Climate change impacts undermine the work of promotores, rural community health workers. Disaster preparedness includes ensuring communities are accessible during and after emergencies. We incorporate this into our Community Emergency Response Team training.
https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/health-workers-navigate-climate-change-bolivian-amazon
‘The Ecological Economy, Biomímesis, and the Prevention of Fires’ was the title of a presentation given by Christian Stalberg at the International Seminar on Fires hosted by the Agro-Environmental Court of Bolivia held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia on November 21, 2025.
Stalberg’s presentation explained how ecological economics, biomimicry, and fire prevention can jointly protect forests in the Santa Cruz Chiquitanía while supporting sustainable livelihoods. Ecological economics promotes income based on regenerative, forest-friendly activities such as agroforestry, non-timber forest products, and localized circular economies that reduce the need for deforestation. Biomimicry offers design strategies inspired by rainforest systems—including multilayer agroforestry, natural moisture retention, and fire-resistant landscape patterns. Fire prevention combines community-led brigades, Indigenous knowledge, fuel-load reduction, and improved land-use planning to stop fires before they start. Together, these three approaches reinforce one another, creating resilient ecosystems, sustainable livelihoods, and safer communities.
We can learn from Afro-descendants about their relationship with Mother Earth. Human habitat does not always have to be destructive. 
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-deforestation-afro-descendant-amazon-countries.html
https://revistanomadas.com/extractivismo-y-neoextractivismo-en-la-bolivia-de-las-elecciones-2025/
Note that #1 in this article is Cargill operating in Bolivia.
The fires get out of control and can quickly spread into communities. These communities have no effective early warning system nor means of firefighting available to them. This is what Amigos de la Tierra Madre is working to change.
This is a tragic story and an example of what is happening right now to communities in Bolivia due to de facto unregulated mining in Bolivia. Not only do the people and the ecosystems suffer from mercury poisoning while the mining is taking place, but the riverbeds and embankments themselves are torn asunder and can cause flooding, contamination, and sickness in the community, as this news story describes.
