Supreme Court halts deforestation

Argentina's Supreme Court has ordered a temporary halt to deforestation across most of the north and west of Salta province. This is quite an extraordinary turn of events, and has come as the result of coordinated actions between several indigenous and peasant organizations, the Catholic Church and ASOCIANA. The mere fact that the issue was the main headline in the local paper (see below) underlines the relevance of the decision and its political and economic implications for land owners and government authorities.


The ban is back dated to the first quarter of 2007, when the provincial government expedited deforestation permits prior to the introduction of a new federal law designed to protect Argentina's remaining native forests. ASOCIANA helped to reveal this fact through a study which was published earlier this year.

The Court has ordered the government of Salta to produce a list of all people and companies who have requested and obtained deforestation permits since the end of 2007. It has 30 days to do this.

On the 18th of Feb the Supreme Court will host a public enquiry on the issue of deforestation in Salta, in which all parties will be invited to make their case (either for or against deforestation) before the Court. This means ASOCIANA has its work cut out for the next 6 weeks!

This decision by the Court has come just as Salta is in the midst of introducing a watered-down version of a provincial law that was originally intended to protect forests. As mentioned in an earlier blog, legislators, influenced by land owners, had effectively nullified the effects this law was meant to have.

The Supreme Court´s decision marks an unexpected end to a very troubled year in as far as indigenous land rights and deforestation were concerned. At the same time, it creates some new and very interesting opportunities for next year. Because the public enquiry will be held in Buenos Aires, indigenous people now have a much greater opportunity of influencing public opinion than they have ever had before.