The indigenous peoples of the Amazon region make up 10 percent of the 10 million inhabitants of Bolivia, where over 60 percent of the population are native people, mainly belonging to the Quechua and Aymara ethnic groups concentrated in the western highlands.
The decision to mount the protest march follows the breakdown of talks between the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB) and the authorities in charge of the road project, which will affect a vast area between Beni and the central province of Cochabamba that is rich in biodiversity and where coca leaf cultivation is expanding.
In September 1990, indigenous people from the Bolivian Amazon region marched for a month to the highlands of La Paz, and secured government recognition of four indigenous territories that were then being threatened by logging companies and the exploitation of other natural resources.
The goal of the march now being planned is to demand respect for that recognition of indigenous territory, which was confirmed by supreme decree 22610 in September 1990 and is supported by the new constitution rewritten in 2009 under Evo Morales, Bolivia's first-ever indigenous president.
In 2009 Morales gave indigenous communities provisional title to TIPNIS, conferring collective property rights over an area of 1.09 million hectares.
The February 2009 Bolivian constitution enshrines respect for the autonomy, culture, land and traditional forms of government of Bolivia's native peoples. But the new constitution has not served as a shield against the companies and landowners who are plundering the natural wealth of the country's northeast Amazon region and destroying the way of life of its indigenous communities, according to activists
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