How prevalent are land grabs in Bolivia?

1. How widespread: a measured but localized problem

Nationally, official estimates of insecure land vary—Bolivia’s Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) has been quoted as saying roughly 6 percent of land lacks clear title in one recent U.S. State Department brief and 12 percent in an earlier 2024 statement—both of which the State Department links to squatting and land grabbing as ongoing problems ^{[2] [3]}; these figures imply that contested tenure affects a minority of total land area but still represents millions of hectares given Bolivia’s size ^{[4] [5]}.

2. Where land grabbing is concentrated: Santa Cruz and the “trans‑Latin” frontier

The clearest, best‑documented pattern is in the eastern lowlands: Santa Cruz saw cultivated area grow from about 400,000 hectares in 1990 to roughly two million hectares by 2011, driven first by soy and then by cattle ranching, with estimates that one million hectares came under control of foreign actors—mostly Brazilian investors and “trans‑Latin” companies—creating de facto land grabs tied to agribusiness expansion ^{[1] [6]}.

3. Drivers: commercial agriculture, weak registration and cross‑border capital

Researchers attribute the phenomenon to the rapid commercialisation of agriculture, transnational investment from neighboring countries, and institutional weakness in land registration and transfer oversight—the Bolivian state has struggled to track foreign ownership or even the nationality of those controlling large tracts in the lowlands, which facilitates concentration and “foreignisation” of land ^{[6] [1]}.

4. Legal framework and political levers that shape prevalence

Bolivia’s constitution grants the state broad powers to expropriate property that does not fulfill a defined “social and economic function,” and that framework—plus a judiciary viewed as slow to enforce criminal prohibitions on illegal occupation—creates ambiguous incentives around tenure enforcement and makes outcomes contingent on political will as much as on law ^{[2] [3]}.

5. The human and territorial impact: indigenous territories and frontier settlers

Indigenous organisations and rights groups warn that land usurpation in the Amazon and frontier zones is eroding territorially‑based rights: Indigenous collective lands (TCOs) now cover some 23 million hectares but face incursions from highland settlers, illegal logging, coca cultivation, and other pressures that indigenous groups say accelerate dispossession in specific regions ^[7].

6. Scale, data gaps, and why prevalence is hard to pin down

Estimating national prevalence is constrained by inconsistent governmental figures (6% vs. 12% of land reported as untitled in different State Department briefs), dated or regional academic studies, and acknowledged state ignorance about who holds or rents land in many lowland markets—scholarship documents clear hotspots and trends but also stresses that the Bolivian state “does not know the number or nationality of foreigners” in possession of lands, limiting precise national prevalence metrics ^{[2] [3] [6]}.

7. Bottom line: common in key frontiers, limited but significant nationally

Land grabbing is not uniform across Bolivia: it is a concentrated and structurally important phenomenon in Santa Cruz and the eastern agricultural frontier—where millions of hectares shifted to commercial actors and foreign interests have been documented ^{[1] [6]}—while at the national level insecure or contested tenure affects a notable minority of land according to INRA figures cited by observers, producing real conflicts even if it is not the majority condition across the entire country ^{[2] [3]}.