{"id":247903,"date":"2025-05-19T20:30:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T20:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/activist\/a-cemetery-of-trees-vast-green-expanses-turned-to-dust-as-loggers-plunder-south-americas-gran-chaco-deforestation\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T20:30:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T20:30:57","slug":"a-cemetery-of-trees-vast-green-expanses-turned-to-dust-as-loggers-plunder-south-americas-gran-chaco-deforestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=247903","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A cemetery of trees\u2019: vast green expanses turned to dust as loggers plunder South America\u2019s Gran Chaco | Deforestation"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I<\/span>n the Gran Chaco forest, vast green expanses \u2013 home to jaguars, giant armadillos and howler monkeys \u2013 have turned to fields of dust. The forest once brimmed with life, says Bashe Nuhem, a member of the Indigenous Qom community, but then came a road, and soon after that logging companies. \u201cIt was an invasion. Loggers came without any consultation and families moved away. Those that stayed were left with only a cemetery of trees,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The Gran Chaco is South America\u2019s second-largest forest after the Amazon; its 100m hectares<\/a> (247m acres) stretch across Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. It is also one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world \u2013 host to more than<\/a> 3,400 species of plants, 500 birds, 150 mammals, 120 reptiles and 100 amphibians.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Jaguars are in decline in South America, with only 200 thought to be left in Argentina, and fewer than 20 in the Gran Chaco.<\/span> Photograph: Rewilding Argentina Foundation\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But as agricultural and logging industries have encroached on the territory, it has also become one of the most deforested places on Earth.<\/p>\n