Bolivia: The Unfinished Business of Land Reform
Bolivia: The Unfinished Business of Land Reform
Emily Achtenberg
Rebel Currents
April 1, 2013
Land reform in Bolivia, and the promise of land redistribution from wealthy latifundistas and agrobusiness elites to poor farmers and indigenous communities, has been a hallmark of President Evo Morales’s administration. Recent data from the National Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) provide a useful picture of what the Morales government has accomplished to date, as well as the unfinished business that lies ahead.
According to INRA, 157 million acres of land have been surveyed and titled since 1996 under Bolivia’s land regularization laws, benefiting more than 1 million people. Some 134 million acres, or 85%, have been titled during the last 7 years under Morales, compared to just 23 million between 1996 and 2005 under past neoliberal governments.
One-third of all regularized land is now held collectively by indigenous and peasant organizations in the form of self-governing Native Community Lands (TCOs or TIOCs)—primarily, but by no means exclusively, in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands. Another 22% is owned in the form of individual or family plots by small farmers and “colonizers” (western highland farmers who have resettled in the lowlands). Together, peasants and indigenous communities hold 88 million acres of titled land (55%), more than double the amount they controlled in 1992, according to INRA.
Another 57 million acres (37%) of regularized land is now titled to the Bolivian government—a virtually non-existent category pre-INRA. Of this total, some 3.5 million acres has been redistributed to peasant and indigenous groups, benefiting 11,373 families and 271 communities—virtually all under Morales. Another 11.6 million acres is potentially available for redistribution (most state lands, protected as forests and national parks, are not available). The remaining 7% of titled land is owned by large and medium-sized owners.
More:
http://nacla.org/blog/2013/3/31/bolivia-unfinished-business-land-reform
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