Bolivia's Amazon: Carbon Deals Spark Indigenous Outcry

In Bolivia's Pando region, Indigenous leaders are protesting opaque carbon credit deals that emerged after a June 2024 constitutional court ruling. This decision overturned a ban on funding mechanisms linked to carbon markets, leading to an influx of companies and foundations offering "climate solutions" to local communities. Leaders of the Tacana, Ese Ejja, and Cabineño nations report confusion and a lack of transparency regarding these offers, describing the forest as their sacred home, not a commodity.

Despite Bolivia's 2010 "rights of Mother Earth" law, which banned nature's commodification, carbon contracts were signed even before the ban was officially lifted. A March 2024 agreement gave the Federico Hecker Foundation control over carbon credits for 30 years across 440,000 hectares of the Multi-ethnic Indigenous Territory II (TIM II). Leaders claim they were misled about the contract's implications, with promises of funds and development unfulfilled.

Some communities refused the Hecker Foundation's offer due to historical associations with the Hecker family, remembered as "patrones" from the exploitative rubber boom era. By March 2025, the TIM II board and Ese Ejja nation formally rejected the agreement, citing manipulation. Indigenous organizations across Bolivia have voiced broader opposition to carbon bonds, fearing they undermine territorial sovereignty and Indigenous rights.

Further complicating matters, Aimé Hecker Urresti, a descendant of the Hecker family, was elected MP in 2025 and is actively promoting legislation to regulate carbon markets, despite his family's foundation seeking to operate within them. Critics, including Indigenous rights lawyers, question the conflict of interest. While Hecker Urresti maintains transparency and community involvement in contract processes, a government decree in October 2024 centralizes market control, excluding Indigenous authorities and lacking robust consent or benefit-sharing rules.