Deforestation boom in Gran Chaco raises alarm over Argentina’s forest law

One of South America’s largest ecosystems saw an increase in deforestation last year, with agriculture, livestock and fires contributing the most to the destruction of native dry forests. The problem has led some conservation groups to speak out about weak environmental regulations that allow land-use change to go unpunished.

The Gran Chaco was hit by rising deforestation in 2024, damaging the dry forest ecosystem that spans approximately 65 million hectares (160 million acres) — an area more than one and a half times the size of California — across Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Conservation groups in Argentina, which has the biggest share of the Gran Chaco, are calling for stricter penalties to prevent additional habitat loss.

“More deforestation means more climate change, floods, desertification, evictions of rural residents and Indigenous communities, disappearance of species in danger of extinction and diseases,” said Hernán Giardini, coordinator of Greenpeace’s forests campaign. “Faced with this alarming situation, we believe that both clearing and forest fires must urgently be prohibited and penalized.”

In 2024, Argentina lost 149,649 hectares (369,791 acres) of its approximately 52.6 million hectares (130 million acres) of Gran Chaco forest — most of it from agriculture and fires, according to a Greenpeace report. The provinces with the most forest loss were Santiago del Estero, Chaco, Formosa and Salta. It was a slight increase from the previous year, which saw 134,700 hectares (332,851 acres) of forest loss.

Out of all of last year’s forest loss, 29,763 hectares (7,3546 acres), or a fifth, were the result of fires, according to the report. Nearly all of them were caused by bonfires and poorly extinguished cigarette butts and preparation for cattle pasture, according to the Ministry of National Security. Formosa, Salta and Chaco were affected the most.

The Argentine Gran Chaco, which makes up around two-thirds of the biome, is home to an estimated 3,400 plant species, including the emblematic white quebracho tree (Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco), and 500 bird species, including the Chaco chachalaca (Ortalis canicollis) and great rufous woodcreeper (Xiphocolaptes major), according to The Nature Conservancy. It also hosts hundreds of mammal, reptile and amphibian species.

The area is also home to roughly nine million people, with about a quarter of Argentina’s Gran Chaco converted for agricultural use over the last 20 years. Between 1998 and 2023, the area lost nearly 7 million hectares (17 million acres), according to the country’s National System for Native Forest Monitoring.

In recent years, agriculture, livestock and forestry activities have contributed an estimated 39% to Argentina’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the country’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

“It is time for political leaders to act to end this ecocide,” Giardini said. “Scientific consensus has been warning about the climate and biodiversity emergency we are facing.”

Argentina’s Forest Law was passed in 2007 to address the expanding agricultural frontier and help local officials determine where to devote resources to forest conservation. Provincial governments must create land-use plans for forested areas, categorizing them by how much activity can be carried out.

Land use is broken down into a “red” category for strict conservation, a “yellow” category for sustainable use, and a “green” category allowing for possible changes in land use once environmental impact assessments and community consultation are carried out.

The legislation has had a largely positive impact, prohibiting clearing in almost 80% of forest areas, according to Greenpeace. But it has also been manipulated in some Gran Chaco provinces to allow for increased development, the group’s report said.

Some provincial governments, including those of Chaco and Salta, have allegedly altered ordinances to allow for an increase in the areas where a permit for clearing can be granted, violating the categorization provision of the Forest Law. That means some areas labeled green should actually be yellow. And some areas labeled yellow should be red.

The forest categorizations are also supposed to be updated every five years, Greenpeace’s report noted, but many provincial governments have failed to do so. That makes it hard to know exactly how much of the Forest Law is being manipulated.

Greenpeace said penalties for deforestation aren’t strict enough and don’t discourage people from clearing the forest.

“It’s clear that fines are not enough to discourage illegal clearing and forest fires, and those responsible are rarely forced to reforest,” the report said. “In many cases, the complicity of officials is clear.”

Banner image: The Bermejo River in the Gran Chaco, Argentina. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Tourism/Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

See related from this reporter: 

Elephant seal colonies in Argentina face long recovery after ‘catastrophic’ avian flu

FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

Credits

Alexandrapopescu Editor

This story first appeared on Mongabay

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.