Argentina

The Argentine province of Corrientes has the largest area of tree plantations in the country. 80% of the timber from these plantations goes to sawmills, where mountains of sawdust are regularly burned, causing serious health problems for neighboring communities. The local organization, Guardians of Y'vera, conducted a community health survey to highlight the problem, demand the relocation of these mills, and denounce the impacts of the forestry model.

On July 5, 2024, three peasant families were violently evicted in Paraje San Lorenzo 2, in the municipality of Wanda, in the Argentine province of Misiones. The provincial police carried out the eviction, in collaboration with the multinational company, Arauco. During the operation, the police destroyed the ten-hectare farm which had been the families' livelihood for a decade.

Llamamos a organizaciones a firmar esta carta para exigir a las autoridades de la provincia de Misiones, Argentina, la entrega urgente de 434 hectáreas que le corresponden por ley a la cooperativa Productores Independientes de Piray (PIP-UTT). Las tierras están ocupadas por plantaciones forestales de la multinacional Arauco.

After 14 years of profiting from tree plantations—and at the cost of destroying wetlands and communities—the Harvard Management Company, one of the largest investment funds, sold 88,000 hectares in Corrientes to Argentina's largest electric power company, Central Puerto, which also wants to produce wood, biomass energy and carbon offsets.

In Jujuy, in northwest Argentina, indigenous communities and workers from different sectors are fighting against a provincial constitutional reform that was approved in June 2023. The reform enables lithium extraction in indigenous territories and criminalizes social protest, among other rights violations.

The Independent Producers of Piray (PIP) in Misiones, Argentina was formed in 2005 to stop the advance of multinational Arauco’s pine tree monocultures and reclaim the land. WRM spoke with Miriam Samudio, a key member of the PIP family, to reflect on the process of the struggle and the lessons learned.

What a certain historiography terms civilizational expansion or capital’s expansion has in fact been the invasion and de-territorialization of peoples and communities using much epistemic and territorial violence. Concessions have been granted in areas that are not demographic voids, a colonial concept that ignores the fact that they have been populated for millennia.

The Argentinian government continues to subsidize industrial tree plantations, now as a policy against climate change as well. From dispossession and land appropriation, to deforestation and more forest fires, pine trees are devastating territories and communities.

The organization, Independent Producers of Piray, in Argentina, organized to stop the Alto Paraná company and the monoculture of pine trees. The Alto Paraná company was acquired in 1996 by multinational pulp company, Arauco. The peasant women and men resisted and achieved something rarely seen: expropriation of lands from the multinational company. The organization also produces food for food sovereignty.

Conversatorio virtual realizado el 21 de Septiembre de 2020, en conmemoración del Día Internacional de Lucha contra los Monocultivos de Árboles. Organizado por la Red Latinoamericana contra los Monocultivos de Árboles (Recoma).

The Secretary of Family Farming, Coordination and Territorial Development in Misiones, Argentina, signed an agreement to develop the cultivation of genetically modified corn with high productivity, in Misiones and Northeast Corrientes. The objective is to produce more than one million tons of corn from these territories and export them to Brazil. This jeopardizes the already-threatened biodiversity of native seeds in the province, as well as food sovereignty.

Over the last ten years, through organization and struggle, families in northeast Argentina have managed to recover land monopolized by multinational corporation Arauco. Now, they are growing food there.