Indigenous women fill Bolivia's frontlines fighting wildfires

• Volunteer firefighters brace for upcoming wildfire season
• Fires made worse by deforestation and drier conditions
• Wildfire preparedness, response not a political priority

SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia - In the tiny farming villages of eastern Bolivia, Indigenous women turned firefighters are preparing for a wildfire season they fear will destroy the region's dry forests and fields as it has in previous years.

Blackened, burnt trees around a school in the Naranjos community in Robore, home to 20 families, are a stark reminder of the lurking danger and damage left by last year's wildfires.

More than 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) were scorched in Bolivia last year, smashing records for its worst-ever fire season which typically runs from early July until September.

Braced against such potential destruction, local women like Angelina Rodas have learned how to fight the wildfires themselves rather than watch them burn out of control with little official response.

"I became a firefighter because of the helplessness of seeing how fires destroyed communities every year," said Rodas.

A community leader of the Chiquitanas Indigenous People, Rodas said she worries the slash-and-burn method, used to clear trees for agriculture and grazing, will spiral out of control as it has before.

While most wildfires are started by humans, warmer and drier conditions driven by climate change, as well as land clearing linked to the booming production of cattle and grains, are helping fires spread more quickly in Bolivia, scientists say.

Heavy backpacks filled with water

On the frontlines to fight the blazes in Robore are 16 Indigenous communities where women helped initiate the firefighting effort.

Armed with shovels, they carry heavy backpacks filled with water and try to extinguish the flames with soil.

Given no protective equipment like water hoses and heavy machinery by the government, Rodas said they make do with oversized boots and donations of gear made for men.

"We have to fill the boots with paper and cloth so we can walk in the gigantic boots that hurt your feet," said Arabel Zeballos, a mother of three and volunteer firefighter in Robore since 2019.

The firefighters describe how they suffer back pain from carrying the backpacks of water, respiratory problems and coughs that can last for months after the fires stop.

"The children suffer when you leave. I had to leave them with my mother-in-law and go out at night to try to put out the fire because it's almost impossible during the day in the heat," said Zeballos.

"Since we're volunteers, you had to go to work during the day and go out to fight the fire at night," she added.

State of emergency

Rosa Tomicha, a teacher from Robore who provides food for firefighters, said the government of President Luis Arce was slow to respond to last year's wildfires.

Facing pressure from Indigenous and civil society groups, Arce declared a state of emergency after four months of wildfires and a scorched area that stretched ​​6.9 million hectares, an area roughly the size of Ireland.

The government also called for international aid.

"They send soldiers as if it were a favour, but they come reluctantly and believe that sending a helicopter and a plane for the press to see is enough," Tomicha said.

As the blazes burned more than 130 days in Robore last year, the community relied on one woman who was recording the fires on her cell phone.

"She would climb trees and tell us from above what she saw. We would send the videos to the municipal government, NGOs and other institutions," Rodas said.

"If we didn't send a damn video, no one would come, and the president would always go on the radio saying that everything was under control."

'We haven't been heard'

In Robore, Indigenous women have attended basic 10-day training in community fire management and early warning systems, led by the Friends of Nature Foundation (FAN), a Bolivian environmental group.

As many Indigenous communities in Bolivia have female chiefs, women are able to assume leadership role in fire management, and several crews consist entirely of women, according to Carlos Pinto, head of FAN.

Yet managing wildfires is not made a priority, he said.

"As long as we don't have a clear roadmap, we'll continue to be very reactive in fire management. Comprehensive fire management must be on the political agenda," said Pinto.

"In Bolivia, we don't have an institution responsible for coordinating all this fire management at the state level," he added.

Despite the widespread destruction and economic costs of the wildfires, in the election campaign ahead of Bolivia's presidential elections in August, no candidate has put the issue on their agenda.

"We haven't been heard as Indigenous peoples or activists," said Nardy Velasco of the Chiquitanas Indigenous People in Robore who helped spearhead the firefighters' initiative.

"Instead, the government has given the green light with new decrees for more burning and deforestation."

The government has granted more permissions to use the slash-and-burn method to clear land, boosting beef production to a record last year, official data show.

The fine for illegally burning one hectare of forest is 10 bolivianos, just $1.40, a penalty Indigenous leaders say it is too low to act as a deterrent.

"Here in Robore, women and men are all aware that preserving the land for future generations means leaving something behind, leaving forest and water for our children," said Zeballos.

"That's why we endure all the exhaustion and are the first to arrive and the last to leave," she said.

(Reporting by Nathalie Iriarte; Editing by Anastasia Moloney and Ellen Wulfhorst.)