Several national parks have recently been proclaimed  in the Amazon basin, but none is effectively protected. The few, poorly paid, and ill-supervised guards themselves often facilitate illegal logging and hunting for small tips. National parks that exist only on paper are counter-productive: before, the land belonged to someone, forest-dwelling natives or at least colonist-squatters; once the park is established, the land belongs to "the public", ie. no-one in particular. Everyone goes in to take what he can, timber, jaguars for their pelts, rare birds. 

2. Why private ownership is effective in Bolivia

Under Bolivian law, foreigners can freely purchase land. With due care, valid, uncontested legal title can be secured. Ambient conditions in our part of Amazonic Bolivia (NE Beni) preclude successful soya cultivation, so that land prices are low.

Amazonic Bolivia is safe. There are no guerillas or bandits and the narcotics trade is invisible if it exists,  & certainly non-violent .Lands can be effectively protected at low cost. Our experience with local employees is that fair treatment and adequate supervision evoke loyalty to us and to our ecological aims.

The younger generation, in any case, is ecologically sensitive.

The Beni Department of Bolivia, with its very low population density and vast tracts of  tropical forest, is among the last refuges of wildlife of the Amazon basin; species now  rare or extinct elsewhere are still commonly encountered, including the maned wolf (chrysocyon brachyurus), the  "bush dog" (speothos venaticus), the ocelot (felis pardalis), the more common jaguar (panthera onca); puma (felis concolor); paraguayan fox (dusicyon gymnocercus); kinkajou (potos flavus); tayra (eira barbara); and jaguarundi (felis yagouaroundi); the tapir (tapirus terrestris); deer (mazama americana), owl monkey (aotus trivirgatus), squirrel monkey (ateles geoffroyi), wooly monkey (lagothrix lagothricha); giant anteater (myrmecophaga tridactyla); and spotted paca (agouti paca) among other mammals. There is a similar prevalence of reptiles and a huge variety of birds. 

4. Our Conservation Ranch

We own 18,806.9 hectares (= 46,471.8 acres; 188 sq. kilometers; 72.6 sq. miles) in the tropical lowlands of NE Bolivia in the Canton of San Joaquin, Provincia de Mamore’, Departemento of the Beni. Our land includes both virgin forests and open savannah that was always grassland and never de-forested. On part of the grassland we raise cattle without using any feed, pesticides or fertilizers.

There is no hunting or logging. Our relations with the local population are excellent, so that we live in a crime-free, stress-free cooperative environment. Interested parties are invited to visit. How to get there, from USA: AA to Viru Viru (VVI) airport of  Santa Cruz de la Sierra Aerosur or Lloyd Aereo Boliviano domestic flight to Trinidad (TDD) Air taxi  (US$ 200/per flight) to the town of San Joaquin., from which we pick up up (From the Weashington DC area , I leave at 7:30PM and arrive on the ranch by noon the next day) 

5. Acquisition process and costs:

Buyers will normally require a qualitative survey, maps and photos.  Bolivian law requires  GPS measurement of the boundaries from agreed posts, a property transfer tax,  legal work to assure and define title, and official registration of title with the court in Trinidad.  Owners are legally required to fence their property and pay an annual municipal land tax of US$0.50 per hectare.