deforested for agriculture in the Chiquitania region of Bolivia

NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin/Landsat/UGS

The area of virgin forest cleared in Bolivia jumped 32 per cent last year, fuelling concerns that government-backed deforestation could jeopardise efforts to save the Amazon.

The rate of tree clearing is now so high that Bolivia accounts for 9 per cent of all of the primary forest lost across the globe. Only Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — which are eight and two times larger than Bolivia respectively — lost more primary forest in…

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