Araucaria forest and lakes of Chile's last temperate rainforests.
In Chile, where most of this ancient temperate jungle remains,
little has been done since 1992 to protect this endangered forest
region.
The production of timber increased by 83 percent in 1996 to 1998
compared to the previous decade, while the percentage of land
designated for conservation increased by only 0.4 percent.
Soya expantion
Soya expansion is the latest threat to native forests and
jungles in South America, sustained by the increased demand for
soya based animal feed from both the European Union and China.
Forests are being converted for soya production in Argentina,
Bolivia, Paraguay and southern Brazil. These areas are considered
to be some of the most biologically diverse forest ecosystems in
the world.
The 'United Soya Republic' as the genetic engineering industry
now calls Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil, is growing at
the expense of native forests, such as the Yungas and the Great
Chaco forests, and at great cost to biodiversity, other traditional
crops, as well as to human health, forest homes and
livelihoods.
The rapid expansion of soya cultivation in Argentina is largely
uncontrolled phenomenon, in 1971 only 37,700 hectares of
Argentina's arable land was used to grow soya. In the last 10
years, this area has increased 150 percent to a record 14.2 million
hectares.
This model of industrial agriculture began to boom in the 1990s,
when the international financial institutions encouraged
governments of the poorest countries to open their economies up to
foreign investment. This opened the way for the large
'agribusiness' multinationals, such as Monsanto, which found a
ready market for genetically modified soya amongst Argentina's
farming sector.
This cultivation has now moved to environmentally fragile areas
such as the northern Argentinean provinces of Chaco, Santiago del
Estero, Salta and Formosa. Over one million hectares of Argentina's
forests have been destroyed to grow soya since 2000, and the amount
is rising.
Initially, biotechnology industry spokespeople and even some
Argentinean authorities said that higher yields of genetically
engineered soya would avoid the need to deforest Argentina . Eight
years on, the forests are under threat and it's clear higher yields
of soya have only been achieved through cultivating more land and
deforestation.
Argentina is now the world's third largest soya producer and
it's top soya exporter. Over 90 percent of its harvest is exported,
98 percent of which is genetically modified.
The appropriation of forests for agriculture often involves the
forced eviction of 'campesinos' families and communities of
indigenous people, who have lived and worked on the land for
generations in areas such as Los Juries, the province of Santiago
del Estero, Salta Forestal and Lapacho Mocho. Taking advantage of
legally weak title deeds or no title deeds at all, corporations and
industrial farmers are buying vast areas of forest at very cheap
prices, sometimes as low as US$ 50 per hectare. The people living
on the lands, often called 'usurpers', have no legal rights and are
totally at the mercy of the landlords.