Indigenous protesters in Peru (photo courtesy of Pulsar)

The road is located in the region of Loreto, North Peru. The protests are being made in a bid to raise awareness of the problems related to deforestation and environment preservation.

The indigenous groups claim that deforestation is “causing the poisoning of the lagoons and affecting primary forests”. They place blame on companies that have been given concessions and territorial permits by the local authorities.

Police arrived and evicted a number of the protestors but many returned, resulting in further confrontations. Workers’ unions from the city of Yurmiguas, in the Peruvian Amazon, joined the protest, which has prevented traffic flow from exiting and entering the city. Many people and cars are stranded as a result.

The provincial governor, Manuel Polo Valera, requested that protestors leave the area but Ronald Perez Lomas, an indigenous leader, refused, saying that the strike will continue for 72 hours. A group also marched through the city demanding local businesses close their doors in protest.

Indigenous leaders expressed that they do not want to punish the city, stating that their protest is against the government. “We are defending our Amazon from large logging companies,” protestors told local press.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen to its lowest rate since 1998, according to Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira. Between August 2011 and July 2012, an area of 4,656km² was cleared, 27% less than the previous year and the lowest level since monitoring began 24 years ago.

“This is the only piece of good news for the planet this year,” said Teixeira in a press conference in Brasilia earlier today. Teixeira claimed the government would continue to fight deforestation, using sophisticated satellite technology to spot illegal logging and introducing a new electronic system of fines for those involved. The government aims to bring deforestation in the Amazon down to 3,925km² by 2020, which would mark an 80% reduction from 1990 levels.

Environmentalists welcomed the latest figures, though reiterated concerns that the country’s revised new Forest Code would lower the protection of rainforest, despite the veto of several business-friendly clauses by President Dilma Rousseff in October.

In its monthly survey, non-profit research organisation IMAZON reported a 377% increase in Amazon deforestation activity in October, compared to the same month in 2011. An sharp annual increase was also noted for September (154%).

The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest, and covers 5km² or 60% of Brazilian territory. Deforestation has been a contentious subject in Brazil for many years, as the government seeks to find a balance between resource protection and supporting the country’s booming agricultural sector, which has been creeping into the Amazon.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vetoed the new Forest Code that would have facilitated the agricultural exploitation of the Amazon region.

Rousseff allowed an amended bill to be validated but used her veto to cancel nine of its key points. In particular the president made null an article that reduced the surfaces dedicated for the rainforest to recover along the Amazon. Her decision came despite huge pressure from agricultural groups to relax measures designed to protect the environment.

Agricultural companies in Brazil represent a multi-million dollar market and have constantly clashed with Rousseff’s ideological stance and the environmental organisations that represent one of her core support groups.

Lobbyists have already announced they are considering appealing the decision through the Brazilian justice system. Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira backe the president by stating that “everything that was vetoed would have led to either a social or ecological imbalance” and that Rousseff’s position was in accordance with “the principles put forward last May of not encouraging illegal deforestation and promoting social justice in rural areas. Other controversial points of the bill vetoed by Rousseff include the authorisation to plant non-native trees such as apple or orange trees in the Amazon region.

Rousseff’s has engaged herself in a personal war against the agricultural lobby that extends across political lines and even counts in its ranks members of congress affiliated to the president’s own Workers Party (PT).

“This was Bosque Alegre up until last year, lush vegetation, lots of trees,” says Sylvina Madero, pointing to the photographs of dense green forest land which hang behind her.

“Then on 12th April this year, phones started ringing. They came in with 12 bulldozers, 100 municipal workers arrived with chainsaws, and this woodland with lush vegetation became this and this.”

She gestures to images showing a bleak, muddy expanse of land, bordered by torn protest posters and abandoned tools.

“By the time we found out what was happening, half of our woodland had already been cleared.”

Bosque Alegre after the municipal bulldozers came through. (Photo: Felipe de la Fuente)

The Bosque Alegre (‘happy woodland’) is a native woodland situated in the wealthy suburb of San Isidro, in the northern Greater Buenos Aires. It is one of several woodlands lining the coast of Buenos Aires increasingly at threat from development and deforestation. Since control of the land was ceded to a private sports club in 2011, the forest has become the centre-point of a fierce battle between the municipal government and local community rights groups. What was once a peaceful recreational space has become the site of a controversial debate over land ownership, ecological protections, and political priorities.

Bosque Alegre: The Story So Far 

The four-hectare Bosque Alegre is located in the riverside suburb of San Isidro. Its chocolate box cafes and elegant houses mask a network of boundary lines, which divide the region between the large companies and private businesses.

“All this is private. Unless you pay, you can’t enter” says Romina Rocca, member of the Bosque Alegre Assembly, the group established to protect the public woodland.

“The law says that access to the river should be public, but in reality that isn’t what happens at all. Everything is privatised and access to the river has been cut off and closed in. There are only two or three areas along the river that the public can access now” she says.

A pathway leading through Bosque Alegre (Photo: Felipe de la Fuente)

Bosque Alegre is one of these areas. With its reed beds and towering trees, it occupies one of the Campos; a grid of fields divided into tennis courts, football fields, and a conference centre. The Bosque is one of the last coastal forests found in Buenos Aires and is home to many increasingly rare indigenous species as well as being a recreational ground for the local community.

However on 10th May, 2011, the municipal government, led by Gustavo Posse, signed an agreement with Club Atlético San Isidro (CASI) to cede the club the area covered by Bosque Alegre. According to Posse, the agreement was intended to secure investment for San Isidro while sustaining the woodland’s identity as a public recreation area. “An agreement was reached whereby CASI would make investments in the area by installing lights, changing rooms, and new turf,” says Posse.

“The club would only be using the area for a small percentage of time and it would be used by the public the rest of the time.”

Posse claims the land was always intended to remain public, but many disagree with this assessment.

“The government didn’t technically sell the land, they gifted it. Officially, the government has ceded the land to CASI, but that’s not public land, that’s a lie,” says Rocca.

Buenos Aires province’s general environmental law (11,723), states that any changes to public property must be preceded by an environmental impact assessment and a community consultation. Neither of these were undertaken prior to the CASI agreement, prompting widespread community anger. This anger reached new heights in September 2011, when un-identified workers arrived to fell trees before the conclusion of the deal – prompting accusations of illegality and corruption between the sports club and municipal government.

“The community have to be consulted, have to be able to participate and give their views on the works. No-one consulted anyone on anything about this. All that happened was that one day, they came in and cut down all the trees,” says Johanna Rudich, member of the assembly.

Mayor Posse acknowledged this at the time, and now says “there have been communication issues from CASI, however there have also been misunderstandings.”

Bosque or Not?

One of the biggest misunderstandings revolves around the definition of the forest and its assessment in terms of ecological importance.

According to Arturo Flier, Secretary of Community Integration for San Isidro, “Bosque Alegre does not qualify for legal protection because it is not a native forest. It was used as landfill until the 1990s and contains mostly non native species.”

The lush greenery of the Bosque Alegre (Photo: Felipe de la Fuente)

While this is true, biologist Analia Dalia claims the woodland still qualifies for protection under the Ley de Bosques due to its value as a site of biodiversity and urban ecology. “Bosque Alegre is one of the last remaining typical coastal forests on the Río de la Plata and is home to more than 200 species of wildlife,” she says.

“Before the felling, Bosque Alegre had a large number of native species, including Creole willows and alder trees. We know that the tree felling destroyed a plant called Equisetum giganteum rarely observed elsewhere in Buenos Aires.”

The trees and plants also help to protect San Isidro from flooding, as well as retaining nutrients and the purification of water.

Protecting the Woodland

These struggles to define Bosque Alegre and its ecological value are crucial for its legal and political protection.

The assembly have so far succeeded in obtaining an injunction to stop all current works on the Bosque, and now are seeking a mandatory halt and re-definition of the area as a ‘natural park’. At the moment, it is only protected through a lesser ‘protected landscape’ designation.

This designation was obtained on 11^th April 2012 and does little to prevent development on the woodland as it permits private administration as well as alteration and manipulation of the land. The futility of this label was proven just a day after its introduction, when un-identified workers arrived to undertake the second tree felling. In an event the assembly refer to as ‘the repression’, municipal workers cleared half of the four hectares, prompting the mass protests which made headlines across the city.

“I stood in front of the chainsaws, many people did,” says Madero. “It was a terrible day.”

Slyvia Madero points out the photos from the conflicts when people tried to protect the Bosque Alegre from clearing. (Photo: Felipe de la Fuente)

“After the repression, we got advice,” she says. “At this point, we have a team of lawyers working to find out how they can stop this happening. But everybody says that the best way to put pressure on them is through public humiliation”

Madero knows that legal protections are hard to achieve, even when laws do exist. She watched the passage of the ‘Minimum measures for the environmental protection of native forests’ law (commonly known as the ‘forests’ law’), introduced in 2007, which despite enshrining numerous protections for Argentina’s forests does not help the Bosque Alegre. It was never included in the original list.

“Bosque Alegre is a woodland, it is,” says Rocca, “but it’s not in the land registry, it doesn’t officially exist.”

Public Land, Private Interests 

“Argentina has excellent laws, but there is a phrase in English – “where there’s a will there’s a way” – and this is very accurate here; sadly when there is a private powerful interest, they find a way to get around it,” says Emiliano Ezcurra.

Ezcurra is the head of ‘Banco de Bosques’, an NGO established to protect native woodland across Argentina. He has a big task on his hands. By the time the forests’ law was passed in 2007, 70% of the native forests across the country had been lost, divided between agricultural giants using the land for monoculture cropping.

According to figures from the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development, between 1998 and 2006, deforested land in Argentina accounted for 2,295,567 hectares, the equivalent of 250,000 hectares a year and one hectare every two minutes.

“The Bosque Alegre is a very different case to the larger forests in the country, but it is still an issue of privatisation,” Ezcurra says, referring to the fact that Bosque Alegre is a much smaller, urban woodland.

“This is about the relationship between the government and a private company. It’s about how governments can twist and change laws to enable private companies to use land which belongs to the community.”

In this green, spacious suburb, recreational land is hard to come by. For those who can’t afford private club memberships, there are few places to enjoy the natural coastline. It is this that so many want to protect.

Activists hold up a sign declaring 'hasta aca' (until here) in Bosque Alegre. (Photo: Felipe de la Fuente)

“I grew up here, I want my children to play outside and enjoy nature. We need that” says local resident Alison Salas.

So far more than 5,000 signatures have been gathered by the assembly and protests are regularly held on the land, but the future of Bosque Alegre remains uncertain.

“We’re fighting for the forest, but we’re fighting for more than that,” says Rocca. “The idea is to put these topics on the agenda, to ask what is happening to public space in San Isidro”

The fight looks set to continue for a long time yet. However for many, including Ezcurra, the decision is clear.

“The community want it to be saved and it’s public land, so it should be saved. It’s as simple as that.”

To find out what locals think of the issue, click here.

Between 1990 and 2010 Argentina lost 15.5% of its forest cover, or around 5,393,000 hectares according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. In a world of ever-shrinking forests even on tree can make a difference. So when the municipal government of San Isidro decided to tear up the Bosque Alegre without so much as a word beforehand, it inevitably brought forth an outcry from local activists.

The 4-hectare public park is one of the last coastal forests found in the province of Buenos Aires and now half of it is gone. The tranquil town of San Isidro is suddenly not so quiet anymore. The activists are battling the municipal government, which is headed by Gustavo Posse, for the remaining green space.

On 10th May 2011 Posse signed an agreement, which put the forest in the hands of the Club Atlético San Isidro. Soon the calls of more than 200 species of animals changed into the roars and whines of chainsaws as trees came tumbling down. Before anyone could do anything half of the trees lay on the ground leaving a massive gape of where they used to stand.

However, activists haven’t given up hope and now armed with more than 5,000 signatures they are fighting for what remains of the Bosque Alegre.

The Indy decided to hop onto the train and travel to San Idsidro to find out what the locals think about the issue.  Portraits by Diego Espinosa.

Dora Enceña, 47, housewife, San Isidro

“For me forests are very important and it’s just terrible that they’ve cut down [half] the forest. We need to preserve the forests for many reasons. It is important that communities have green spaces because it is a place where people can go to relax and enjoy themselves in a quiet area. It is also good for the environment and in general the atmosphere of a city. It was very wrong that the government didn’t tell us beforehand what they were doing. They should have asked the city their opinion or whether or not we wanted this to happen. We have a right to know what is happening to out public spaces, especially the forests. Towns need forests and green spaces, there is no other way of putting it, we need them. As for whether or not the activists will be successful I am not sure, I don’t know how they can do it.”

Ricardo Pelfort, 67, retired, San Isidro

“This is a government that is very privatised. It is a government that favours private corporations over everything else. There is no interest in maintaining anything that does not make a profit. They don’t care about the trees. They don’t have any interest in protecting them if cutting them down will eventually earn them money. It’s sad because the trees are a symbol of life, they grow here along the river or in the middle of the city and they help clean the environment. There is no life without them. They clean the water and the air and we need both of those to live. Many people don’t have another place to go and relax and enjoy nature in the middle of the city. We need public green spaces like this. People who have a lot of money can go to the closed parks but if you don’t have money where are you going to go? It’s really sad what the government has taken away from its people.”

Marisol Sota, 25, store sales rep, San Fernando

“I do not agree with the decision of the government to cut down the trees. It took them so many years to grow and now the government has just come along and cut them down. It is very bad. We need trees to clean the air in our atmosphere. We need them to change the carbon dioxide into oxygen, they are absolutely necessary especially in a city. It is important to have these green spaces so that all the poison that gets pumped into the atmosphere from cars is turned into oxygen. Unfortunately, when it comes to the activists I am not sure if they can win against a government. They aren’t the first group to try to stand up against them and most people are unsuccessful. But now it is not important whether or not the public was informed before the government cut them down. What is important now is the remaining trees. We need to focus on them and not what has happened, we can’t change that.”

Dario Deschamps, 35, Tren de La Costa employee, Tigre

“What the government did I believe is really bad. They should have spoken with the neighbours who live in this community. Whenever they want to modify something they should have to talk to the residents. The people who live here have a right to green spaces that are free to the public. They should have a right to go somewhere green with their children but the government’s only interest is money. Today they don’t think about what is healthy and safe but instead of money. It is a disrespect of the environment and the general public. There are green spaces in the greater city of Buenos Aires but there are not that many anymore. There is an urban explosion and because of this we are losing spaces to offices and housing, it is the same story in Tigre. For many reasons we need these large green spaces. We need to respect the local fauna and flora as well, but this will totally modify it. How can people learn about it and learn to respect it if the government doesn’t? I think this fight is important because it is a fight for the environment and the neighbours rights.”

Edith Robles, 50, Tren de La Costa employee, Boccar

“I think it is bad. The trees help us breath, we need them for the oxygen that is necessary for us to live. We contaminate the air and they clean it for us, and then we just chop them all down. We need green spaces, the entire planet needs trees, we need them to live. How can it be put any simpler? They didn’t make this decision public and I think that is very wrong. They should have spoken to the public to find out what our opinion was of cutting down the forest. Then they should have made a decision, but only after asking the people who live here. I also agree with what the activists are doing. I don’t think it’s too later. They can still save the trees that are still standing and just in general bring more awareness to the entire issue of deforestation.”

Tierra-i real time satellite imaging reveals rapid deforestation throughout Latin America, and estimates that nearly 250,000 hectares of forest are lost in Argentina alone every year. Deforestation is particularly a problem in the northern provinces, home to the Argentine part of the Gran Chaco forest. As farmers have found soy to be more lucrative than cattle, traditional crops are traded for the profitable bean.

The Argentina Independent hits the streets to find out what the locals think about deforestation. Do you think that deforestation is a significant concern? Why is a problem in Argentina in particular?

Photos: Agus Carini

Susana, 41, Administrative Assistant, San Martín

Yes, it is important. More than anything because of everything that it has to do with oxygen itself, and when we consider how it has contributed throughout the years to the destruction of the ozone layer…One can sense that the climate has changed, and now winters are no longer the same winters, and summers are not the same summers, either…I speak from my own understanding, because sometimes there are things that one does not fully understand, but one can perceive…

Maybe the reason that deforestation is a big problem in Argentina would have to do with the regulations, that the regulations are not well formed or that there is no legislation that covers the area well at this moment…. For me it must have to do with this, that the legislation is not managing to cover everything that has to do with natural reserves… there could be other undercurrents that one doesn’t know about.

Pablo, 20, Mechanic, Palermo

Yes, it’s important, because to cut down trees in an effort to get more lands is crazy, I don’t know the percentage of lands that they have taken in order to make furniture, things like that, but yes, it should be.

It’s such a big problem in Argentina because we have a lot of land. There are other countries where it’s not as big of a problem because they have less area. But for example, they also take lands from tribes.

The forests allow us to breath; without them, we couldn’t breathe. It’s important to have them, definitely for this reason, but also because I like green spaces. When I go to the country, I tell you – I love Buenos Aires, but when I go to Juaní, it’s completely different….it’s beautiful.

Alberto, 48, Stone Mason, Berazategui

Yes, I think that deforestation is certainly a problem. The climate has changed, there are days that are so cold in the middle of summer that we have to bundle up. It’s the same in the winter; this past week, there was a polar wind and then it rose to 24 degrees.

It may be that the problem is that the politicians have only recently taken note of the issue, not much importance is given to protecting the forests. We cut down twenty trees, and not one is planted to replace the twenty. They only remember to plant again when the fields are bare.

That’s why today many people are against the planting of soy, [which] is at once a step forward and a step backwards, because it ruins the soil. Where you plant soy, you can’t then go plant other grains. Because there has to be a process to make the earth fertile again, in order to plant grains such as wheat and barley.

Camila, 20, Promoter, San Fernando

Yes, it seems to me that it is a concern…it seems to me that they should inform people a little more, because I, obviously, am not well informed, but I know that deforestation is a problem. Or, better put, that they inform people a little more, so that people can be aware and can realise that it is really bad.

Deforestation is a problem here because here are many cities, there are many buildings, and the little green now isn’t anything more than the plazas, and the few green spaces we have, we can’t take advantage of them often.

These green spaces are important so that people can take advantage of the free time they have, to at least spend some time in a green area, now that we have so much city, streets, cars, noise; when one wants pass a little time in peace, to study, share mate with friends, play the guitar.

Agustín, 23, Unemployed, Pilar

Yes, deforestation is definitely a topic of concern, because trees are extremely important in the equilibrium of the environment, the ecosystem. We’re outside of nature’s harmony. This disconnection causes various problems.

I am not very familiar, but I know – because of Greenpeace’s campaigns more than anything, perhaps – that there is a lot of deforestation in the north, in Missiones, in Entre Ríos, in Formosa… It’s not good to lose even one hectare of forest a day; a hectare is a lot, and a lot more than that is being lost.

One time, I was traveling in the mountains in the south. It was a lovely trip, I was alone, with the birds and the trees. And after climbing for three hours I came upon a logging field. It was rather sad; I had travelled looking at all of the nature, all of the force of nature, and the harmony, and it was all dead there, murdered.

Latin America’s vast forests are rapidly disappearing. They have come to represent yet another quickly diminishing artery of the continent’s many ‘open veins’.  Their fertile land is being converted at an increasingly alarming rate for the purposes of large-scale agribusiness, namely, soy.

Images of deforestation in the wild Chaco. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Louis Reymondin is the man behind a new satellite imagery and ground processing system, Terra-i, mapping deforestation across South America.

Reymondin, a Swiss native, is a third-year PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at King’s College of London and has been working as a visiting researcher at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), whose headquarters are based near Cali in southwest Colombia, for the last five years. During this time he developed Terra-I from scratch.

The complex system detects land-cover changes resulting from human activities in near real-time, producing updates every 16 days. It currently runs for the whole of South America.

“So far the system has shown that deforestation has increased in Caquetá, Colombia by 340% since 2004, and the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay, the second most forested area in South America, has lost over a million hectares of forest.”

Deforestation in Argentina

According to Reymondin, “In Argentina, Terra-i has performed habitat status monitoring every 16 days from the 1st January 2004. During the past eight years, it has detected a cumulative habitat loss of 1,955,419 hectares, equivalent to an annual national loss rate of 244,525 ha/year.” To give an idea of scale, that is roughly an area the size of Luxembourg lost each year.

Deforestation is centred in the north of the country where its largest forest, and the continent’s second largest, following only the massive Amazon, lies.

“The provinces of Santiago del Estero and Salta were the most heavily impacted, having 590,094 hectares and 516,069 hectares converted respectively between 2004 and 2011.”

Map of habitat loss in Argentina, Terra-i detection.

The Gran Chaco spreads over three countries: Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. As defined by data provided by the Organization of American States (OAS), the “Gran Chaco Americano” biome covers approximately 1,000,000 km² of South America and encompasses the central-north region of Argentina (53% of the total area of the Gran Chaco and 22% of the country’s surface area).

According to Reymondin, the South American Gran Chaco is a mosaic of habitats. It is a hotspot of biodiversity on the continent and one that is becoming increasingly threatened.

The data coming from Terra-i is especially pertinent as it attempts to isolate the deforestation resulting from human activity.

“The Terra-i outputs are of course not noise [error] free and we cannot guarantee that every single pixel that has been detected is the result of human activity, nor is Terra-i detecting all the events of deforestation that occurred since 2004.”

That said, Reymondin has included many special equations to ensure it is the best data available: “… we have implemented a range of methodologies to reduce the effect of noise, such as cloud cover, and to filter land cover changes that are not human-caused, or at least not directly, such as floods and drought. We can therefore say that the majority of the detections that we observe can be attributed to human activity.”

Why is the Chaco Disappearing? 

Perhaps the most obvious driver of change is the blanket of soy that has been rapidly spreading over the continent since the 1990’s.

Changes in global markets have expedited this process in the new millennium, especially in Argentina. A country with a huge farming component, the rolling pampas of grazing cattle typically associated with the Argentine countryside are being replaced by industrial farms growing soy, now a much more lucrative crop for any farmer.

The romantic vision of ranch life remains important in Argentine culture, but the economic equations involved in the agriculture business have changed in recent years.  The expansion of soy farming is driven by US ethanol production and a global interest in biofuels; prices for soy continue to break records.

Soybean farming has been rapidly spreading over the continent for the last ten years. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Some agricultural analysts say that Argentine soybean farming is now several times more profitable than cattle ranching.

It is these profitable equations which are threatening the Chaco. Large-scale agribusinesses are encroaching on protected Chaco regions both themselves, and by pushing cattle ranchers into the area after evicting them from lands they traditionally used.

Now the third largest soy producer in the world, Argentina’s aggressive land conversions will soon change this status. Widespread drought in the US, formerly the top soy producer, combined with a larger than usual yield predicted for the 2012-2013 harvest, will put the Southern Cone soy producers in the top spot for production.

Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil combined are producing well over half of the soy on the international market. All countries in the Southern cone are rapidly converting all arable land to soy at breakneck speed.

Lessons of Paraguay 

Perhaps nowhere is the power of soy, and the threat to the Chaco in the face of this, more apparent than in the case of Paraguay.

Recently, Paraguay made headlines worldwide by the all-too-quick impeachment of left-leaning president Fernando Lugo, prompting international sanctions and public condemnation.

Paraguay is currently the fourth-largest exporter of soy. Loose regulations and relative poverty make it an easy target for multi-national soy giants to take hold there. Terra-i created a video -which can be viewed here- illustrating the massive changes in land taking place in the neighbouring country.

Around 77% of Paraguay’s arable land is owned by just 2% of the population. In the past ten years, deals have been struck for 203 million hectares of land — nearly six times the size of Germany — at a pace and scale that outstripped the ability of governance structures to respond, a situation which Lugo sought to reverse with a reform that never quite came to fruition.

Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, writes in a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, “The Paraguay soy boom — made in China and Europe and grown upon the lands of the political elite — is controlled by the boardrooms of Big Business. As much as 70% of Paraguay’s soy is exported each year and of that the multinational grain giants Cargill, ADM, and Bunge account for about 70% [of all soy exported].”

Los Angeles based KPFK’s Sojourner Truth radio show recently featured a segment on the impeachment of Fernando Lugo. The show hosted Miguel Lovera, the former national secretary for plant safety under Lugo, who spoke of the impeachment as being a coup orchestrated by a ‘Genetically Modified Soy Mafia.’

Lovera was outspoken on the show in claiming Lugo’s removal as being intrinsically related to his moves to protect Paraguay’s Gran Chaco from encroachment by multi-national soy companies and his desire to redistribute their land to smaller-scale farmers.

“The main comparative advantage of Paraguay as a soy growing territory has actually been the lack of regulations in the past. Since Lugo’s government took over that condition changed, and we actually started regulating … venturing into sensitive territory and they weren’t ready to adapt.”

Lovera hints that the original struggle in the northern region resulting in the deaths of peasants and police officers was not only orchestrated by the soy mafia, but actually committed by those in their employment.

At the very least, there is a dangerous concentration of power in terms of Paraguayan soy -an industry controlled by only a handful of very powerful multinationals which account for an undeniably influential lobby.

Lovera states that the Chaco, after small-scale peasants, is becoming the most visible victim, “[The Chaco] is also the area that is allocating all this displacement, the cattle ranching displacement in the areas that are good for soy growing, they are encroaching into this wilderness.”

To Bear Witness

The power of something like Terra-i in the face of the great changes taking place in South America is perhaps that it is an indisputable witness to what is occurring here. An omniscient eye-in-the-sky silently watching and detailing every change taking place, no matter how remote the location in which it is occurring.

“Habitat conversion is contributing to widespread loss of biodiversity and other critical ecosystem services, yet in many parts of the world the scale and pattern of habitat loss still goes unmonitored,” says Reymondin.

“Decision makers at multiple scales (local to national to regional) need information on land-cover change, as accurate and recent as possible, in order to prioritise interventions and act upon new land-cover change patterns in a timely manner. Terra-i aims to provide information about habitat loss at a temporal and spatial resolution that is relevant for decision makers.”

The data and real-time images coming from Terra-i provide interest groups, interventionists, and really anyone with an interest, solid data to point to. It is free, accessible, and irrefutable.

Infographic of the deforestation in Chaco showing the locations and damage done. (courtesy of Greenpeace)

Reymondin and his team aim to expand Terra-i. South America, while a significant achievement to monitor an entire continent, is but one of many hotspots in terms of biodiversity loss and deforestation due to human activity.

“We will keep updating the detection of deforestation in Latin America as data comes in from the MODIS satellite sensors. We plan to extend Terra-i to cover the whole tropics which will be a new challenge as this increases considerably the amount of data to process.”

Terra-I also plans to broaden its lens to encompass other resources, including the multifarious effects deforestation has on water resources.

Quite simply, Terra-I is the fly on the wall (or better, bird in the sky) bearing witness to the changes taking place. Increasing awareness and solid, publicly available information are key to social action.  Given this, perhaps tools like Terra-i could help to prevent future stories such as Lugo’s in South America.

How aware are Argentines of the deforestation problem? Click here to find out.

Collection of plastic bottles event from December 2011 (Courtesy of Banco del Bosques)

“One bottle = one square metre” the green-capped Villavicencio water bottle reads. Emiliano Ezcurra is the director of an Argentine NGO that is helping people use their plastic bottles to save the country’s forests. “We buy the forests and then comes the revolution,” he announces.

We hear so many statistics about deforestation, most of us have become numb to them. Every minute an area the size of three football pitches is cleared in the Amazon; in the ‘Gran Chaco Americano’, a vast forest that binds Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, tens of thousands of hectares are chopped down every month. The figures are staggering but few people believe they can do anything about it. Some, fortunately, do.

A dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist, Ezcurra spent his working life since he was 16 at Greenpeace, before launching ‘Banco de Bosques’ in 2010. He speaks with a passion and authority that is fitting of his experience; his enthusiasm, it would seem, has not dwindled.

Put simply, the NGO – The Forest Bank, in English – is working to save Argentina’s forests. Its focal point is ‘La Fidelidad’ a 250,000-hectare chunk of land in the Chaco forest that they are in the process of buying to turn into a National Park. People who want to contribute to the project use their website – available in four languages – to donate money to save parts of the forest. They scan the website’s satellite images, find a bit they like and “buy” it. Land in the forest is surprisingly cheap but you can only purchase it in large quantities, that’s why the NGO’s role is essential.

But ‘Banco de Bosques’ isn’t just about collecting money. Their innovative fundraising scheme has been getting people to use something they normally throw away, for good. If people don’t want to donate money, they can donate plastic bottles instead. The company then sells the bottles to recycling plants and uses the money to buy the land.

“The idea of collecting plastic bottles came about when [social activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee] Juan Carr proposed that instead of people paying for a concert [we were organising] with money, they could bring plastic bottles.” Ezcurra explains. “Around two bottles – less in fact – buys you a square metre of forest… When they give bottles, they feel involved in the campaign.”

The project teamed up with Villavicencio, the country’s biggest drinking water company, to encourage people to get involved. Ezcurra hopes that in three years, they will have bought all 250,000-hectares which they will give to the state to make a National Park.

When you zoom out from ‘La Fidelidad’ on the website’s satellite imagery, it can be a little disheartening. What appeared to be an enormous mass of land is gobbled up by the huge swathes of forests surrounding it that are still potentially threatened by deforestation. But ‘La Fidelidad’ is just the tip of the iceberg for Ezcurra and his team, they are onto something much bigger “Banco de Bosques isn’t just about protecting forests, it’s about managing forests.”

Deforestation map on Banco de Bosques website

What they want to do is show that forests aren’t just beautiful trees loved by botanists; they can also be the source of profit making enterprises. “If we can make forests profitable, they don’t need to be destroyed,” he says.

Forests are full of small-scale profit turning opportunities, Ezcurra says, like, among others, ecotourism, organic honey production and fruit picking. They can make money and that, he believes, is the key to their survival.

A person chaining himself to a tree isn’t a viable type of activism anymore – to secure forests’ safety in today’s market-driven society, you have to make them attractive where it counts – financially. “With 1000 hectares of forest in the Chaco, you can make a profit. It doesn’t matter if it’s less or more than what you could do with soy, what matters is that it’s profitable.”

Can you really convince somebody who wants to plant highly profitable soy fields to stick with the forest and invest in ethical products instead? Ezcurra thinks so. “If people want to cut down the forest to plant soy we can say ‘No, what you’re doing has a negative effect on society – you can make money off this forest.’” It’s all about plain talking and being realistic. “’Maybe you won’t be able to buy a Ferrari, but you’ll be able to buy a [Volkswagen] Bora – it’s a good car.’”

Forests are in danger and Banco del Bosques are working to save them.

Emiliano Ezcurra calls himself a financial activist these days – he wants to take investment funds’ money away from destructive practices to channel them into positive projects and he’s confident there is a market for it. “There are a lot of investors who don’t want to work with forest-destroying projects anymore.”

In a few years he wants to have founded ‘Banco de Bosques Investments’, a green organisation that can compete with other investment companies and use its capital for good, supporting small enterprises that work with forests.

It’s all part of a bigger vision for society that goes at a healthier more sustainable pace. “We need a more intelligent economy, one that is adapted to nature,” he says. “You don’t adapt the forest to suit production; you adapt production to suit the forest.” Why? “Because nature doesn’t forgive,” and he sees us facing difficulties if we don’t act soon.

So much of the country’s forests have already been chopped down and deforestation is still going on at an alarming rate but Ezcurra is confident that his team can still win. “It’s like we’re losing three nil and there are 15 minutes left but we’re on the pitch and we can turn the result around.” A wry smile. “It takes balls and we’ve got plenty.”

A firm handshake, a swift goodbye and he’s off. There’s a German group interested in the project and he needs to go to Iguazu to meet them. The previous week he met with people from HSBC and they loved it. Maybe he’s on to something with this financial activism. 15 minutes left? Plenty of time.

Greenpeace revealed new photographic evidence today of severe deforestation in the north-eastern province of Chaco. The images show environmental damage in the protected area of El Impenetrable.

The environmental organisation is calling on the Argentine government to stop the illegal activities that violate the Forest Act.

“The images are compelling. They show bulldozers in the process of clearing, and it’s severe impact on native forests in areas where national law prohibits it,” said Greenpeace representative Hernán Giardini.

On May 14^th the provincial government suspended silvopastoral harvesting in native forests for 60 days. This order came out of a meeting between Governor Jorge Capitanich and Greenpeace representatives.

“We hope [Jorge] Capitancih meets the Forest Act and stop the fever of the bulldozers,” said Giardini. “We will continue to monitor the region and enforce the Forest Act.”

The Land Demarcation of Native Forests classifies El Impenetrable, which covers around 4 million hectares of native forest mainly situated in the Chaco region, as Category I and Category II forests, prohibiting clearing.

It is home to critically endangered and protected animals, such as the jaguar, the giant armadillo and anteater. Around 60,000 people live in El Impenetrable, mainly members of indigenous communities, who have over the years suffered human rights abuses by government and deforesters.

A new law to revise the Forest Code in Brazil has come under fire from environmental groups, drawing claims that amnesty to landowners responsible for deforestation and eased environmental restrictions will only open up the door to further natural exploitation.

The law will pardon environmental crimes committed through 2008, forgiving a debt equivalent to US $5.680 million. Additionally, it will no longer be required for landowners to reforest a 30m margin from river basins, reducing the distance for Permanent Preservation Areas (APP) to 15m.

For rivers wider than 10m, each Brazilian state will determine the size of the protected areas at its own discretion.

The mandatory reforestation areas, established as the APP in 1989, were designed to halt deforestation of the country’s most vulnerable environments.  The revised law remains subject to the sanction of President Dilma Roussef.

While proponents of the law argue that the previous APP restrictions harmed thousands of small farmers subsisting on the banks of the rivers, environmental groups warn that thousands of square km along the Brazilian Amazon will now be left exposed to construction projects and logging.

Experts and specialists appear so far to be echoing the doubts of environmentalists, pointing out that the pardoning of landowners could open Brazil up to trade retaliation affecting the local agricultural industry.

“Brazil is taking a shot in the foot by creating unnecessary geopolitical vulnerability, said Virgilio Viana, general superintendent of the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation.