Highway construction of a road that would have cut through the Bolivian Amazon was halted after thousands protested | Photo by Libby Arnosti
The following is a transcript. To listen to this broadcast, please click the link above.
Bruce Gellerman: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Bruce Gellerman.
[SOUNDS OF PROTESTS IN BOLIVIA]
Gellerman: In Bolivia, the people spoke and the government listened. For three months, a thousand people marched across the Andes Mountains, closing roads, enduring police crackdown and arrest. They were protesting the government’s plan to build a highway through indigenous lands and Amazon forest. Bolivian President Evo Morales gave in to the protesters and scrapped the project. But while demonstrators may have won this round, the fight over how to develop Bolivia’s economy and protect its environmental future continues. Mary Stucky reports.
Alex Gibson worked as an intern at Round Earth Media a few summers ago and then struck out for Argentina where he ended up riveted to the proceedings in a courtroom. Alex takes it from there: Today, 35 years after the fall of the most brutal dictatorship in the country’s history, Argentina is still grappling with the legacy of violence it left behind. In the provincial Argentine university city of Bahía Blanca, 17 former soldiers and police officers are standing trial on more than a hundred counts of murder, kidnapping, and torture. But the proceedings have much broader implications than a conventional criminal case. 
Two Next Generation journalists Paulina Yanez Navarro and Nancy Huynh , will be in Mexico with Mary Stucky this month reporting for The World, the World Vision Report and other outlets, part of Round Earth’s project to mentor and help train the next generation of global journalists. 
