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With mounting pressure from high-ranking military officials and violent protests
from far-right groups, Evo Morales resigned as President of Bolivia on November 10th,
2019. It was a crushing blow to Morales, his followers, and to the democratic systems of
Bolivia. Soon after Morales was forced from office, a far-right, anti-indigenous senator
rose to power and precipitated one the bloodiest and most repressive months in the last
40 years of Bolivian history. At its most simple what took place on November 10th was a coup. But
a year later, the Bolivian populace defied this power grab and delivered a landslide
presidential victory to Evo Morales’ protege, Luis Arce. Bolivia rejoiced at the return of MAS,
Morales’ socialist party. In under a year, Bolivia went from this to this. But this is not the story
of Morales’ rise and fall. Instead, this the story of what Evo Morales did (and didn’t) accomplish in
office, what Bolivia’s form of socialism can (and can’t) offer to climate action,
and what lessons we can learn from the complex reality of Bolivia’s environmental choices.
What Evo Morales Accomplished
In a wave of mass support, Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer turned union organizer
turned politician, swept into power in 2006. From the onset, Morales and his political party, MAS,
carved out a new indigenous socialism that starkly countered the neoliberal capitalist agendas
of previous presidents. With the mantle of the presidency on his shoulders, Morales set to work.
He filled his first cabinet with indigenous leaders, broke free from the grips of the World
Bank, and poured Bolivia’s wealth into direct payments, pensions, literacy programs, education,
and infrastructure development. His agenda worked. When Morales took office, Bolivia was South
America’s poorest nation. Just two years later in the depths of the global financial crisis,
Bolivia enjoyed one the highest levels of economic growth of any country. More importantly,
the percentage of people in poverty dropped by half, literacy rates continued to decline,
and the infant mortality rate was halved. In short, Morales’ socialist-informed
development policies seemed to have worked during his presidency. But, Morales alongside
being an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist was also a vocal environmental advocate.
It’s here in both his words and actions, that we might be able to glimpse some insight into
what a transitional socialist nation could mean for climate change and environmental policy.
Evo Morales’ Environmental Agenda
When Evo Morales set out to redistribute Bolivia's resources to the people, he did it on the back
of one of Bolivia’s biggest industries, fossil fuels. In order to fund his literacy, education,
healthcare, and infrastructure programs, Morales essentially nationalized Bolivia’s hydrocarbon
industry. He raised taxes on private gas companies from 18% to 81%, with the expressed interest of
then delivering those profits to the people via direct payments or social programs. Under Morales,
Bolivia also passed a law recognizing Mother Earth or Pachamama as sacred giving legal precedent to
those hoping to defend the land and air from extractivist industries as well as invested
18.7 million U.S. dollars in reforestation efforts from 2012 to 2015. And in 2019,
when forest fires were raging throughout Bolivia, Evo Morales was on the frontlines literally
beating back the inferno. Throughout his 13 year presidency, Morales also solidified his
climate and environmental justice advocacy on the world stage during UN climate conferences
as well as organized the 2010 World People’s Conference on Climate Change
that brought together both social movement leaders and politicians from over 100 different countries
in order to craft an ambitious global climate agenda that addressed climate debt, colonialism,
and imperialism. In short, Morales attempted the herculean task of simultaneous bringing
wealth to the Bolivian people while trying to take just environmental and climate action.
He definitely succeeded in some areas, but he also failed in others.
The Backlash against Evo Morales
Outside the World People’s Conference on Climate Change in 2010,
there was a group of unhappy protestors. They were calling on Morales to take domestic action
on the environmental destruction. Morales, inside with leaders and organizers from across Bolivia
and the world seeking to develop a new global initiative on climate change, and indigenous
protesters outside decrying Morales’ recent environmental failures. Failings that include
increased deforestation during his presidency, continued reliance on fossil fuel extraction,
and proposed megadams on two of Bolivia’s waterways. This is the complicated reality
of Morales’ environmental record. He champions the rights of the Earth and
challenges the destructive practices of capitalist countries like the U.S. on the world stage,
while simultaneously greenlighting projects like the 190-mile highway in 2011 that would run
through a number of indigineous lands in TIPNIS and would require the clear cutting of swaths
of primary forests. This project epitomizes the struggle of the Morales administration.
On the one hand Evo Morales tried, and, for the most part, succeeded, in reducing inequality by
transferring the wealth created by extractivist industries like oil, gas, and lithium into the
hands of Bolivia’s population. But this was a short term solution meant sacrificing some of his
original environmental goals and standards. The TIPNIS highway is meant to traverse the
gap between a Brazilian highway and one leading towards Cochabomba and ultimately to maritime
ports. The highway would connect agricultural land to commercial and industrial sights and,
according to the Bolivian government, would lead to a stronger economy. But due to protests
and pressure from certain TIPNIS indigenous communities the project was halted in 2011 with
an intangibles law that protected the area TIPNIS. Opinions of the highway were mixed, however,
some local residents saw it as a way to better sell their crops and develop a better future,
So, after a consultation process with local residents and industrial interests MAS repealed
the 2011 intangibles law in 2017 and started planning the highway anew. The TIPNIS highway
project sums up the Bolivian struggle. It reveals a much larger problem at hand in Bolivia and for
many other post-colonial countries. In order to bring prosperity to their lands they have to,
at least in short term, participate in a global capitalist economy reliant on extraction.
Escaping a Colonial Capitalist History Morales by no means had an easy path ahead of
him when he assumed the presidency in 2006. The history of Bolivia is marred with colonialism,
anti-indigenous violence, and extractive corporations like silver miners and fossil
fuels multinationals that sought to swoop in, grab resources, and sell them elsewhere,
leaving Bolivia little but pollution and decimated landscapes. Unfortunately, what Bolivia does right
now is shaped by hundreds of years of colonial extractivism. It’s industries and infrastructure
were all built in order to fuel the corporate juggernauts of the Global North. As a result,
if Bolivia does want to transform the quality of life for its people it has to participate in
the system that created it, at least in the short term. So, I think it’s dangerous to critique the
methods that Morales used to redistribute wealth and access to the Bolivian people,
at least from an environmental standpoint. Bolivia must be seen as a transitional socialist state.
It’s trying to rapidly lift people’s quality of living with the tools it was given. Tools
cobbled together from the scraps of colonial, extractivist rule. Tools that, unfortunately,
have outsized environmental impacts. But remember, the Global North is responsible for
92% of global historical emissions, the U.S. military alone emits more than 100 countries
combined. Bolivia on the other hand is responible for 0.03% of the world's emissions and in most
cases those emissions stem from industries working to satiate the appetite of the Global North.
Towards an Eco-Socialist agenda
Evo Morales’s socialist Bolivia is a complicated case study full of environmental contradictions.
At their core, I think these contradictions stem from the struggle inherent in participating
in extractive industries to better the situation of his people. Morales, throughout his presidency,
was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Bolivia’s specific circumstances
meant Morales often had to choose between raising the quality of life for his people
or staying true to his environmental beliefs. In the US and other countries of the Global North,
which have enjoyed immense wealth, fossil fuels, and consumption for hundreds of years,
that choice doesn’t exist. They’ve already blown past their “budgets.” It’s their responsibility,
then, to quickly transition to zero-carbon, low consuming economies. Socialism could be a just
and effective way to get that done. But, after watching and researching the presidency of Evo
Morales one thing is clear to me. Socialism, while certainly less-harmful than capitalism,
does not eliminate environmental destruction. In order to create an eco-socialist reality,
global socialist agendas need to foreground climate change and degrowth ideas. Part of this
is developing degrowth strategies, part of this employing smart design and effective renewable
infrastructure, and part of this means redefining the good life. One paper models that it’s possible
for rich countries like the U.S. to contract their consumption rates by as much as 95% while still
maintaining a high quality of life that includes universal healthcare, air conditioned homes,
and computers. Essentially, growth doesn’t have to happen in rich countries for people to live
well. At the end of the day, The Global North poured gasoline on the fire of climate change,
it’s their responsibility to put it out. So, while this does mean dealing with their own emissions,
it also means developing a global climate reparation plan for countries that have
contributed little to climate change, yet will experience the brunt of its force.
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