Biodiversity Bridges - DOB Ecology

Biodiversity Bridges

Since 2025

Partner

IBIF

Instituto Boliviano de Investigación Forestal

Programme

The Chiquitanía landscape in Bolivia spans 16 million hectares and is mostly covered by Chiquitano forest, the largest tropical dry forests in South America. Safeguarding the ecological connectivity between the ecosystems Amazon-Chiquitanía-Pantanal-Chaco is important for maintaining biodiversity and ecological services. This connectivity should be protected and enhanced through the establishment of wildlife corridors.

The Chiquitanía landscape is under growing threat from agricultural expansion and cattle ranching. Deforestation, wildfires, and prolonged droughts have caused fragmentation of forested ecosystems, disrupting the region’s ecological connectivity.

This programme focuses on the indigenous territories Lomerio and Monte Verde within the Chiquitanía where more than 80% of the territories are under community forest management. These territories overlap and are adjacent to highly forested areas in the municipalities of Concepcion, and San Miguel, making them key to safeguard ecological integrity in the region.

This programme, led by IBIF, supports:

Development of biodiversity, social, and economic indicators and the implementation of a biodiversity monitoring system.
Indigenous communities in the development of their land use plans, aligned with land capacity and focused on rezoning their productive areas to reduce environmental impacts.
Capacity building for young socio-environmental monitors, strengthening their skills in biodiversity monitoring and the protection and improvement of key biodiversity areas.
Strengthening the municipalities of San Miguel and Concepción in the implementation of biodiversity conservation measures and to manage and monitor their territories with a focus on biodiversity and forest conservation.
Development of policies that safeguard forest corridors and maintain ecological integrity across the Chiquitania landscape
Training and technical assistance for indigenous communities and private agricultural/livestock producers to implement sustainable lands use and production practices.

Goals

The programme has four main objectives:

The Government of Lomerio and 12 community forest organizations of Indigenous Territory (IT) Lomerio integrate biodiversity conservation in forest management plans.
Indigenous communities in IT Lomerio prioritize areas of high biodiversity conservation value through their land use plans.
The municipalities of San Miguel and Concepcion implement conservation measures in areas of high biodiversity conservation value, contributing to the establishment of forest corridors and maintenance of ecological integrity.
Agricultural and livestock producers from private properties around and indigenous communities in IT Lomerio adopt improved production practices that contribute to the protection of their areas of high biodiversity conservation value, with a focus on biodiversity and alignment with land use plans.