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ARGENTINA: Continued Green Light for Destruction of Forests

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 27 2006 (IPS) - Despite the continued destruction of Argentina’s forests due to the advance of the agricultural frontier, a draft law that would have declared a “state of emergency” for the country’s forests was postponed until next year.

In an initial vote, the Chamber of Deputies approved the bill in November, and further debate on it was about to begin when the bloc of lawmakers from the Frente para la Victoria – President Néstor Kirchner’s faction of the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party – split on the issue.

In the last legislative session of the year, the bill, which had been drawn up with the participation of environmental organisations, was left without a quorum. The debate had already been put off three times.

“The representatives of the affected provinces decided not to debate the bill because it has aspects that are vague,” Fabiana Bianco, a legislator from the Frente para la Victoria who represents the northeastern province of Misiones, told IPS.

“We are not opposed to it, but we believe that each province should adhere to the ‘state of emergency’ in a voluntary manner,” said Bianco. Other lawmakers who support that point of view argue that the bill could “ride roughshod over provincial autonomy” if it is approved as is.

But proponents of the bill say it would have to be binding in order for it to be effective.

Deputy Marta Maffei of the centre-left opposition party Alternative for a Republic of Equals explained to IPS that the Frente para la Victoria is now divided between those who are in favour of rationally administering the country’s forestry resources and those who are opposed to controls on deforestation.

“The deputies from the northern provinces want the forests to be administered at the discretion of the governors. But we already know how that ends, because so far the forests have been exploited and plundered by private economic groups, without any controls,” she said.

The bill on environmental protection for native forests, which cover 33 million hectares in this South American country, is aimed at curbing the destruction of at last 250,000 hectares of forests a year, the result of the boom in intensive agriculture and livestock raising.

It was introduced by Deputy Miguel Bonasso of the Convergencia Party – which has close ties to the Frente para la Victoria – and has been staunchly defended by Maffei.

But the bill has now been put off until the special sessions to be held in February (after the southern hemisphere summer recess), when according to environmentalists it will be even more difficult to cobble together majority support because 2007 is an election year.

And if it makes it through the lower house of Congress, it will then have to go through the Senate.

“We’ll have to work hard to keep it from being postponed again, and to get it approved without substantial modifications, which would make it meaningless,” said Maffei.

According to the Secretariat (ministry) of the Environment and Sustainable Development, 250,000 hectares of forests are destroyed annually in Argentina, an area equivalent to 12 times the size of Buenos Aires, in order to expand crops, mainly transgenic soy beans.

“It’s a disgrace, a humiliating scandal. The pressure from the provinces where the deforestation is occurring made the deputies that were in favour of the bill do an about-face,” Hernán Giardini, coordinator of Greenpeace Argentina’s forest campaign, told IPS. Greenpeace was one of the organisations that helped draft the bill.

The congressional debate was put off because of the resistance of legislators from Kirchner’s faction of the ruling party, who represent the provinces where deforestation has reached critical levels.

Greenpeace sees the change of heart on the part of the governing party legislators as “hypocritical,” since President Kirchner stated this year that “climate change, protection of the native forests and control of water resources are the central focus of the government’s environmental policy.”

The Secretariat of the Environment backed the bill, but the interests of the provincial deputies turned out to be stronger than their party loyalty. A source with the Secretariat, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IPS that legislators and even governors lobbied hard to block the draft law.

The initiative also has the unanimous support of the country’s environmental organisations, as well as groups like the Argentine Agrarian Federation, which represents small farmers, and the Organisation of Indigenous Nations and Peoples of Argentina.

The bill, which had been approved in the initial vote in late November by 150 of the 176 members of the Chamber of Deputies, would have made any further deforestation illegal, even if the activities or projects had been previously authorised by provincial governments.

That triggered heavy resistance from provinces like Formosa and Misiones in the northeast and Salta in the northwest.

Just before the debate was dropped in the last legislative session of 2006, Greenpeace protested that the Salta provincial government had given permission for the destruction of 20,000 hectares of forests.

The bill would declare a temporary nationwide state of emergency for forests, while prohibiting deforestation without authorisation from the Secretariat of the Environment.

To lift the moratorium, each province would have to present a land-use zoning plan establishing different categories of forests, with a minimum area set aside for protected habitats of native species, and zones where forestry and agricultural activities are allowed.

Under the new land-use plans, forests would be divided into green areas of low conservation value that could be partially or totally transformed; yellow areas of medium conservation value which could only be used for environmentally sustainable activities; and red areas of high conservation value which would be protected and preserved intact.

In addition, indigenous communities living in forests would be allowed to cut down trees.

After each province draws up land-use plans, the Secretariat of the Environment would have the authority to permit logging or the destruction of forests after the presentation of specific environmental impact studies.

Environmental groups like Argentina’s Wildlife Foundation, the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation and Greenpeace Argentina defended the bill as setting a minimum level of protection for natural areas that are at risk.

The legislators from provinces where deforestation is a problem, meanwhile, wanted a moratorium that provincial governments would adhere to voluntarily.

Giardini said that in some provinces, like Salta, Chaco and Santiago del Estero, provincial governments had authorised deforestation in areas inhabited by indigenous or campesino (peasant farmer) communities whose right to their ancestral land has not been legally recognised in practice.