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Bolivia: World
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The National Parks of Bolivia cover close to 35% of its territory. They contain regions with the seventh most bio diversity in the planet. Among them is the Madidi National Park. The Madidi protects 4,500,000 acres (1,850,000 has.) and is home to over 1,200 bird species, 45% of all New World species of mammals and 48% of the amphibians. The tropical Andes where the Madidi is located is a critical hotspot for endemic plants. Inside the Madidi National Park seats the Chalalan lodge owned and operated entirely by native Tacanas.
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In 1987 Bolivia made the world's first debt-for-nature swap with an international conservation organization for the 135,000-hectare Beni Biosphere Reserve—a portion of Bolivia's foreign debt was purchased to support the reserve. Bolivia continues to conserve its environment with the 1995 creation of the 1,895,750-hectare Madidi National Park. Madidi includes everything from Andean glaciers to rain forests; it helps Indians, like the local Quechua, develop ecotourism, which includes watching some 1,000 bird species, tracking tapirs, or white-water rafting.
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With a medical supply distribution center in Brunswick, Georgia, and field offices in Ecuador, Bolivia, Cote d'Ivoire and Kenya, MAP International works to promote the Total Health of people living in the world's poorest communities. MAP has distributed over $1 billion (wholesale value) in donated medicines and supplies over nearly five decades. For more information, visit http://www.map.org.
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The case of Aguas del Tunari, the consortium led by International Water Ltd., against the Republic of Bolivia is officially registered with the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Aguas del Tunari and its parent corporation, Bechtel, seek $25 million in damages for breach of an exclusive 40-year multimillion dollar contract to bring drinking water and sanitation services to Bolivia's third-largest city, Cochabamba. According to a senior counsel at ICSID, Aguas del Tunari's case against Bolivia is "just beginning," and the two parties are now in the process of selecting a tribunal of arbitrators for resolving the dispute -- a process which can take several months and the intervention of ICSID. The tribunal's ruling may not be announced for two years, about the average length of time for a dispute to be settled through ICSID-mediated arbitration.
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Widespread discontent was first expressed in the revolution of May 1936, led by Colonel David Toro, who proclaimed Bolivia a socialist republic. Toro seized the property of U.S. petroleum giant Standard Oil Company and encouraged organized labor in Bolivia. Toro was largely successful in improving the desperate conditions caused by the Chaco War and the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s. He made enemies in influential quarters... and in 1937 a group led by Lieutenant Colonel Germán Busch ousted Toro.
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An increase in the world price of silver brought Bolivia a measure of relative prosperity and political stability in the late 1800s. During the early part of the twentieth century, tin replaced silver as the country's most important source of wealth. A succession of governments controlled by the economic and social elite followed laissez-faire capitalist policies through the first thirty years of the twentieth century.
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