TIPNIS sits between the northern edge of Cochabamba Department and the southern reaches of Beni, covering more than a million hectares where the Andean foothills descend into Amazonian floodplain. The park protects a portion of the Bolivian Yungas ecoregion -- cloud-draped montane forest giving way to sub-Andean and pre-Andean Amazonian woodland, and finally to the flooded savannas of the Moxos plain. The Secure and Isiboro rivers, both tributaries of the Mamore and ultimately the Amazon, flow through the park from south to north. Pink river dolphins surface in their waters. The biodiversity counts are staggering: 218 mammal species, 992 bird species, 157 amphibians, and 131 reptiles have been documented within the park's boundaries. Laguna Bolivia, a major wildlife observation site, is reachable by boat through the Secure River during high water or by horseback from scattered communities to the south.

TIPNIS is not just a national park. Since 1990, it has been formally recognized as indigenous territory -- Native Community Land belonging to the Tsimane, Yuracere, and Mojeno-Trinitario peoples who have lived here for generations. At the 2001 census, 12,388 indigenous inhabitants occupied 64 communities across the park: 6,351 Tsimane, 4,228 Mojeno-Trinitario, and 1,809 Yuracere. The park's original declaration as a national park came in 1965 through Supreme Decree 7401, but the indigenous territorial recognition followed a quarter-century later, won through the 1990 March for Territory and Dignity organized by the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian East. In 2009, collective title to more than a million hectares was formally awarded to the indigenous governance body known as Subcentral TIPNIS.

The proposed Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos Highway would run 306 kilometers in three segments, with the critical middle stretch -- 177 kilometers from Isinuta to Monte Grande -- passing directly through TIPNIS. A $332 million loan from Brazil's development bank made construction feasible, and in June 2011, President Evo Morales inaugurated the project at Villa Tunari. The opposition was fierce and immediate. Studies by the Program for Strategic Investigation in Bolivia projected that the road would accelerate deforestation so severely that up to 64 percent of TIPNIS could be stripped of forest cover by 2030. After the dramatic 2011 march, Law 180 declared TIPNIS an intangible zone and prohibited highway construction through it. But the victory was temporary. In 2012, the government enacted Law 222 authorizing a new consultation process, and in 2017, Law 969 opened the park to road construction, private investment, and infrastructure development.

The highway is only one front in a multi-sided assault on the park's integrity. Since the 1970s, coca farmers have colonized the southern portion of TIPNIS, in a zone known as Polygon 7, clearing forest for agriculture. The Bolivian government has acknowledged that roughly 10 percent of the park has already been deforested, and projections suggest 43 percent of forest cover could vanish by 2030 even without the highway. Meanwhile, oil and gas concessions overlay significant portions of the park. The Secure block, operated by Petroandina -- a joint venture between Bolivia's YPFB and Venezuela's PDVSA -- has conducted aerial surveys for exploration. Two exploratory wells have already been drilled: one reaching 3,032 meters deep, another bored to 5,830 meters between 1999 and 2001. Bolivia's own National Service for Protected Areas has warned that extraction could cause serious damage to TIPNIS's rivers and ecosystems. The park endures, but the forces pressing inward show no sign of relenting.