Last month, Bolivian president Evo Morales signed a groundbreaking act into law. The new law, called the law of Mother Earth and Integral Development for Living Well, or MTDIVB, features social and environmental aspects aimed at increasing the sustainability of Bolivian land management.

image expired

Under the new law, which was introduced on 15th October, a wide range of Bolivians will enjoy protected land rights and a new government body will be created champion ecological and climate issues. The law includes an outright ban on genetically modified seeds and recognises nature as a legal person, granting the natural environment equal rights to humans in some legal decisions, a right which corporations currently enjoy in most countries.

President Morales said the new MTDIVB law is the world’s first to recognise that wellbeing and a healthy environment is a universal right. However, his political opponents have said that it should not interfere with industry or resource exploitation, which is hugely profitable in Bolivia. Although some believe the law will hamper Bolivia’s main industries, organisations representing indigenous Bolivians have also rejected the law as too diluted, and having too strong a basis in traditional "developmentalism."  

However, lawmakers have responded that MTDIVB is based on Andean philosophy that views Pachamama (Mother Earth) as a living being and sacred home. It features 11 new rights to which the environment is entitled as a legal person, including the right to continue vital cycles, not be polluted and the right to clean air and water.     

Whilst the law is intended to protect the natural environment from "Mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities," mining companies and industrial farmers have offered strong objections, fearing the law will affect their businesses.

Although Bolivia remains a small producer compared with its larger neighbours, soy production has increased in the country in recent years. Soy farmers have criticised the aspects of the new law which prohibit the cultivation and consumption of GM crops. The farmers, mostly based in the East of Bolivia, have expressed opposition to Morales, himself a former cocoa farmer and advocate of sustainable farming techniques. As with neighbouring Brazil and Argentina, virtually all soy currently grown in Bolivia is GM.

Soy is the country’s third biggest export market, after natural gas and mining. Farmers have also said disruption to soy production may affect other staple crops which are grown in rotation with soy, including maize, sugar and sorghum.

Nevertheless, these difficulties aside, the Bolivian government’s legally binding commitment to prioritise the wellbeing of its citizens and ecosystems is worthy of plaudits. Increasingly, national governments around the world are taking steps to legally protect nature without recourse to marketising the natural environment through the concept of ‘ecosystem services,’ which have frequently been used to place prices on natural functions.

The ‘Ecosystem services’ model attempts to isolate individual benefits to humans provided by the natural environment (e.g. flood defences, crop pollination, provision of clean air) and often places financial values on these 'services'. Though the concept has been criticised by environmental scientists, it has risen to prominence in a number of countries, including the UK. In a move similar to Bolivia’s, New Zealand legislators gave the country’s Whanganui River a legal standing earlier this year.

Closer to Bolivia, the government of Ecuador has also passed a law conferring a legal status to the environment. Moves such as this fundamentally move the focus away from an ideology which normalises the financialisation of natural phenomenon; under most national legislation, damage to a river or forest would be legally regarded as damage to the people who rely on or exploit the ecosystem and impacts on their incomes, not on the biome itself.

Laws which are implemented to protect these place the long-term sustainability of the environment and its inhabitants above short-term economic gain.  

Tweet