The Bolivian government has appealed a historic court ruling issued in April to require protection of the jaguar (Panthera onca) and its natural habitat.

At issue is an April 23 decision by Bolivia’s Agro-Environmental Court, a specialized tribunal that handles cases involving issues ranging from farming, ranching and forestry to water sources and biodiversity. The court ordered steps to curb ecological damage and boost conservation in jaguar habitat with the overarching goal of guaranteeing the rights of nature.

Though the ruling applies to Bolivia’s entire national territory, it takes special aim at a natural area in Santa Cruz department and at the country’s national parks. In seeking to annul the ruling, the government argues the Agro-Environmental Court lacks jurisdictional authority and that the issues involved must be addressed by Bolivia’s legislative or executive branches.

The appeal, made public on July 9, was filed by three government agencies—the Environment and Water Ministry (MMAyA), the Forest and Land Inspection and Social Control Authority (ABT), and the National Protected Areas Service (Sernap). More than 60 Bolivian social, environmental, Indigenous, smallholder-farm and academic organizations issued a statement opposing the appeal, which they called “a serious environmental and legal setback.”

The April Agro-Environmental Court decision was prompted by a complaint filed in February 2025 by a Creemos opposition party member of the Bolivian Legislative Assembly’s lower house, a park ranger, and an environmental lawyer. The Sucre-based court’s 12-point ruling included requirements aimed at addressing recurring causes of environmental damage.

For instance, it ordered the suspension of traditionally allowed agricultural burns, which have escaped control to increasingly devastating effect, and of extractive activities on protected and Indigenous lands. The ruling also ordered steps to “prevent attacks, threats, and intimidation that human rights defenders in environmental matters, and their families, may suffer.”

The Agro-Environmental Court decision included broader requirements, too, one of which calls on the Education Ministry to present within 90 days a plan to improve educational content on biodiversity conservation, climate change, and pollution in all public schools. Another requirement is that the Environment and Water Ministry change the jaguar’s conservation status from “vulnerable” to “endangered” or “critically endangered” and upgrade protection plans within six months in cooperation with Indigenous peoples. The court also ordered a zero-tolerance policy on wildlife trafficking and asked the national Legislative Assembly to establish a jaguar-conservation fund.

Poaching case prompts ruling

The complaint that led to the ruling concerned poaching and trafficking in the San Matías Integrated Management Natural Area, located on the border with Brazil. Representing the plaintiffs, Juan Carlos Camacho in December 2024 filed the complaint with the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Environment and Drug Trafficking. The complaint alleged that Jorge Néstor Noya of Argentina, and several other Argentine citizens, established tourism operations in the country that “were actually engaged in the illegal hunting of jaguars and other species, as well as the trafficking of skins, fangs, etc.”

The group offered tours to hunt wild animals and charged up to $50,000 to kill a jaguar, Camacho told EcoAméricas. At least five male jaguars were hunted during 2023 and 2024, says park ranger Marcos Uzquiano. Noya, who organized tours through a company named Caza & Safaris, is one of six people arrested in August 2024. He is under house arrest in Argentina, charged with illicit association, illegal provision of firearms, animal abuse, and wildlife predation. An investigation of his activities in Argentina led to a series of probes of illegal cross-border hunting in Bolivia. A Santa Cruz prosecutor who investigated his activity in Bolivia has requested the Argentine’s extradition so he can face charges of “biocide, destruction, and deterioration of natural patrimony.”

The April 23 ruling drew praise from supporters of environmental conservation. “Today is a historic day in environmental law,” María René Álvarez, a member of the lower house of Bolivia’s Legislative Assembly, said the day the decision was announced.

A key component of the April ruling addressed “chaqueos,” the ostensibly controlled burns farmers and ranchers have long used to clear unwanted vegetation from fields and pastures—and sometimes to clear forested areas. Farm-sector displeasure with the court’s suspension of permits for such burns is believed to have contributed to the government’s decision to appeal. On July 30, the court suspended the prohibition on controlled burns except in jaguar-conservation areas, protected areas and forest reserves. The court said all other provisions of its April ruling remain in full effect.

Farm-sector fires blamed

Supporters of fire bans point out that in recent years, controlled burns have been anything but, spawning forest fires that have become alarmingly large and destructive. That’s due in part to climate change and increasingly dry conditions encountered by burns that escape control. Last year, uncontrolled fires burned 12.6 million hectares (31.1 million acres) of Bolivian forests and grasslands, the largest area on record in the country, says an April 26 report by the Bolivian Ombudsman’s Office.

In ordering an “ecological pause” on extractive activities, the court aimed mainly to deter mining and forestry in protected areas and create a jaguar-conservation corridor. It described such areas as “fundamental refuges where the main threats to the jaguar are significantly reduced, ensuring continuous and functional habitats with ecological connectivity that are essential for the conservation” of jaguars.

Supporters of the court decision argue it’s high time governments addressed the full range of manmade threats to the existence of the jaguar and other wildlife. “The jaguar is not only a victim of trafficking and illegal hunting, but also of fires, deforestation, lack of resources for conservation, and the economic interests that are devastating this species’ habitat and endangering its survival,” says Daniela Justiniano, founder of Alas Chiquitanas, a Bolivian nonprofit that provides funds and equipment to firefighters and park rangers.