IPS-English ARGENTINA: Camping in the Treetops to Save Forests
 
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:04:16 -0700

 
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 11   (IPS)  - Greenpeace activists are camped 
out in the treetops in the Yungas forest in northwestern 
Argentina to press the Senate to pass a new law that would curb 
the heavy logging of native forests, and to draw attention to the 
destruction.

”Night time is spectacular, when the temperature drops and the 
wind picks up. But the heat is suffocating in the day time,” 
Romina MacGibbon, one of the Greenpeace campers, told IPS.

The tents are hanging 25 metres above ground in trees in the 
Yungas Biosphere Reserve in the northwestern province of Salta.

The area in the high Andes of northern Argentina has a wide 
variety of landscapes, from subtropical mountain forest 
characterised by high biodiversity to cloud-swept grasslands. It 
was declared a biosphere reserve by the United Nations 
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 
1992.

But the reserve is under threat from agribusiness interests and 
their bulldozers, which have been authorised by the government of 
Salta to carry out logging in the reserve.

In recent weeks, provincial authorities gave permission to owners 
of nearby farmland to log 1,670 hectares of forest within the 
borders of the reserve.

The environmentalists called an assembly of local people in the 
area, who voted against the logging and staged roadblocks to keep 
trucks from reaching the site. 

And now MacGibbon, Nidia Barrientos and Roxana Florelli, all of 
whom have received training in jungle survival techniques and who 
have the back-up of a Greenpeace team in the town of Orán, 20 km 
from the reserve, have been camping out in the trees since 
Saturday to keep the bulldozers from advancing any farther and to 
urge the Senate to pass the forest protection law.

The landowners cutting trees in the area did not attempt to keep 
the members of Greenpeace Argentina from setting up the treetop 
camp.

But the camp, which will be occupied by rotating teams, is far 
from comfortable. The area is not only home to pumas, jaguars and 
tapirs, but also to snakes and a large variety of insects. And 
temperatures climb above 30 degrees Celsius during the day, and 
plunge at night, MacGibbon described.

According to the Secretariat of the Environment and Sustainable 
Development, Argentina has 33 million hectares of native forests. 
But in the last decade, the expansion of the agricultural 
frontier, driven largely by the boom in transgenic soy, has led 
to the destruction of 250,000 to 300,000 hectares a year, even in 
protected areas.

The worst deforestation is occurring in Salta. In 2003, the 
government granted permission to cut trees in a provincial 
reserve in Pizarro, an area inhabited by Wichí indigenous 
communities. To prevent that from happening, the National Park 
Administration purchased the reserve, after an intense campaign 
waged by Greenpeace.

But that victory did not stop the clear-cutting from continuing 
in other parts of the province.

Greenpeace, the local environmental groups Fundación Ambiente y 
Recursos Naturales, Fundación Proteger and Fundación Vida 
Silvestre, and the Secretariat of the Environment sponsored the 
forest protection bill that would declare a moratorium on logging 
until each province presented land-use zoning plans to the 
Secretariat, with a minimum area set aside for protected habitats 
of native species.

But the draft law, which was approved in March by the Chamber of 
Deputies, has been blocked by the Senate.

A Greenpeace source told IPS that the creation of a compensation 
fund for the provinces is currently being discussed, which may 
ease resistance in the Senate.

The draft law would declare a nationwide state of emergency for 
forests, prohibiting all logging until the provinces presented 
land-use plans, under which forests would be divided into green 
areas of low conservation value that could be partially or 
totally modified; yellow areas of medium conservation value which 
could only be used for environmentally sustainable activities, 
like tourism; and red areas of high conservation value which 
would be protected and preserved intact.

In addition, no logging would be allowed on the traditional lands 
of native communities.

The main resistance in the Senate comes from the representatives 
of three northern provinces, Formosa, Misiones and Salta, where 
the worst friction has been seen over clear-cutting of forests by 
large landowners and agribusiness to create new farmland.

Greenpeace and other environmental organisations launched an 
online petition drive in early August aimed at collecting over 
one million signatures urging Congress to pass the new forest 
protection law. So far, 621,000 signatures have been gathered.

The petition campaign and treetop camp are also aimed at 
increasing public awareness of the dangers faced by the country's 
forests.

The assistant secretary for the Environment and Sustainable 
Development, Miguel Pellerano, told IPS that the government is 
confident that the creation of a compensation fund will curb 
resistance to the new law by the provinces and private interests 
that own land containing native forests.

”The aim is for the Senate to approve the version of the draft 
law that made it through the lower house, but with the addition 
of a chapter that would create a fund to be used for the 
maintenance, protection and sustainable use of native forests,” 
said Pellerano.

The funds would go to provincial governments in need of support 
to maintain forests, as well as private producers who may need 
financial assistance for conservation or sustainable use 
projects, he explained.

The proposed new fund, accepted by environmental organisations, 
was well-received by senators who have been reluctant to vote in 
favour of the law.

”With this new element, we might be able to make progress on the 
initiative, although it would unlikely happen before the Oct. 28 
elections,” said Senator Marcelo López Arias, who represents the 
province of Salta.

Meanwhile, the Greenpeace activists will continue to camp out in 
the treetops, warding off insect bites and the heat as the 
southern hemisphere summer approaches, in their bid to save 
Argentina's native forests.


***** + AGRICULTURE-ARGENTINA:  Trespassers in the Nature Reserve 
- 2004 (http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=25033)


(END/IPS/LA EN DV MD CS SU/TRASP-SW/MV/MJ/07)


 
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