New Platform Tracks Illegal Forest Clearing in Bolivia's Amazon

A yearlong investigation behind the VISTA map found that about 90 percent of the forest cleared in 48 Indigenous territories from 2003 to 2023 had no permit.

About nine of every ten hectares of forest cleared in the Indigenous territories of Bolivia's Amazon over two decades were cleared without authorization, according to an investigation published by Mongabay on October 15, 2026. Between 2003 and 2023, more than 186,500 hectares (460,900 acres) of forest were lost across the 48 Indigenous territories of the Bolivian Amazon basin, an area about three times the size of Madrid. Of that, 168,670 hectares had no permit.

The figures come from Amazonía Traficada (Trafficked Amazon), a yearlong project supported by the Pulitzer Center and carried out with Mongabay and two Bolivian outlets, RAI Bolivia and Asuntos Centrales. Alongside the reporting, the team launched VISTA, an online map of the 48 territories and their surroundings. It shows deforestation from 1986 to 2024, fires from 2001 to 2024, clearing permits, soy crops and third-party settlements, with 5- and 10-kilometer buffer zones around each territory.

Permits and illegal clearing

The team analyzed leaked records from Bolivia's forest and land authority (ABT) and its agrarian reform institute (INRA) and checked them against eight databases, among them MapBiomas, NASA's MODIS burned-area product and data from the Friends of Nature Foundation (FAN). Reporters interviewed at least 30 Indigenous leaders.

From 2003 to 2023, the ABT issued about 9,400 resolutions authorizing the clearing of nearly 80,000 hectares in 41 territories, of which about 17,900 hectares were felled. For each hectare cleared with a permit, more than nine were cleared without one, and five territories hold 63.7 percent of the illegal clearing. Asked about the findings, the ABT said the request was under internal review and gave no official response before publication.

Isoso, a Guaraní territory, has the largest area of illegal clearing, more than 43,000 hectares (106,000 acres). Its leader, Rivelino Segundo, said outsiders clear the land to plant soy on a large scale. “We are not the ones clearing the land. It is the invaders,” he told Mongabay.

Invasions, settlements and fire

Leaders from 30 territories reported 28 land invasions over the past two decades, and 22 of those conflicts are unresolved. In 78 percent of the interviews, invaders arrived as organized group settlements, often saying the land was vacant state land they had applied for through INRA. MapBiomas data show soy was grown in 15 of the 48 territories between 2021 and 2024. From 2009 to 2019, INRA allocated about 318,500 hectares to 236 communities next to 19 territories, and it did not answer repeated questions about those settlements.

Fires burned 23.8 million hectares across Bolivia from 2001 to 2024, and 4.1 million hectares of that, 17 percent of the national total, burned inside the Amazonian Indigenous territories. The year 2024 was the worst of the period. University of Maryland data published in April 2026 on the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch platform ranked Bolivia second in the world for tropical primary forest loss in 2025, at 620,630 hectares, behind only Brazil.

The titling of these territories followed years of Indigenous protest. In 1990 and 1996, Indigenous groups marched for more than 30 days to La Paz to demand recognition of lands they had lived on since before Bolivia's founding in 1825, and the 1996 march helped bring about the INRA Law. The 48 territories sought title to about 22.7 million hectares; INRA titled 11.7 million, about 52 percent, according to IWGIA, leaving more than 11 million hectares untitled.

The VISTA map is published in Spanish on the Amazonía Traficada website. For the wider basin, see our Amazon rainforest travel guide and our guide to sustainable jungle travel.