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The Argentine Chaco

Initiatives to Save One of Latin America’s Most Threatened Ecosystems

By GRID-Arendal

September 8^th, 2022

Originally published on Mongabay (Spanish). This story was supported by GRID-Arendal's Investigative Environmental Journalism Grants programme. Learn more.

By Julián Reingold and Ignacio Conese

* Chaco is the Argentine province where the largest forest extension of what was once the Great Chaco Forest is still preserved, however reports of illegal clearing have been among the highest in recent years.

* Actions by citizens and the provincial government itself are committed to ecotourism, other forms of livestock farming and payment for environmental services to stop the progress of deforestation that affects one of the most threatened forests in Latin America.

The Argentine Gran Chaco, a region of enormous and unexplored biodiversity, is one of the serious red flags of deforestation in Latin America. The dry forests located in the north of the country are disappearing at great speed due to the advance of the industrial production of soybeans and meat: in the second half of 2021 alone, this area lost 10,331 hectares of forest areas, according to a recent report by the Undersecretary of Natural Resources of the Province of Chaco. The same study details that in all that deforested area, only 259 hectares had an official authorization to make the change of land use.

In this scenario of strong pressure on native forests, there are also initiatives that seek to stop this loss of biodiversity and conserve what remains. This text documents three of those sustainable development strategies that are carried out from private and government sectors; actions that seek that the species of flora and fauna that inhabit the Argentine Chaco are not just a memory.

These strategies are committed to activities such as ecotourism to conserve native forests. The Tantanacuy Reserve, for example, resists in the midst of forest clearing by offering experiences such as specialized photo safaris and bird watching. While the El Cachapé Haven promotes low-impact livestock. The provincial government of Chaco also promotes the use of technology to finance the conservation of forest lands.

Tantanacuy Reserve: a Conservation Island

In the department of Almirante Brown, near the border with the province of Santiago del Estero, lies the Tantanacuy Reserve, a protected and private area of 2,500 hectares with native forest in the middle of a desert of illegal clearing.

The land of the reserve is located within an area in which, according to the Law of Native Forests, it is possible to carry out forest exploitation but not changes in land use. Despite this, around 5,000 hectares of land use suffered changes in its use in the vicinity of the site, according to data provided by the Provincial Ministry of the Environment.

The restrictions imposed by the Law of Native Forests have not been able to stop the landowners who present technical arguments to obtain the approval of the changes in land use by the Undersecretary of Forestry Development of the Ministry of Production.

Satellite views of the clearing around Tantanacuy, taken from Google Earth Engine for the years 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2020.

The Forest Law states that land use change authorizations should only be of an “exceptional nature”. That does not happen in fact. In its 2021 management report, the Undersecretary of Forestry Development indicated that, as a result of the 950 remote sensing reports from the Geo Information Center on illegal clearing, 1,500 infraction files were opened to apply the fines to those responsible.

The Ministry of Production has among its functions to monitor what activities take place in the Chaco forest, but it lacks the resources to deal with illegal logging. In addition, most of the time the producers prefer to burn the land, clear it and pay the fines.

In the Tantanacuy Reserve, the forest has managed to be saved: to the east of the protected area the native forest is conserved, where representative forest species of the Chaco forest are protected, among them the white quebracho (Aspidosperma quebracho–blanco) and red quebracho (Schinopsis balansae), as well as guaranina (Sideroxylon obtusifolium).

In the Chaco, there is a bet on the expansion of reforestation with eucalyptus tree species to eventually replace the quebracho inputs for the forestry industry from the Impenetrable. Photo: Reingold/Conese.

Shelter for the Jaguar

The owner of Tantanacuy, Luis Dellamea, explains that two decades ago he proposed to create the private conservation area and carry out ecotourism activities, such as specialized photo safaris and bird watching. During these 20 years, the site has become a kind of sanctuary for biodiversity threatened by the advance of agricultural activities.

This reserve maintains an agreement with the Jaguar Project – 'Yaguareté', in Guaraní language - for the conservation of Chaco fauna. This has allowed that in 2021, the presence of the jaguar within the protected areas’ lands to be documented, quite a finding if one considers that Argentina is the country in South America in which there are fewer jaguars: about 250 individuals.

In the last decade, the Gran Chaco region has registered a significant decrease in this species, today it is estimated that there are less than 20. According to the non-governmental organization Greenpeace, to guarantee its survival each animal needs about 40 thousand hectares of forest. continuous and in a good state of conservation, an area similar to two cities in Buenos Aires.

Manuel Jaramillo, general director of the Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina – local chapter of WWF -, highlights the role played by conservation initiatives on private lands, which are often based on tourist activities to cover the operating costs of the reserves they protect.

"It is important," Jaramillo points out, "that the State is present, that control and supervision are emphasized in the areas where ecotourism activities are implemented, and that it is also accompanied by a landscape design that is reflected in the environmental ordinance of the native forests”.

Footprints of maned popé or South American raccoon and fox in the El Cachapé Private Refuge. Through the ranch's trap camera, the presence of armadillos, coatis, peccaries, guazunchos and jaguarundis, among others animals, has also been detected.

Betting on Another Kind of Livestock

35% of the 1800 hectares that make up El Cachapé Haven is forest; there it is possible to find some tree species with ages ranging from 300 to 400 years. The rest are grasslands on hills, half hills and ravines that dominate the area; there predominates the ‘paja boba’, a native species of rough straw despised for its low nutritional value for livestock.

It was just this rough straw that helped the ranch during the drought that affected the region in 2008. The few animals that survived at that time did so thanks to this native species resistant to lack of water.

In the world, there are three methods that predominate in cattle breeding. In intensive farming, the animals live confined to relatively small land surfaces, where growth and fattening are based on balanced feed and fodder. This method generates shorter production cycles and higher yields, however, it has been criticized for operating at the expense of the animals' quality of life and health.

In extensive farming, on the other hand, the animals are free to graze and are fattened naturally. In general, the grassland species used are exotic or a selection of natives. But this method also generates problems, since fire is often used to prepare the meadows with the risk of causing forest fires.

One of the most common practices is the mixed method, where the animals spend most of their growth grazing, but the final stage of their fattening is done in intensive establishments.

Extensive ranching in El Cachapé. Photo: Reingold/Conese.

In the El Cachapé Private Haven, the cattle are fattened in natural pastures, between the humid Chaco mountains. No introduced grassland species are used, nor is pasture management carried out —removing some species in favor of others—, rather the environment itself is allowed to exercise natural selection: here the same animals disperse the seeds.

In the refuge, in addition to selecting the grazing areas taking into account whether it is the rainy or dry season, the number of animals that graze in each area is also controlled, to prevent the structure of the natural grasslands from being modified. The place is located in the middle of a territory that oscillates between the dry areas and the humid area, whose muddy soil gradually becomes sandy as you move west.

Eduardo Boló Bolaño, owner of the private reserve, highlights the effort he has made to transmit to all workers the importance of conserving the place and not hunting the animals that can still be seen in the forest areas: monkeys, toucans and alligators.

A tour in the El Cachapé reserve. Photo: Reingold/Conese.

In Cachapé they have assumed that their commitment to conservation requires a "high content of romanticism", according to Eduardo Boló. Many producers, he points out, do not know that by having a different grazing model they carry out their activity in a sustainable way. In addition, he points out, the lack of official support does not help to promote this livestock model.

Those who work in this refuge point out that the other productive options in the area are extractive. In addition, they say, “the forest is not foolish”: the forest can be cleared, but then the soil only lasts three years.

To contribute to the recovery of the forest area, in the El Cachapé Refuge they carry out tests to reforest with carob trees (Ceratonia siliqua), a tree species that improves the conditions of degraded soils.

Manuel Jaramillo, general director of the Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina, mentions that good forest management, with integrated livestock, is a way to promote the socioeconomic development of local communities, restore degraded areas and, at the same time, conserve the ecosystem of the Great American Chaco.

The Chaco Eco-Token

Payment for environmental services is nothing new in the world; it is a mechanism that already has several decades of history. The basic concept is that a community, whose territory provides ecosystem services (such as water supply) to a region, can receive financial compensation for conserving the natural assets that are in its environment. These payments can be made by the nearby population or third parties interested in nature conservation.

To promote payment for environmental services in northern Argentina, in April 2022, the provincial government presented in the city of Washington, United States, a financial tool baptized ‘Eco-Token del Chaco’, with which it seeks to obtain resources to promote comprehensive and sustainable development projects in the communities in the northwest of the province of Chaco, where the El Impenetrable National Park is located.

The novelty of this payment system for environmental services is that it uses a digital tool and cryptocurrencies to make this type of compensation. What is sought is that the payments come from the international capital market.

According to Capitanich “as a country, we must strengthen our environmental creditor strategy”, which implies the protection of the environment, the reduction of GHG and assuming that we are the strategic reserve of the planet in order to achieve a paradigm shift. Photo: Reingold/Conese.

In the decree creating the Eco-Token, published in June 2022, it is stated that the environmental services obtained from the ecosystems of the Gran Chaco are the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to carbon fixation; as well as the preservation of hydrographic basins and, therefore, of water sources; the conservation of soils and the scenic beauty of the native forests and wetlands of Chaco.

The idea of the provincial government is to start this project in 100,000 hectares; half of this territory is forest areas and includes some of the strategic reserves, such as its Ramsar sites and the Impenetrable forest.

From the provincial government they are aware that illegal clearing originates, among other things, from the laxness of the current system of forest guides and the lack of effective control by the police in the territories. With the Eco-Token project they aim to get more funds to improve surveillance systems.

“Regardless of the different technological tools available today, and those that are developed in the future, the importance that these ecosystem services continue to be available to local communities and indigenous peoples must not be lost sight of, and they must ensure that any marketing of themselves does not negatively affect those actors in the territory”, they point out from the Fundación Vida Silvestre.

At this point it is difficult to predict the success of this model of payment for environmental services that the provincial government intends to launch in the cryptocurrencies market, which is not characterized by its good relationship or trust in government institutions.

The question that remains hanging in the air is whether there is a market interested in buying what Chaco wants to offer with its Token and, if not, what is plan B, because the thousands of hectares illegally cleared yearly in the Chaco need a prompt response.

The El Cachapé lagoon, with its singing frogs, is a reflection of the biodiversity that still abounds in the Chaco. Photo: Reingold/Conese.

About the authors

Julián Reingold

Born in 1988, Julian holds a BA in Sociology (UBA) and an MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development (UCL). His investigative climate solutions work has been focused on ecosystem services, energy transitions and climate justice movements. Contributor to Mongabay, Jacobin, Le Monde Diplomatique, El País, VICE and Revista Anfibia, among others. He has been a fellow of GRID-Arendal, Earth Journalism Network, One Earth Initiative and Climate Tracker. His work in environmental photography has been recognized by UNESCO. Based in between Athens and Buenos Aires.

Twitter: @jrein88

Instagram: @julianreingold

Web: https://julianreingold.wordpress.com

Ignacio Conese

Born in 1985, Ignacio is a bilingual (Spanish-English) storyteller and photographer from Córdoba, Argentina. His stories and reportages of different social and environmental issues have been published by outlets such as VICE, El País, TRT World, Letras Libres, LAND, and Mongabay among others. Based in Córdoba, Argentina.