The story of Laguna Cáceres: How intensive agriculture fuels extreme droughts and fires

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Monday 21 july 2025

Puerto Suarez is a small town that is located on the shore of laguna Cáceres, but nowadays its pier overlooks a green landscape where only vegetation, and some water puddles remain. Founded in 1875, the town once held strategic importance for transportation due to its location on the Brazilian border and its access to the Paraguay-Parana waterway. However, July 2019 was the last time that the laguna was filled with sufficient water for transportation.  

In this photo essay, with photos by Bolivian photographer Manuel Seoane, we dive into the story of how a combination of deforestation drivers influence the ecosystem and livelihoods of local communities.  

Header photo: Laguna Cáceres in November 2024, Puerto Suárez, Bolivia © Manuel Seoane / IUCN NL  

Puerto Suarez is located on the lake shore, where a pier overlooks what is left of Laguna Cáceres. The water level is so low that it is hard to imagine that this vast area was once a navigable lagoon. Photo taken in November 2024, Puerto Suárez, Bolivia. 
There is still shallow water beneath the vegetation, with some fish.  
A fisherman is still trying to fish in the little water that is left. This is mainly for his own consumption. 

Drivers 

Even though the Chiquitano dry forest is adapted to a long dry season and a wet season – the lake also naturally shrinks and goes back to its size through the seasons – the actual current lagoon volume in wet and dry season is significantly lower than normal levels. More intense droughts and fires disrupt the balance in the system, impacting the natural regeneration of the forest and the lives of the local communities. The main driver of these intense droughts is deforestation, driven by intensive agriculture (mainly soy, maize, and cattle) and wildfires. 

Deforestation in the Chiquitano forest is moving at record rates and contributes to sedimentation in the lagoon.  
An area of forest that was cleared.  
Deforestation is contributing to sedimentation. When it rains, loose sediment is transported to the rivers and, in this case, ends up in the lagoon, causing aggradation.  
Crops are irrigated with rainwater stored in water tanks (a white water tank can be seen in the background).  
A farmer checking the contents of his water tank.  
Meanwhile, industrial agriculture companies pump up large amounts of groundwater, contributing to water depletion of aquifers.  
Agricultural fields around Puerto Suarez.
All these drivers make the forest more susceptible for fires.
An active fire burning. As the fires become more frequent, the forest has little time to regenerate.
A fire destroyed a forest landscape. These forests are the habitat of numerous species, including endangered animals and endemic bird species. They also disrupt the livelihoods of thousands of people, destroying homes, crops, and livestock.

Impacts for the community 

Laguna Cáceres is economically important for the communities in Bolivia, primarily due to its role in transportation, which was possible until 2019. The limited access to exporting goods impacts people most affected by poverty, as they can no longer sell their goods. They cannot afford planes or expensive travel routes, like big companies do. They are also forced to buy water, as there is no longer a reliable water source and they must harvest rainwater in tanks. However, harvesting rainwater in tanks is also limited by the shorter rainy season. 

Two locals walking through a river. The shallow water levels in rivers no longer allows any transportation between Bolivia and Brazil.  
A highway through the forest. Highways are being planned across the region to connect Bolivia with Paraguay and Brazil, including the controversial ‘corredor bioceanico’.  
A child and a farmer share local seeds.  
The community relies on tanks to store water due to the irregular water distribution service.
A woman with her water tank. Some families collect rainwater using their roofs: rainwater that falls on their roofs is collected and directed through gutters or drains into storage tanks or cisterns. This system provides a simple and effective way to capture and store water for household or agricultural use, but it is still dependant on rains and affordability. 
A woman washing her clothes in a bucket as a way to use less water. As the community no longer has a reliable water supply, they are sometimes forced to buy water from decentralised providers (water trucks). 
Others use a wheelbarrow to wash their clothes.  

Water conflict 

Water is both essential and scarce in dry ecosystems such as the Chiquitano dry forest. In these dry regions, a conflict of use arises when agriculture, local communities, and natural ecosystems all depend on the same limited water resources. As agricultural activity expands, particularly through intensive agricultural and industrial practices, the demand for water increases significantly. This overuse disrupts the delicate water balance of the entire ecosystem. As a consequence, Laguna Cáceres is now experiencing more extreme droughts than ever before. Local communities are directly affected, as they can no longer rely on the lagoon for navigation. 

IUCN NL’s work in Bolivia 

IUCN NL actively works in Bolivia with various projects, like Ñembi Guasu, where we support the Autonomous Indigenous Charagua government in conserving the Ñembi Guasu Indigenous Conservation Area with local partner Fundación NATIVA. We also work on supporting small community organisations with Strengthen the roots, in collaboration with Wilde Ganzen, and contribute to more sustainable and inclusive governance of tropical rainforests through the Forest for a Just Future programme by the Green Livelihoods. 

For more information, contact
Mariel Cabero
Expert Environmental Justice
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Marianne de Beer
Marianne de Beer
Communications Manager
Phone: 020 3018 261
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