What was recently a verdant area of trees and wildlife has become a desolate, barren landscape where life teeters on the brink after wildfires raged through parts area of southeastern Bolivia.
Ash has replaced leaves and dead animals scatter the charred earth in this area near the town of Charagua, close to the border with Paraguay.
Local veterinarian Jerjes Suarez says that the heat and smoke from the fires is responsible for the deaths of many animals and those that did not die in the flames are in dire conditions due to the lack of water and food in the wake of the inferno.
Animals suffer as wildfires ravage Bolivian forests | https://t.co/uijtgR2gej pic.twitter.com/8PSuB2IaQI
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) August 28, 2019
Locals told Reuters that no firefighters, no military personnel and no airplanes carrying water have arrived in the area to help battle the fires.
Many blazes burn unabated across vast swaths of hilly tropical forest and savannah near Bolivia's border with Paraguay and Brazil.
At least one million hectares have been affected by the fires, officials said.
Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Sunday he was open to international aid to fight the blazes that have engulfed rural villages and doubled in size since last Thursday.
Mr Morales' government had been slow to accept the aid, initially saying it would use its own resources to fight the fires, but pleas from villagers and officials of Santa Cruz province led to an about-face.
Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Chile and Spain have all offered support.
Bolivia late last week contracted a Boeing 747 Supertanker from the United States to help with the fire-fighting, and has mobilised more than 2,000 firefighters, as well as small aircraft and helicopters.
Political rivals accused Mr Morales of a slow response. Some have said his rural development policies have contributing to the problem, as farmers set the forest alight to clear land for pasture and settlement.
Thousands of wildfires are also decimating the neighbouring Brazilian Amazon, the world's largest rainforest.
The blazes have nearly doubled this year compared with the same period in 2018, prompting global outrage.
The Amazon basin's vast forests are widely seen by scientists as a buffer against climate change.
Bolivia's portion of the Amazon, while not as extensive, remains heavily forested. The Andean nation is one of the poorest in the western hemisphere but one of the richest in biodiversity.
