Bolivia’s Madidi National Park is considered to be the most biodiverse place on planet earth. The Uchupiamonas people, who call the park home, are in a constant battle against forces eager to exploit the protected area for its wildlife, hydroelectric potential, hardwoods, and gold. In the short film Voices for Madidi – Voces por el Madidi, we hear from environmental defenders on the frontlines. The director tells us more.
We have always been at war. It is a war declared by a government…that does not protect Indigenous peoples.
~ Ruth Alipaz Cuqui – Environmental Activist
Bolivia’s Madidi National Park was established in 1995 to protect what is now considered to be the most biodiverse place on earth. The park spans fourteen life-zones and encompasses over two-million hectares, including a section of the Great East Andean Corridor, an important watershed that stretches from snowcapped peaks to the Amazon basin.
The park and Natural Area of Integrated Management is home to 31 Indigenous communities, with approximately 4,000 people distributed among several language groups, including highland Quechua and lowland Tacana. One community in the Tuichi River Valley speaks a hybrid of both these languages in addition to Spanish, and its culture is a fusion of Tacana, Inca, and Catholic practices. This community is San José de Uchupiamonas.
The Uchupiamonas people have fought to preserve their way of life since the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. When Franciscan missionaries attempted to evangelize them, they rebelled and fled deeper into the jungle to carry on their existence.
Today, Uchupiamona activists, like Ruth Alipaz Cuqui, are in a constant battle against forces eager to exploit the protected area for its hydroelectric potential, hardwoods, arable land, wildlife, and gold.
In 2016, Ruth and four other members of the Commonwealth of Indigenous Communities of the Beni, Tuichi, and Quiquibey Rivers effectively blocked the construction of two dams along the upper Beni River that would have flooded and displaced 11 Indigenous communities in that part of the Andean watershed. While heroic, their efforts continue to be challenged by the government and other opportunists eager to profit from hydro-projects.
Since the late 90s, ‘wood pirates’ have extracted much of the mara, or big-leaf mahogany (and other hardwoods), sold for huge profits on the local black market; while over the last decade, government-backed companies like Empresa Azucarera San Buenaventura have pressured local Tacana communities into conceding more than 10,000 hectares of their territorial lands for sugar plantations.
As exposed in the 2021 documentary Tigre Gente by Elizabeth Unger, wildlife poachers have all but wiped out what were once healthy jaguar populations in the Madidi in order to supply an insatiable Chinese black market.
But most destructive by far has been the ongoing expansion of both legal and illegal gold mining operations in the Madidi’s upper watersheds. Lack of government oversight related to the safe use of mercury in gold extraction has led to widespread contamination of the Beni, Tuichi, and Quiquibey Rivers. Communities relying largely on river fish for sustenance have been especially hard hit by mercury poisoning.
I first visited the Madidi area in 1982 as a teenager, when a group of friends and I ventured down the Beni River in a motorized dugout canoe during the rainy season, only to almost meet our fate in deadly rapids, whirl pools and a maze of giant tree snags. Fortunately, we were taken in by some Mosetén hunters, who fed us and gave us shelter until the rains abated and we could carry on.
I returned to the area in the 90s as a photojournalist on a national parks beat, then, in 2007 as an expedition leader. In 2008, I filmed with National Geographic on Bolivia’s infamous ‘Death Road’ traversing the Andes to the Amazon. And in 2016 and 2017, I worked on a coffee table book Madidi: an uncertain future, with photographer Sergio Ballivian.
On each expedition, I interacted with the extraordinary Uchupiamonas people, who taught me the ways of the jungle and the profound importance of protecting such unparalleled biodiversity. They also educated me about the various existential threats to the region and its Indigenous people. This lit a fire under me.
In 2023, I returned with a film crew in hopes of bringing their story to the rest of the world, culminating in Voices for Madidi – Voces por el Madidi, a bilingual expression of the environmental defenders serving the front lines of a little-publicized battle.
In this film, we hear directly from leaders like Ruth Alipaz. As she eloquently states, ‘Mother Earth provides everything – the forests from which we get food, creatures to nourish us, and she gives us abundant life-giving water. How can we not be grateful for a gift like that?…It is a gift we have to take care of.’
The documentary has been awarded Best Short International Documentary at the Canadian Independent Film Festival, Best Cinematography at the Oregon Documentary Film Festival, and Best Direction at the Wildsound Environmental Film Festival. Watch it here:
