SUCRE - You cannot escape the smoke when driving through Bolivia during the dry season. Left and right, people burn their garbage and their fields. As such, fire has been used as an agricultural technique here for centuries - and increasingly out of control.
By 2023, as many as 3.3 million hectares across the country will burn; forests and grasslands that must give way to expanding agricultural frontiers. But behind those numbers, economic and social inequality only throws oil on the fire. This reportage visits indigenous communities surrounded by the annual fires, follows volunteer firefighters as they attempt to put them out, talks to farmers about the balance they are taking, and examines a web of illegal land trade political jousting.
Photo: © Anneleen Ophoff
DOCUMENTARY
- Achter het rookgordijn, première op DOCville Leuven, 26/03/2024.
- Achter het rookgordijn, Vranckx & de Nomaden, 20/04/2024.
- Scorching the earth, DW, 11/10/2024.
