On the last day of August this year, flames reached the Ñembi Guasu Conservation Area. This part of eastern Bolivia, located near its border with Brazil in the department of Santa Cruz, is a protected region under Indigenous jurisdiction. Its grasslands and scrubland burned for 11 days, fuelled by the wind and accumulated biomass.
“When you see the fire coming, it’s scary. But we learned not to run. To face it with respect. Sometimes fire teaches you more than any school,” says Juan Carlos Chané, a forest ranger from Guarayos province in Santa Cruz, which lies relatively close to the Ñembi Guasu reserve.
For the past three years, Chané has been part of a group of Indigenous volunteers who help to take care of the reserve. They monitor the condition of its flora and fauna, and visit zones that are recording particularly high temperatures. The volunteers work in partnership with the Ñembi Misi Operational Centre, created by the Indigenous autonomous government of Charagua, the main local authority. Civil society organisations also support this work.
The guardians of Ñembi Guasu were the first to respond to the emergency: they opened firebreaks – strips of land cleared of vegetation to interrupt the advance of fire; they considered creating backfires – controlled burns that consume the material that a fire is heading towards; and they secured the “black line” – just-burned areas at the edges of a fire that have been cleared to suppress the reignition of embers.
“We worked tirelessly, sleeping little, meeting among blackened trees to devise strategies, sharing resources and focusing all our energy on containing the front,” recalls Hugo Sánchez, a forest firefighter and fire management technician.
The operation required constant coordination. Motorcycles and quad bikes were used to transport personnel and water between points that take hours to travel between on foot. The topography forced them to open access routes by hand, with shovels and hoes, to anchor firebreaks.
“We saw charred animals and destroyed forests. Fire is unforgiving,” laments the firefighter and park ranger, Eliezer “Pirulico” Suárez Cuéllar.
This is not the first time they have faced such a situation: they say that in 2019 and 2021, Ñembi Guasu experienced large-scale fires, the latter affecting around 180,000 hectares.
Ñembi Guasu covers 1,207,850 hectares in total and is considered one of the most threatened and least explored ecosystems on the planet. Nationally, 2024 marked the historic peak of areas burned by wildfires in Bolivia, mainly in the departments of Santa Cruz and Beni. Some 12.6 million hectares burned – approximately equivalent to the total area of North Korea – according to the Environment and Water Ministry.
On the eleventh day, Ñembi Guasu’s fire was brought under control, aided by rainfall, which crowned the guardians’ efforts. The final toll was around 1,700 affected hectares, says Jorge Sea, a local forestry engineer and firefighter. He works for Nativa, an organisation that helps the local Indigenous community with technical knowledge and supplies. Fortunately, the protected area withstood the blaze.
Dedicated guardians
Ñembi Guasu is in the Gran Chaco, a biome that contains South America’s second largest forest and spreads across Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Ñembi Guasu is a transition zone, a mosaic of lands with particular ecological and biological characteristics. Here, the dry Chiquitano forests and the thorny Gran Chaco meet, transitioning into the tropical wetlands of the Bolivian Pantanal. Transition zones (also known as ecotones) like Ñembi Guasu are of exceptional environmental value, because distinct natural systems mingle and diversify within them.
Ñembi Guasu is accessed from the Santa Cruz town of Roboré via a dirt road that requires sturdy wheels. Dense, thorny vegetation accompanies the journey to its entrance – Ñembi Guasu translates to the “great hiding place” from Guaraní, an Indigenous language and the name given to the people of this region.
“This place is the heart of the Chaco. If it is damaged, everything around it becomes sick,” sums up Alejandro Arambiza, director of the Ñembi Guasu Conservation Area.
Bolivia constitutionally recognises 36 Indigenous peoples and eight legally-constituted Indigenous autonomies. The pioneer of the latter is the Guaraní Charagua Iyambae Autonomy, which administers Ñembi Guasu, as well as the Kaa Iya del Gran Chaco and Otuquis national parks.
As per the Statute of the Guaraní Charagua Iyambae Autonomy, the Guaraní term kaa iya is an expression of reciprocity: the forest is a living being with which humanity coexists, and it must be respected. This is reflected in Ñembi Guasu’s management in the form of restricted areas, protected water sources and community decisions on what to use, when and how.
There, the guardians of the forest combine ancestral knowledge and technical training to protect it. The Ñembi Misi Operational Centre, seven kilometres from Roboré, is responsible for planning, training and reviewing camera traps. From there, the brigades patrol for weeks, recording wildlife, detecting hot spots and going out to fight the fire as it advances.
“I used to hunt. Now I protect,” says Franz Chumira, a Guaraní park ranger from Isoso, one of the Charagua Iyambae Autonomy’s six zones. “I like to think that I am like the jaguar: I walk silently, but I protect my territory.”
“Ñembi Guasu was born from the Guaraní philosophy of Yaiko Kavi Päve, or ‘good living’: conserving, but also living in balance with the forest,” explains Sea.
A living territory
Ñembi Guasu connects the Amazon and La Plata river basins, and protects the headwaters of the San Miguel and Parapetí rivers. It forms an ecological corridor covering more than six million hectares.
Among its most unique ecosystems is the Abayoy, a low-lying forest endemic to the Bolivian Chaco, where plants and trees like the pink tajibo (Handroanthus abayoy), the paquiocillo and the red quebracho grow. The jaguar (Panthera onca), the tapir (Tapirus terrestris), the giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus) and the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) move through the leaf litter. Native pit vipers and Chaco birds such as the chajá or southern screamer (Chauna torquata) also inhabit the area.
The Autonomous Region is concerned with protecting the Abayoy, safeguarding large mammals such as the jaguar, tapir, giant armadillo and giant anteater, and preserving the communities that depend on the forest.
The Totobiegosode Indigenous community, part of the Ayoreo ethnic group, lives within this protected area in voluntary isolation and its way of life requires the integrity of the forest.
“This forest seems asleep, but it is full of life,” describes Rubén Darío Montero, a member of the Ñembi Misi team. He is responsible for monitoring the area with cameras. “At night you can hear everything: the monkeys, the pumas, the parrots.” Montero has identified at least eight jaguars and several pumas. “Once I saw them five metres away. First, I felt fear, then respect,” he recalls.
The constant threat
The balance that Ñembi Guasu protects is fragile. Deforestation and illegal settlements put pressure on the dry forest and increase its vulnerability to fire. Although the reserve – thanks to the work of its protectors – was spared from the great fires of 2024 that ravaged Santa Cruz, fire broke out the following year, showing that the risk never disappears.
“The flames come from the borders of Roboré or Charagua, driven by the wind and dryness. Sometimes a single spark is enough to set everything ablaze,” warns Sánchez.
In the region, the burning season is concentrated between June and September, when the accumulating biomass and low humidity increase the danger.
“We are in an environmental pause, but there are still people who clear and burn without permission. My job is to detect hot spots and give timely warning. When a fire is confirmed, the guardians go in with everything they’ve got,” says Romualdo Enríquez, an environmental technician for the autonomy who monitors the territory from Charagua.
Field reports prepared by the Ñembi Misi team – guardians, technicians, firefighters and members of the autonomous government – together with Nativa, indicate perimeter hotspots linked to agricultural expansion and settlements on the edges of the protected area. Early detection is key to preventing the fire from entering.
“Most fires here are caused deliberately. Some people burn to clear land and save on machinery. But the forest has a memory: if it burns once, it takes years to recover. Borders are set by humans, not nature,” Suárez Cuéllar emphasises.
Logistics are organised from Ñembi Misi: water, fuel, tools and relief teams. Rose Mary Braner Weber is in charge of coordinating vehicles and bringing water and batteries – all while wildfires are burning as little as 30 metres away from her.
When the flames approach, the response is activated from the territory. The Autonomous Government of Charagua Iyambae, the fire brigade and organisations in the area activate their early warning and community communication system: guardians, authorities and neighbours coordinate by radio and telephone.
“The response does not come from above, but from the territory. The guardians, the Indigenous government and the communities organise themselves quickly,” says Pamela Rebolledo, a biologist and Nativa project manager. She says it can serve as a genuine example of how environmental sovereignty can function, one that could be replicated internationally.
Even so, there are ideological and practical tensions with the central government when it comes to, for example, development plans, or resource sharing. “There is a management plan here. We defend our place with meetings, reports and our presence,” summarises Arambiza.
He also says he does not want “the forest to be split in two”. He is referring to a road project which, according to Bolivian Road Administration (ABC) maps, seeks to connect Bolivia and Paraguay by crossing part of the protected territory. The Guaraní Charagua Iyambae Autonomy has expressed its opposition to the project and demanded it be consulted and keep control of environmental management, as established in its statute. Meanwhile, an Indigenous rights organisation has accused the Santa Cruz authorities of spreading misinformation as its plans for the road progress.
Ever since a constitutional reform in 2009, Bolivia has recognised the right of Indigenous, native and peasant peoples to self-determination, self-governance and the management of the resources within their territories.
So, for the defenders of Ñembi Guasu, the resistance is not only environmental: it is also cultural and political. The right to decide on the territory – including fire management – is part of that defence.
This article was produced with the support of the Earth Journalism Network’s Biodiversity Grant 2025.
