Presentation short abstract

The 2024 wildfires that razed the Indigenous territory of MonteVerde were the result of enduring conditions of climate coloniality and ongoing processes of colonization via incendiary extractivism. Grassroots initiatives forged amid these firescapes show that other worlds persist amid the flames.

Presentation long abstract

In 2024, wildfires burned over 80% of the Monkoxi’ Indigenous territory of Monte Verde. Wildfires in Monte Verde mostly originated outside of the territory and demonstrate the uneven distribution of cultural and material harms driven by climate coloniality, whereby those who contribute the least to carbon emissions disproportionately experience the impacts of climate change (Sultana 2022).

This study draws from the fields of Indigenous political ecology, critical climate justice and critical disaster studies to assess the structural drivers of wildfires in the Bolivian lowlands, with emphasis on the relationship between wildfires, territorial reconfiguration, extractivism, and commodity frontier expansion (Remes & Horowitz 2021, Devisscher et al., 2019). The results document and unveil the power dynamics underlying the uneven distribution of wildfire impacts and responses, as told through a mixture of interviews, surveys, and body-territory mapping. The findings contribute towards denaturalizing state wildfire management practices by highlighting how prevailing political regimes are served by the militarization of wildfire response and the uneven application and impact of wildfire management policies.

Land scorched by the fires is left bereft of biodiversity that favors traditional modes of subsistence, exacerbating precarity and creating incentives for community members to rent the land to extractive industries. Thus, catastrophic wildfires prompt long-term cultural and territorial reconfiguration that transform Indigenous territories into zones of sacrifice in the name of commodities (Juskus, 2023). Nonetheless, despite and because of these catastrophic firescapes created by colonial capitalism, the territory continues to resist, providing another example among countless that other worlds are possible