Between Colonos and COVID-19: The Yuqui Community

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November 18, 2020 | La Razón, La Brava, La Barra Espaciadora, Bolivian Express

Lise Jofsensen Hermann, Melvi Rico, and Sara Aliaga (Photos)

Salomon Quispe is a fisherman from the Yuqui community. Each member of the community has a specialty; some are hunters, others are gatherers. The women generally make handicrafts and others like Salomon, dedicate themselves to fishing as their main activity and thus feed their families. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Entering Bia Recauté, the community where the Yuqui people live, requires following trails and narrow roads. When you begin to feel and smell the humidity of the Amazon and travel through several kilometers of the landscape, you start to perceive that time doesn't exist. This very forest has been witness to the struggle for survival of the Indigenous Yuqui people, who care for it and have formed a deep connection with the flora and fauna that surrounds them. Since first contact in the 1960s, in an attempt to preserve their identity, the members of this community adopted Yuqui language names and surnames that captured the meaning of everything that is part of their ecosystem, such as flowers, fruits, and animals.

The Yuqui live mainly in Bia Recauté in the province of Chapare, widely known as the main coca leaf producing region in Bolivia. Coca, which according to official United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) figures and the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is mostly destined to illegal processing linked to drug trafficking.

Ingresando a la comunidad de Bia Recuaté, donde vive el pueblo Yuqui, se atraviesa por senderos y caminos estrechos. Es donde se empieza a sentir el olor húmedo de la selva amazónica y al recorrer por varios kilómetros de naturaleza, se va percibiendo que el tiempo no existe. Este mismo bosque ha sido testigo de la lucha de supervivencia del pueblo indígena de los Yuquis, quienes la cuidan y han generado una conexión profunda con la ﬂora y la fauna que los rodea. Desde los primeros contactos en los años 1960, los habitantes, en un intento por conservar su identidad, adoptaron en sus nombres y apellidos —en su lengua yuqui— todo aquello que es parte de su ecosistema, como las ﬂores, las frutas y los animales.

El pueblo Yuqui vive principalmente en la comunidad Bia Recuaté, en la provincia Chapare, conocida como la principal región en producir la hoja de coca de Bolivia. Coca, que según cifras oﬁciales de la Oﬁcina de las Naciones Unidas Contra la Droga y el Delito (UNODC) y del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, en su gran mayoría está destinada a producción ilegal, vinculada al narcotráﬁco.

Bia Recuaté, the community that the Yuqui people inhabit, seems to be a place without time and with constant movement. It is a territory very rich in flora and fauna that they protect and value. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Oscar Ie Evay, a Yuqui hunter, drinks water brought from the river near the community. The water from the river is not potable and usually contains waste water from nearby communities. This fact has caused them many problems, making their health vulnerable. The community does not have access to essential basic services such as drinking water or electricity. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Carmen Isategua, the cacique of the Yuqui community, is in charge of watching over the wellbeing of the community and at the same time defending the territory from illegal actions of agents from outside the community. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Leonardo Quispe, Secretary of Health of the Yuqui community. During the pandemic, Mr. Quispe’s usual work tripled. By turning to medicinal plants, the community managed to survive. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Mayerli Bia, nurse at the medical post of the Yuqui community with her young daughter. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Salomón Quispe, fisherman from the Yuqui community, on his way to the river. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Biosecurity procedures in the Yuqui community were slow in coming, which is why they opted for the community action of self-isolation in their homes, to avoid further spreading the Covid-19 virus. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

The Yuquis are a people who still preserve that nomadic and indomitable essence, but at the same time very conscious of the protection of their territory and their customs. You can observe their passage through the jungle, always very subtle, very light, in harmony. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

A Yuqui villager helps to load a shipment of harvested bananas to be able to sell them in Cochabamba. Since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, their market has been reduced to a single buyer who enters Bia Recuate once a month. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Oscar Ie Evay (65) is one of the elders in the Yuqui community. His specialty is hunting, through which he makes his livelihood. Generally the animals the Yuqui hunt are for their own consumption. In the photo you can see birds that he hunted for his lunch. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

In a part of the Amazonian territory of Bia Recuaté you can see a chaqueado (a type of forest) and a coca plantation nearby, a less common activity for the Yuqui people. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

The Yuqui community is in danger of extinction with only 360 inhabitants. The health status of its inhabitants is weakened since they were recently impacted by a tuberculosis epidemic. The epidemic left many dead and many orphaned. For these children, the community built a boarding school where, in a communitarian way, the villagers take care of them. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

For the Yuqui people it is imperative and important to protect their territory from illegal activities that could put its inhabitants at risk. But first and foremost, they must protect the ecosystem that surrounds them from irreparable damage. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

A sector of the chaqueado forest burned to expand cultivation space within the Yuqui territory. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

As a biosecurity measure, and due to the lack of technological communication systems in the Yuqui territory, they decided to put up posters at their entry points, asking for the use of masks. According to official data from the Secretary of Health of Bia Recuaté, Leandro Quispe, up to the end of October there have been 19 positive cases of the new coronavirus and one death in the community. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.

Three Yuqui villagers find an illegally cut down and logged tree within their Yuqui-CIRI TCO territory. The TCO consists of 125,000 hectares and is home to at least three different indigenous peoples: the Yuquis, the Yuracaré and the Trinitarios. There are 298 TCOs (now called TIOC) in Bolivia and they represent almost 25% of the Bolivian Amazon. Photo by Sara Aliaga. Bolivia, 2020.