Photo : Wikimedia.org

But the country’s mineral riches come with a price – societal, environmental and economic

Gold prices have risen steadily since 2000, increasing nearly fourfold and changing the conditions in which it is extracted and marketed – lamentably including methods that evade mining and financial regulations. The current boom in the illegal extraction of gold is the result of various factors, including profitability driven by demand from emerging markets, notably China and India, and investment pressure, particularly after the financial crisis of 2008. The imbalance between supply and demand resulted in gold prices increasing by an average of 18% per year from 2000 to 2010 alone, for a total increase of 360% over the decade. While prices have fallen significantly since then, they are still relatively high. Simultaneously, pressure from the US ‘War on Drugs’ has cut into the profitability of drug trafficking from Latin American. As a result, criminal networks have diversified into the gold-mining sector, a move that was greatly facilitated by the fragmented nature of an artisanal gold-mining industry.

The Amazon basin in which Bolivian mines are located have facilitated an increase of the illegal exploitation of gold. The Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, a Geneva-based international civil-society organisation, estimates that 30% of the gold mined in Bolivia is obtained illegally. Bolivia has been, and still is, particularly vulnerable to large-scale exploitation of gold and other precious minerals due to the wealth of natural deposits it enjoys. At a local level, informal mining is often socially accepted because of the employment and income opportunities it generates. Furthermore, the reserves themselves are located in regions far from densely populated areas, lacking a strong state presence to monitor conditions and enforce laws. Research conducted in 2016 by the Global Initiative found that since 2006, around 68 tonnes of gold, valued at 3 billion USD, had been illegally extracted from the Amazon and northern border areas and smuggled out of Bolivia.

Illegal gold mining brings with it a plethora of problems. The human cost of the expansion of illegal mining is extensive. An estimated 13,500 children work in the illegal gold-mining sector, and half are unpaid. Despite a lack of official governmental data, human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation of women and adolescents is a growing problem – particularly across the borders of Peru and Brazil. Sexual trafficking is commonly generated whenever there is a large migration of men for the purpose of employment. Peruvian police estimate that up to 4,500 Peruvian and Bolivian girls are trafficked for sex work in bars frequented by miners.

‘The immense social and environmental damage will continue growing, and future generations probably won’t get know the beauty of these idyllic sites.’

—Professor Agustín Cárdenas Revilla

There are steep environmental costs associated with illegal gold mining too, including deforestation and illegal trafficking of wood. Without enforced regulations and guidelines, mining contaminates and degrades local ecosystems. In places where alluvial gold is extracted from riverbeds, mercury is often used as a separating agent. Mercury is highly toxic to human health; it can cause developmental and neurological problems, especially to foetuses and small children. Gold reserves are often exploited this way in the departments of Beni and Pando and in the Madre de Dios, Beni and Orthon Amazonian rivers. For every kilogramme of gold that is produced in Bolivia, 36 kilogrammes of mercury are released into the environment, according to the Global Initiative, affecting not just the earth but also local communities. The damage that occurs during the gold-separation process is incalculable and irreversible.

Agustín Cárdenas Revilla, emeritus professor of metallurgy at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), warns that this type of illegal mining will have adverse consequences for the communities that are involved. What’s more, he says, ‘The immense social and environmental damage, currently unevaluated, will continue growing, and future generations probably won’t get to know the beauty of these idyllic sites, the beautiful rivers or the great biodiversity that very few countries have the privilege of having.’

In May 2014, under President Evo Morales’s government, Bolivian legislation regarding gold mining activity was replaced by Law No. 535. A controversial aspect of the law lies in Article 31, which declares productive mining agents as the state mining industry, the private mining industry and mining cooperativas. It neglects to recognise the work of local communities, many of whom exploit mineral resources in their areas. These communities have legal titles to the mining sites, but no formal permission or contracts. Thus, this law leaves such communities with no choice but to privatise or engage in illegal mining activity. The Sociedad Peruano de Derecho Ambiental (SPDA), in their investigation into illegal gold routes, suggest that the policies in Bolivia encourage the proliferation of informal and illegal mining operations. The contradictions, ambiguities and voids in state policies encourage even legal operators to take advantage of them, often resulting in violations of mining laws.

In the La Paz department, which contains the largest gold deposits in the country, there are more than 50 companies that produce gold, but only five that work legally, according to the Instituto Boliviano de Comercio Exterior. Additionally, there are approximately 1,100 mining cooperatives that extract gold in the department, producing roughly 10 to 12 tonnes per year. Bolivian law requires that all mining actors obtain a mining identification number and register it with the national mining bureau. Of the 1,100 cooperatives working in the department, only 126 are registered.

‘The cooperativas don’t have access to resources; mining requires a lot of capital and machinery,’ explains Carlos Jitton, president of the Chamber of Exports of La Paz. ‘So although it may be prohibited, they have no choice but to work in partnership with rescatadores’ – companies that invest in the cooperatives, many of which are foreign – ‘to enable them to continue working.’ Notably, Chinese and Colombian interests frequently invest in small mining cooperatives.

Drawn to the perceived rewards of mining, workers willingly abandon their traditional livelihoods, but the reality isn’t so fruitful. ‘The cooperative workers live a life of survival,’ Jitton says. ‘One gram of gold may cost around 20-25 USD to produce, and the middle man, let’s say, may only pay them between 25-28 USD. So maybe they’ll make a profit of around 1 USD, potentially nothing. The profit margin is very low.’

‘The life of a gold miner is precarious,’ Jitton continues. ‘They use very old technologies and work in questionable conditions. It would be a huge risk to smuggle gold across borders themselves, so they are left with no choice but to work for or sell to companies that know the appropriate routes across the border.’

Statistics reveal a troubling truth behind the production and exportation of gold in Bolivia.

According to the Bolivian Institute of National Statistics, 6,000 kilogrammes of gold were produced legally in 2014. Meanwhile, 40,000 kilogrammes were exported. A very important difference lies between these two numbers, reflecting the contraband that is smuggled into the country in order to be exported, in addition to the illegal mining of gold. Airing on the side of caution, one must account for a margin of error given the difficulty it is to quantify such data in the informal conditions in which gold is produced. Nevertheless, these statistics reveal a troubling truth behind the production and exportation of gold in Bolivia.

Image: Alexandra Meleán

The Duality of the Andean Coca Leaf

A stealthy trip into the jungle. An underground deal. Secret messengers. The transformation of a harmless substance to a deadly one. Border crossings. Overdoses. This is how the story is often told.

Like its neighbouring countries of Peru and Colombia, Bolivia, the third-highest-ranking producer of coca in the world, is all too often labeled as a hopeless narco-state, riddled with poverty and stricken by rampant illegal drug trafficking. The reality, though, is much more complicated.

The cultivation of the coca leaf is a centuries-old practice in the Andes, dating back to the precolonial era of the Inca empire. In Bolivia, the leaf is legal and used primarily for tea and for chewing – which induces a mild stimulating effect – but is also added to products like shampoo, soap and ointments. It’s been shown to be beneficial for one’s health, particularly in terms of boosting energy and alleviating the effects of high altitude.

‘It’s undeniable that the traditional consumption of the coca leaf is part of the Bolivian identity,’ said Jean Paul Benavides Lopez, a sociologist and teacher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Económicos (IISEC) in La Paz, who did doctoral research on the coca producers of the Chapare region in central Bolivia. ‘It’s a consumption so rooted in Bolivian culture that to think of a complete eradication of the coca leaf is naïve.’

Attempts at complete eradication have failed in the past. In 1988, Bolivia criminalised cultivation of the coca leaf, according to a New York Times report, and a US-funded forced-eradication policy began soon after. The US Drug Enforcement Administration was present in Bolivia until President Evo Morales expelled it in 2008, as its tactics of spraying herbicides and engaging in violent altercations with farmers did little good for alleviating poverty or decreasing cocaine production.

‘Families need diversity to support their crops, not prohibition,’ Sanho Tree, a drug-policy expert for a Washington-based think tank, told Vice News in 2016. ‘You can’t coerce families into not being hungry.’

According to a report by El País in 2014, the crop of a coca grower in the valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro rivers in south-central Peru supplied him with barely enough money to support his family for the year. The situation is not so different in Bolivia.

‘The people that arrived in the Chapare region to produce coca were people that suffered levels of poverty in other areas,’ Benavides Lopez said. ‘Miners were forced to give up their work by neoliberal politicians, and ended up in the Chapare.’

Predictably, stealing away their livelihood through forced eradication wasn’t the answer. In an interview with El País, Alberto Hart, a representative of Peru’s National Commission for the Development of a Drug-Free Life, said that in order to solve the problem, the answer is to provide ‘infrastructure, health, education [and] security’ rather than stripping away the coca plant without an alternative or any form of stability.

‘The only thing that eradication does is translate the conflict to a different region, fragmenting it and making it more difficult to address,’ Ricardo Sóberon of the Center for Research on Drugs and Human Rights told El País in 2014. ‘The problem is social. Narcotrafficking has become the only way for excluded populations to insert themselves into the global economy.’

In forcing out the DEA, President Morales, a former coca grower himself, implemented the ‘coca sí, cocaína no’ policy, which allows for the cultivation of the coca crop on approximately 20,000 hectares of the Yungas and Chapare regions in order to meet the demand of legal markets. The policy still criminalises the production of cocaine – which is made by treating the coca leaves in gasoline-filled containers and then converting the substance to a base paste.

Morales’s policy also aims to decrease the production of coca by providing alternative options, such as the cultivation of pineapples or bananas. The plan was met with skepticism by foreign powers, but was ultimately funded by the European Union, reported The Times.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, coca production in Bolivia has decreased every year for the past five years, with just over 20,000 hectares now in use for the crop. In 2000, that number was 48,000. And progress can be seen in the increase in hectares of the alternative crops that farmers have been given the support to cultivate, according to Benavides Lopez.

Still, only 14,700 of those hectares of coca are used for legal purposes, reported The Guardian, leaving the remaining third for the illegal market.

‘The economic power and motivations of cocaine production are so rooted in certain parts of the country that, in practical terms, I don’t believe it’s possible to just cultivate coca and really fight against cocaine,’ said Benavides Lopez.

The complexity of the legal cultivation of the plant combined with the inevitability of some of it ending up in the drug market has historically thrust farmers into a tricky position, and has fueled the false assumption that coca is equivalent to cocaine.

‘By identifying a product as an enemy, it renders invisible those who produce and consume it by giving legitimacy to very perverse policies, which tend to concentrate on the weak links of the process: the peasants at one end, and the small traffickers and consumers on the other,’ said Roberto Laserna, a Bolivian economist and writer who authored Twenty (mis)Conceptions on Coca and Cocaine.

‘Not by coincidence, both are very similar socially: young, poor, pressured by aspirations and expectations, facing few opportunities,’ he added.

While farmers are given some freedom under Morales’s policy, they still face limitations and harsh punishment if they produce more than their allotted amount of coca. Essentially, coca is legal, but only to an extent, and those who grow it legally – and often have no connection to the illicit activities that happen once the plant is out of their hands – are the ones who face restrictions.

‘It’s a bit of an unjust relationship,’ said Benavides Lopez, ‘But obviously, what’s easier to control? The consumption of millions of people, or the cultivation by hundreds or thousands of people?’ Having restrictions on the farmers that produce the plant just makes more sense, and is perhaps justified.

In a New York Times article from 2006, before the DEA was kicked out of Bolivia, a regional leader of coca farmers was quoted as saying, ‘What blame do we have when we don't make cocaine? They should chase down the people who make cocaine.’ But as it happens, that wouldn’t bode so well for farmers either.

With approximately 7,000 hectares of coca plant being used for the narcotrafficking industry, farmers partially rely on it for their livelihoods. If the demand for cocaine didn’t exist, a large portion of the crop would have no market – and prices at the legal market would be much lower, explained Benavides Lopez, which would result in significantly lower incomes for farmers.

The argument has been made that if other countries legalised and accepted the coca leaf as a harmless substance, the legal market in Bolivia would prosper.

In 2017, Ricardo Hegedus, manager of operations of the coca-tea producer Windsor, told The Guardian, ‘If we could export legally, coca farmers’ incomes would improve. It wouldn’t eliminate drug trafficking but it would make it harder and more expensive for traffickers to get coca.’ A New York Times article also detailed one man’s hope to one day sell his coca-infused granola in China.

But Laserna wasn’t so quick to accept that assumption, as legalisation of the leaf would also imply the legalisation of its cultivation. ‘If cultivation of the coca leaf were legalised in other countries, competition would increase and prices would fall, which would adversely affect the Bolivian campesinos,’ he said.

While Benavides Lopez thinks there is a possibility of other countries legalising coca, he doesn’t believe they have much incentive to, and he has reservations about the effects it would have on narcotrafficking. ‘You can transform coca leaf into cocaine wherever,’ he said, which would in turn lead to public health problems.

‘You can’t coerce families into not being hungry.’

—Drug-policy expert Sanho Tree

The question of controlling public health and curbing consumption should perhaps be directed toward the United States and Brazil, the top two consumers of cocaine in the world.

‘We can turn the debate to say that liberalisation of drugs is better,’ said Benavides Lopez. ‘But perhaps it is too much of a cliché to think that individuals can be responsible for themselves, without a state that decides for them.’

Alleviating the narcotrafficking problem whilst also providing support for farmers and de-stigmatising the Andean usage of the coca leaf in other parts of the world is a long process with no clear-cut solutions. But Laserna believes in a progressive future that prioritises liberalisation over control.

‘In the long run,’ Laserna concluded, ‘I think an atmosphere of greater freedom and tolerance will be established, founded on trust in people and especially in their ability to decide what they consume.’

Photo: Iván Rodriguez

In Bolivia, all things must have their complement.

In Andean philosophy, everything has a complementary partner; that is, everything is composed of the concepts of male and female – people, animals, plants, and even objects such as rocks. At a specific point, these two aspects are joined together to build a relationship that is equal and complementary. This is the case with chacha-warmi. (Chacha means ‘man’ in Aymara, and warmi means ‘woman.’)

In her article ‘Chacha-Warmi: The imaginary ideal a daily practice’, Mireya Sánchez, a Bolivian philosopher, states: ‘To better understand the concept of chacha-warmi, you need to understand that the fundamental principle that Inca society was built on was one of duality, established since mythic times around a divine pairing (sun/moon–chacha/warmi).’

We can understand chacha-warmi as a dichotomous concept, of two objects that are different but that complement each other and create the same energy. This idea has been passed down, generation to generation, in the Andean tradition to the modern day. For example, in certain communities when a leader is chosen, they must be accompanied by a partner so that they can govern according to this concept of duality.

In the 21st century, certain elements of the practice might seem questionable to us. ‘If you are going to be a mallku and you don’t have a partner, then you have to unite with either your mother or your sister, or vice versa. Everything and everyone must be paired. This is chacha-warmi, the two elements of jaqi,’ says Elias Ajata Rivera, founder of the Aymara Yatiqaña group. The jaqi would be each individual that, when they marry, conform to jaqichasiña.

Bolivia’s identity is based on the values of multiculturalism and multilingualism and, as a result, its ancestral practices are considered invaluable. On one side, the Bolivian constitution stipulates that men and women are equal before the law. On the other, the concept of gender doesn’t solely refer to men or to women; there exist various national, community and familial norms.

The fundamental principle that Incan society was built on was one of duality.

—Philosopher Mireya Sánchez

In recent years, the pride in and the empowerment of ancestral customs has reemerged in people’s everyday lives. Of course, La Paz, also known as the city of wonders, as the seat of governmental power has a responsibility to ensure the support, recovery and analysis of the county’s diverse cultural practices.