Land and Territory in Bolivia Mr. George Croitoru

Definitions  Land is the terrestrial bioproductive system which includes the soil, the vegetation, the metallic and non metallic minerals apart from the hyrdrocarbons.  Territory is the concrete occupancy of the space, including the transformation of the «natural» space in an «occupied» space with social and cultural structures.

Brief historical overview  1826 – Antonio Jose de Sucre cancelles the delivery of land to the indigenous.  1868 – Mariano Melgarejo declares the land as property of the state, available for sale at auction.  1874 – Tomas Frias enacts the law according to which the indigenous can’t claim the land as community but only as individuals. The private property is being created.  1886 – Gregorio Pacheco puts on sale all the fiscal land in the country. The land can be sold or given for free to national and foreign citizens.

Landlords of Bolivia  According to the 1967 Bolivian Constitution, soil and subsoil belong to the state. The Law enacts that the peasants or indigenous without land have a preferrential and free access to the fiscal land.  In Santa Cruz, 52% of the land belongs to 11,000 people while 48% is divided to 130,000 landlords.  The Agrarian Reform from 1953 in Ukureña establishes a redistribution of the people in need and the recreation of the communitarian land.  In 1996 is issued The Agrarian Reform of the National Institute (INRA) which intended to restore to the state the land without a proper title deed and to registrate all the available land in the country. This caused anger to the indigenous communities which organized a «March for Territory and Dignity». The government finally recognized 4 indigenous territories.

The Origen Communitarian Land (TCO)  Las Tierras Comunitarias de Origen (TCO) are huge geographical spaces, home of the originative indigenous people where they have lived for centuries. They are:  Unalienable, can’t be sold;  Indivisibles, can’t be divided;  Irreversible, can’t be sequestered;  Imprescriptible, the right on them can’t be lost in the future. According to the 2009 Constitution, the state can exploit the natural resources including the TCO. The government has to consult the population before doing the works and the communities have the right to participate in the process.

Privileged territories – Protected Areas  The Protected Areas are natural áreas with or without human intervention, declared according the state rules, created in order to protect and conserve the flora and fauna, genetical resources, natural ecosystems, to preserve the cultural and natural heritage of the country.

Land use planning  It is the process to organize the use and the occupancy of the territory, according to its biophysical, social-economical, cultural and political carracteristics.  1. The appropriate use of soil, assigning proper uses of the land (forestry, agricultural etc)  2. The appropriate occupancy of the territory, optimizing the distribution of the human settlement, access to health, education and basic services, the localization of the traffic infrastructure and support to production.

Key players in the process  67% of the bolivian people belong to different indigenous community. Bolivia is the andean country with the largest number of indigenous or peasant community.  The private landlords have 8 times more land than the indigenous communities.  More tan 1 million of indigenous own no land or almost no land. They have created “Movimiento Sin Tierra” (MST). The main slogan is that even if somebody is not realizing any activity related to the production, the fact that they belong to any indigenous give to the person the right to own a certain surface of land. “The land belongs to the person who works it, individually and in common.”

Economic situation of agro-bolivian  There are 3 big agroecological regions:  The Altiplan – 27% (traditional exploiting techniques, very simples);  The valleys and the yungas – 13%;  The low land in the orient – 10% (modern techniques, products for export like soya, sugar cane, sunflower wheat).  The main producers are:  Indigenous people;  Small producers;  Agricultural entrepreneurs.