The Argentine branch of the environmental organization Greenpeace has denounced the alleged deforestation of an area of forest where logging is restricted in the northeastern province of Chaco. “This is covert deforestation,” Hernán Giardini of Greenpeace Argentina told Tierramérica. “They leave a few isolated trees standing and are wiping out the understory, where animals feed, with the intention of doubling cattle stocks by 2015,” he reported.

Under a forest law passed in 2007, each province was required to formulate land zoning regulations for forest areas. Chaco did so in 2009, and established areas in which only sustainable activity is allowed.

One of these areas is now being cleared to make way for intensive livestock raising, Greenpeace alleges.