Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

74 The Sirionó in Bolivia
seemed to settle the first question by applying
soon after his arrival for territory from the
Ministry of Colonization and the Beni State governor’s
office, or prefectura. In 1933 the
Bolivian government’s resolución supremo conferred
“right of possession” to the mission, and
the claim was measured and titled a year later.
But the 1953 Agrarian Land Reform Law
reopened what had seemed settled, requiring all
landowners to reestablish tenure. Living so far
from the eye of the state, in an area where few
outsiders bothered to visit, the mission overlooked
this “formality” until 1982, when the
Sirionó pressured Jack Anderson to reregister.
Even with help from two membership organizations
working on land rights issues in the state—
CIDOB (the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples
of Bolivia) and APCOB (Aid for the Rural
Peoples of Eastern Bolivia)—the application was
rejected because of “poor topographic mapping.”
Meanwhile mission administrators appointed by
the aging Jack Anderson to act in his stead were
whittling the territory away through piecemeal
sales, and the government was issuing duplicate
titles for other parcels to influential cattle ranchers.
Land reform was a cruel joke for the surviving
Sirionó: it created a noose of cattle ranches
that was steadily being pulled tighter. That pressure
intensified in 1987 when a new road from
Trinidad to Santa Cruz, the capital of the neighboring
state, opened up Sirionó territory to vehicles
where once only oxcarts could pass. The
Sirionó seemed in danger of losing everything.
Fortunately the budding indigenous rights movement
in the Beni was bringing together many
groups with similar stories. In 1990, 38 Sirionó
joined with members of other groups in the area
for a march to the national capital, La Paz, to
demand their territory and affirmation of their
human dignity. The route was backbreaking—a
trek of over 400 kilometers that wound its way
up Andean passes more than 4,000 meters higher
than the spot from which the marchers set out.
Aided by national and international press coverage
(including CNN), the march captured the
popular imagination. By the time the marchers
reached La Paz, Bolivian President Jaime Paz
Zamora was ready to sign several executive
orders designating indigenous territories. With
the first of these, registered number 22609, the
government recognized the Sirionó Territory as
“the area they traditionally occupy … delimited
by 36 natural landmarks well-known by the people
of Ibiato.” In 1994 this area was demarcated
between 64º16" by 64º34" W and 14º40" by
14º53" S (see map 5.1). Not all the traditional
landmarks were respected, and claims to some
30,000 hectares in the neighboring San Pablo
Forest were left unspecified.
Besides the problem of what was omitted, the
Sirionó faced the challenge of taking control of
what was included. Consolidation of the territory
proved difficult and is still incomplete. The first
to cede land was the State University, which had
title to the central savanna. Not surprisingly, private
landowners were less willing, and they stalled
to consolidate paperwork to buttress their own
claims. Some disputed areas were purchased for
the Sirionó through the generous donations of
TUFF (the Swedish Peace and Arbitration
Society). People who had taken properties along
the road, however, often refused to cede their
claims and the land value rose beyond TUFF’s
means to buy it back. The woodland claims were
even more tangled. In Bolivia, tenure does not
guarantee land-use rights. The state retains ownership
of most natural resources and assigns
usufruct at its discretion. Most of the San Pablo
Forest had already been assigned to private concessions,
although some parcels would eventually
be returned to state control by concessionaires
unwilling to pay taxes from a new forestry law
passed by Paz Zamora’s successor as part of a
series of sweeping governmental reforms.
That tide of reform held great hope for Bolivia’s
indigenous peoples. The new Agrarian Reform
Law (INRA) allowed groups like the Sirionó to
hold territory in common in newly established
indigenous homelands known as Tierras
Comunitarias de Origen. The new Law of
Popular Participation promised to strengthen
local government and allowed the people of
Ibiato to create a municipal district eligible for
development, education, and health funding from
the state.
However, the ruling party that passed this legislation
lost power in the 1997 elections before all of
the administrative procedures for implementing
the laws could be finalized. Doubts about the
new government’s intentions to enforce the spirit