farmlandgrab org | Expansion of Mennonite farmland in Bolivia encroaches on Indigenous land farmlandgrab.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from farmlandgrab.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Life goes at its own pace in the town of Chihuahua, where the modern mixes with Mennonite traditions. To one side, horse-drawn carts pull up at a plot of land that stands in the middle of the plain. To the other, an almost-new car parks in front of a chalet-style house. Such is life on […]
Mennonites said to deforest ancestral Indigenous land in Colombia
Environmental authorities and Indigenous groups accuse a Mennonite community, members of an Anabaptist Protestant sect, of destroying forests and polluting water sources in the Altillanura high plains of eastern Colombia.
Authorities say the Mennonites have burned 135 hectares (333 acres) of riverbank forest since arriving in the region in 2016.
Indigenous Sikuani communities say the Mennonites have taken over their ancestral lands and driven away the native wildlife and fish with their farming activities and intensive use of agrochemicals.
The Mennonite colony is one of many that left Mexico in recent years and settled in other Latin American countries, including Peru and Bolivia, where they have also been accused of environmental violations.
Industrial agriculture threatens a wetland oasis in Bolivia
An oasis within dry Chiquitano forest in eastern Bolivia, Concepción Lake and its surrounding wetland provide valuable habitat for 253 bird, 48 mammal and 54 fish species.
However, despite being officially listed as a protected area, cultivation of commodity crops like soy and sorghum is expanding and supplanting habitat.
Agricultural activity is also linked to phosphate pollution in Concepción Lake, and some think it may also be contributing to the lake’s dramatic drop in water level.
While the clearing is illegal, local government sources say those responsible are simply paying fines and refusing to stop.