For several years, Mongabay’s Spanish-language news bureau, Mongabay Latam, has reported on threats facing Indigenous peoples and their territories in the Bolivian Amazon, documenting the pressures created by deforestation, fires, land invasions and agricultural expansion. In 2026, Mongabay Latam joined a collaborative investigative project, Amazonía Traficada, to examine how these forces are transforming Indigenous territories and to make the evidence accessible to the public.
The yearlong investigation, supported by the Pulitzer Center and produced in collaboration with RAI Bolivia and Asuntos Centrales, analyzed thousands of records obtained from Bolivia’s National Authority for Forests and Land (ABT) and National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA). The team combined these records with satellite data, geospatial analysis and interviews with Indigenous leaders to document the scale of the threats facing 48 titled Indigenous territories in the Bolivian Amazon.
The findings revealed that between 2003 and 2023, more than 186,500 hectares (460,800 acres) of forest were cleared across these territories. More than 90% of that deforestation occurred outside legally authorized areas, according to the investigation. Of the 30 Indigenous territories whose leaders were interviewed, 28 reported land invasions by third parties over the previous two decades, and 22 said the conflicts remained unresolved.
A closer look at Monte Verde, one of the territories hardest hit by deforestation and land trafficking, found that seven in 10 hectares of forest cleared there were outside areas authorized for clearing.
The central outcome of the investigation was VISTA, a freely accessible database that allows users to explore deforestation, fires, soybean expansion, clearing permits and third-party settlements across the 48 Indigenous territories. This platform makes the investigation’s data available to Indigenous communities, researchers, legal professionals and others seeking to understand the pressures facing these lands.
The series also examined the vulnerability of individual Indigenous communities, including the Esse Ejja people of Eyiyoquibo, whose situation became the focus of a separate investigation published in January 2026.
Impact
Mongabay Latam’s reporting prompted a formal government oversight process concerning the extreme vulnerability of the Esse Ejja people of Eyiyoquibo and generated interest in the VISTA database among environmental lawyers, universities and the wider public.
In its January 2026 investigation, “Confined Without Territory: The Bolivian State is Pushing the Esse Ejja Indigenous People of Eyiyoquibo towards Extinction,” Mongabay Latam documented how 358 people, including 140 children under the age of 11, were living in an eight-hectare enclave along the Beni River. The community faces severe overcrowding, extreme poverty and mercury contamination linked to illegal gold mining.
The investigation also revealed that, after authorities identified 20,000 hectares for the community in 2009, the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA) allocated just 900 hectares in 2021, far from the rivers central to the Esse Ejja’s traditional way of life. A second allocation, approved in 2025, was complicated by land invasions and competing claims.
Two weeks after publication, José Manuel Ormachea, chair of the Bolivian Senate’s Commission on Indigenous Peoples, initiated an oversight process directed at the Ministry of the Presidency. Drawing on the investigation’s findings, he requested a detailed explanation of the community’s vulnerability. The request was approved during the Senate’s 52nd regular session.
Two months later, the Ministry of the Presidency responded with a report prepared by INRA and other government agencies. The response did not refute the investigation’s findings.
The VISTA database, meanwhile, has attracted interest from civil society and academic institutions. A group of environmental lawyers announced that they would use the tool to support their legal defense cases, offering a potential pathway for the investigation’s findings to inform legal proceedings.
Two universities and the Bolivian Association of Social Communication Researchers (BOIC) invited the reporting team to share its methodology. Three universities, the Private University of Santa Cruz (UPSA), NUR and Franz Tamayo, also requested workshops to introduce students to the VISTA tool.
The investigation also reached a broader public through a screening of the short film Monte Verde: Forest Under Siege at Cine CBA in Santa Cruz, which drew 130 attendees.
Together, these developments demonstrate how investigative environmental journalism can extend beyond publication. By documenting threats to Indigenous territories, making underlying data publicly accessible and bringing findings to the attention of government officials, lawyers and researchers, Amazonía Traficada has created opportunities for the investigation to inform oversight, legal work and further research.
The project’s impact encompasses both a direct institutional response to reporting on the Esse Ejja people and broader interest in VISTA as a resource for understanding and documenting pressures on Indigenous lands. The database’s potential use by legal professionals, academic engagement with the investigative methodology and public outreach through film offer additional avenues for the findings to reach people working to defend Indigenous rights and forests in the Bolivian Amazon.
What began as an investigation into threats facing Indigenous territories has become a resource for public accountability and further research. By combining investigative reporting with an accessible data platform, Mongabay Latam and its partners have helped bring the pressures facing Indigenous communities in the Bolivian Amazon to the attention of government officials and other audiences positioned to act on the findings.
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Banner image: Land grabbing is a recurring threat to Amazonian Indigenous peoples. In the Los Ángeles community of the Monte Verde territory, the Chiquitano Indigenous people confronted the invaders and evicted them. Photo by: Edy Yobanny Velasco