LA PAZ, Aug 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Fires have destroyed 1.2 million hectares of forest and grasslands in Bolivia this year, the government said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The news comes after President Evo Morales suspended his re-election campaign to direct the government’s response to a growing environmental disaster in the Bolivian portion of the Amazon rainforest, where wildfires have been raging since May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bolivia’s total forest area has been steadily shrinking in recent years, from 47.3 million hectares in 2005 to 43.8 million hectares in 2017, according to a study published by Bolivian environmental and human rights organization the Solon Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Friends of Nature Foundation NGO says the true extent of forest destruction this year is 1.8 million hectares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ecologists have attacked a law promulgated by Morales that offers incentives to burn forest areas to transform them into pastureland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A group of 80 environmental and professional institutions are demanding that Morales recall the 2016 law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government, though, blames dry weather and strong winds for the voracious wildfires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morales’s government has plans to plant 4.5 million hectares by 2030, to comply with commitments given to the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, Morales mocked a G7 pledge of US$20 million to help fight the Amazon fires as “tiny.” — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LA PAZ, Aug 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Fires have destroyed 1.2 million hectares of forest and grasslands in Bolivia this year, the government said. The news comes after President Evo Morales suspended his re-election campaign to direct the government’s response to a growing environmental disaster in the Bolivian portion of the Amazon rainforest, where wildfires have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39753"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}