Will Programs to Off-Set Carbon Emissions Fuel Further Conflict in Bolivia's Forests?

Six years ago Bolivia caught the world's attention as, for the first time, it elected an indigenous president -- Evo Morales, the head of the country's Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. In the last week of September this year, the country was in international headlines again, as the same government's police force violently intervened in an indigenous march, tear-gassing and dispersing protesters. The protesters marched for over sixty days against a highway, to be financed largely by the Brazilian government and built by a Brazilian company. The proposed route was to run through the middle of a forest that is both indigenous territory and national park. When the march finally arrived in the capital, president Morales was forced to back down, signing a law stating that the road would not be built through the reserve.    More