Chaco region concentrates 80% of Argentina's deforestation, Greenpeace report warned

Eighty percent of deforestation in  Argentina  is concentrated in four provinces in the Chaco region:  Santiago del Estero, Salta, Chaco and Formosa  , where 113,000 hectares were lost last year,  Greenpeace  warned today in a report in which it held responsibility; to the “uncontrolled expansion of the livestock industry”.

The extinction of the   yaguareté   - the largest feline in America and the third in the world - is another risk warned by the research “The sacrifice of the forests of Gran Chaco ", which was revealed today by the environmental organization.

It explains that “the uncontrolled expansion of the livestock industry is generating a historic crime on a unique place:  Gran Chaco , the second forest ecosystem of South America, after the Amazon.”

The importance of this space lies in the fact that, according to the report, 3,400 plant species, 500 species of birds, 150 mammals, 120 reptiles, 100amphibians and more than 4 million people, of whom about 8 per cent are indigenous, who depend on the forest to obtain food, water, wood and medicines.

“80% of the clearings are concentrated in the Chaco region, in the provinces of  Santiago del Estero, Salta, Chaco and Formosa , where the last five years deforestation by intensive livestock was more than double that caused by agriculture,” the report warned from Greenpeace.

In this vein, the organization blamed the “livestock industry” for making “the Chaco forests and almost all their species disappear” with its “big bulldozers.”

“In that soil, now satin, they install their cows after planting pastures for fattening a product that will then be exported and will end up in the gondola of a supermarket,” he said.

The work warned that the “Argentine steak comes to the table of consumers in the world at the cost of the destruction of the forests of Gran Chaco and the extinction of its king: the yaguareté”, one of the few species of Argentine fauna declared as a National Natural Monument by Law No. 25.463.

On the yaguaretés of Gran Chaco, he mentioned that they depend on very large territories (from 400 to 2,900 square kilometers) and added that “its decrease put the  species  on the verge of the extinction in the region”.

He further specified that “between 1985 and 2013, more than 20% of the Chaco forests (142,000 square kilometers) were converted into grasslands and farmland, reducing their biodiversity, particularly from the largest mammals.”

The organization drew attention to the large refrigerators in Argentina that export beef to large supermarkets and wholesalers in Europe and

Israel, who demanded that “adopt a 'Zero Deforestation Policy, 'and asked them to seriously implement it if they have it.”

“This means ensuring that both its production system and its suppliers do not cause deforestation and respect the rights of the  original peoples ,” he stressed.

The report also warned about the implementation of the Mercosur-European Union agreement, stating that “demand for Argentine beef will grow, the export business of large refrigerators will be more profitable and pressure on forests will increase.”

“Ambitious plans to increase bovine stock in the  northern  provinces of Argentina (10 million more cows) put 10 million hectares of forests at risk,” he warned.

In this sense, he predicted that “its degradation, deforestation and fragmentation will leave almost without the chance of survival the last 20 remaining yaguaretés in the Chaco region,” and he concluded that it is in time to avoid this situation.