Beni Department

Beni, sometimes El Beni, is a northeastern department of Bolivia, in the lowlands region of the country. It is the second-largest department in the country, covering 213,564 square kilometers, and it was created by supreme decree on November 18, 1842, during the administration of General José Ballivián. Its capital is Trinidad.

Etymology

The name of the department was given by President José Ballivián in honor of the Beni River. The name Beni is derived from the Movima word ben’i, meaning “grasslands”. However, a manuscript by Friar Nicolás Armentia states that the word Beni comes from the Tacanan languages, in which it means “wind.”

Population

With a population of 488,260, according to the 2024 census, Beni is the second least-populated of the nine departments of Bolivia, after Pando.
Although Beni is rich in natural resources, the poverty level of its inhabitants is high, mainly as a result of centuries of exploitation of native populations by European-descended elites. The main economic activities are agriculture, timber, and cattle. In addition, an underground economy linked to illegal narcotics activities flourished in the area during the last decades of the 20th century, with many cocaine laboratories hidden behind the façade of remote cattle ranches.
The Beni region is wide and flat, featuring many large mounds connected by straight earthen causeways, which are believed by researchers to have been built by ancient inhabitants. The earthwork mounds provide raised living areas and enable the growth of trees that could not survive otherwise in the frequently flooded lowland area. In the 21st century, archeologists and anthropologists such as Americans Clark Erickson and William Balée, respectively, believe these earthwork structures are evidence of a large and sophisticated indigenous civilization that flourished for thousands of years before European colonization.
The first European settlers in this area were Spanish Jesuit missionaries during the 18th century, sent to convert the native inhabitants, chiefly in the southern half of the department. The religious origins of many of the Beni's towns can be attested to by the centrality of the local church in most of the communities, and in the very names of the towns: Trinidad, Santa Ana, San Borja, Reyes, etc. Today, the Beni region is the seat of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of El Beni.
The importance of cattle ranching is prominent in the regional culture. Cowboys, or "vaqueros", still play an important role in Beni society, comprising a large portion of the working class. Other industries significant to the region include logging, small-scale fishing and hunting, farming, and in recent years, eco-tourism.
Though the Beni lies in the southern reaches of the Amazon Basin, an area renowned for tropical disease, the population has fewer health problems than in the Andes Region, especially those related to malnutrition.
The inhabitants are mostly descendants of Cruceños who streamed north following the course of navigable rivers, and native peoples.
The Beniano diet consists largely of rice, bananas, beef, and fish. Some popular dishes include Majao, Masaco, and others, many featuring cured/salted meats.
The majority of the population in Beni is mestizo. The white/mestizo Benianos have traditionally been mistrustful, and often somewhat contemptuous, of Andean culture. They identify as being lighter skinned and of more Spanish ancestry than the Quechua and Aymara-speaking populations of the highlands. Considerable resentment existed against the central government, which allegedly did very little to build roads or integrate the Beni into the economy and political life of Bolivia. These attitudes persisted although Beni residents benefited greatly by the Agrarian Reform instituted following the 1952 Revolution, with many citizens gaining ownership of significant tracts of land. Most of these turned to cattle ranching. The absence of a reliable road linking the department to the main centers of power in the country continued to contribute to the Benianos' perception of isolation, as did a downturn in the cattle industry. As a result, both the white/mestizo population and departmental authorities supported the Santa Cruz-led effort to federalize the country and devolve powers to the departments at the expense of the central government. Considerable social unrest took place in 2007 and 2008, leading some to consider separatism as plausible.

History

Beni was a very important center of a pre-Columbian civilization known as the hydraulic culture of Las Lomas, a culture that constructed over 20,000 man-made artificial hills, all interconnected by thousands of square kilometers of aqueducts, channels, embankments, artificial lakes and lagoons, as well as terraces. Between about 4000 BC and the 13th century AD this region was settled by sophisticated and organized groups of human societies. Their civil structures were based, both environmentally and economically, on the use of specific environmental characteristics. Miles of these channels and man-made earthworks are visible from the air when flying over Beni.
When the Spanish arrived, the region had already been in decline for about three hundred years. However, this is where many products that are now used worldwide originated in native cultivation: among them tobacco, peanuts, cotton, cassava, vanilla and sweet potatoes. The Spanish initially were intensely interested in this area. During the first century of colonization, they believed the mythical city of El Dorado could be found in this region. However, they never found this legendary city of gold and they soon lost interest in the area, which would remain marginalized for several centuries after.
Between the 19th and 20th centuries northern Beni became Bolivia's rubber capital. The abundance of rubber trees attracted many people to the region, many of them adventurers and workers to work in the huge rubber plantations that arose. The worldwide demand for rubber rose with industrialization and the use of automotive vehicles. For decades this was one of the most active, dynamic regions of Bolivia. Cachuela Esperanza was an important center for rubber exports as it is located along the shores of the Beni River. As a measure of its success, it had one of the best-equipped hospitals in Bolivia at the end of the 19th century. But these enormous rubber plantations all but disappeared by the end of the Second World War, as developers had been cultivating rubber introduced to plantations of Southeast Asia and Africa. Today many of the properties have been converted to cattle ranches. Only some small rubber producers still use the river to transport their production.

Government

Executive offices

The chief executive office of Bolivia departments is the governor, who is elected to office; until then, the office was called the prefect. Until 2006 the prefect was appointed by the president of Bolivia. As of 2011 Beni had an interim governor, Haysen Ribera Leigue, who was selected by the Departmental Legislative Assembly on 16 December 2011. Governor Ernesto Suárez Sattori, who was elected on 4 April 2010, was suspended following his indictment for irregular expenditures related to a power plant in San Borja, Beni, in compliance with a Bolivian legal mandate that indicted officials may not continue to serve. As a replacement for the governor Carmelo Lens was elected in the special election on 20 January 2013. The current governor, Alejandro Unzueta of the MTS was elected on 7 March 2021.

Took office	Office expired	Prefect/governor	Party	Notes
23 Jan 2006	30 Aug 2007	Ernesto Suárez Sattori	PODEMOS	First elected prefect. Elected in Bolivian general election, December 2005
4 Jan 2010	30 May 2010	Clemente Clemente Sanjinés		Interim; final prefect
1 June 2010	16 Dec 2011	Ernesto Suárez Sattori	Beni First	Elected in regional election on 4 April 2010; first governor. Suspended under indictment.
16 Dec 2011	1 Mar 2013	Haisen Ribera Leigue	MNR	Chosen as interim governor by the Departmental Legislative Assembly, supported by the MNR and MAS-IPSP.
1 Mar 2013	7 Feb 2014	Carmelo Lens	Beni First	Elected in the first round of the Beni special gubernatorial election on 20 January 2013.
5 May 2015	13 Nov 2019	Alex Ferrier Abidar	MAS	Elected in the first round of the Beni extraordinary election on 5 May 2015.
13 Nov 2019	12 Jul 2020	Fanor Amapo Yubanera	Independent	Appointed by the Departmental Legislative Assembly of Beni upon the resignation of Alex Ferrier Abidar in connection to the 2019 Bolivian political crisis. First indigenous governor of Beni.
12 Jul 2020	20 Aug 2020	Yáscara Moreno Flores	Movimiento Al Socialismo	Appointed by the Departmental Legislative Assembly of Beni upon removal of Fanor Amapo Yubanera due to allegations of corruption.
20 Aug 2020	3 May 2021	Fanor Amapo Yubanera	Independent	Reinstated by the Departmental Court of Justice of Beni.
3 May 2021		José Alejandro Unzueta Shiriqui	Third System Movement	Elected in the first round of the regional election on 7 March 2021.

Legislative Assembly

Under the 2009 Constitution, each Bolivian department has an elected Departmental Legislative Assembly. The first elections were held 4 April 2010. The leading party in the twenty-eight member assembly is Beni First, with 11 seats. The Movement towards Socialism holds 10 seats, and the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement holds 3 seats. Two seats each were selected by indigenous people and by peasants through usos y costumbres. In alliance with the indigenous and peasant representatives, the MAS-IPSP controls the presidency of the Assembly. The three MNR representatives and their alternates were derecognized by the national party in 2010 when they backed MAS-IPSP policies and leadership.
The December 2011 suspension of Governor Ernesto Suarez was backed by 15 votes, including the MAS and MNR delegations, and two indigenous or campesino representatives. Two members of the assembly were also indicted simultaneously and replaced by their alternates: Sonia Suárez Araúz was replaced by Juan Carlos Herrera; and Carlos Navia Ribera was replaced by Tatiana Paniagua Zabala. The interim governor was also a member of the Assembly.