Weston Roundtable: The Bolivian Eco-Municipality: A New Sustainability Framework?

The Latin American concept of living well represents a paradigm of sustainability. Bolivia has policies that grant to ecosystems the equivalent of human rights. Our speaker’s field study examines how such policies play out in one of Bolivia’s “ecological municipalities,” the town of Samaipata at the cusp of the Amazon and Andes. Results show the critical link between sustainability and well-being: Samaipata’s happiness levels are above U.S. levels, yet at a tiny fraction of U.S. per capita GDP.