“This was Bosque Alegre up until last year, lush vegetation, lots of trees,” says Sylvina Madero, pointing to the photographs of dense green forest land which hang behind her.

“Then on 12th April this year, phones started ringing. They came in with 12 bulldozers, 100 municipal workers arrived with chainsaws, and this woodland with lush vegetation became this and this.”

She gestures to images showing a bleak, muddy expanse of land, bordered by torn protest posters and abandoned tools.

“By the time we found out what was happening, half of our woodland had already been cleared.”

The Bosque Alegre (‘happy woodland’) is a native woodland situated in the wealthy suburb of San Isidro, in the northern Greater Buenos Aires. It is one of several woodlands lining the coast of Buenos Aires increasingly at threat from development and deforestation. Since control of the land was ceded to a private sports club in 2011, the forest has become the centre-point of a fierce battle between the municipal government and local community rights groups. What was once a peaceful recreational space has become the site of a controversial debate over land ownership, ecological protections, and political priorities.

Bosque Alegre: The Story So Far 

The four-hectare Bosque Alegre is located in the riverside suburb of San Isidro. Its chocolate box cafes and elegant houses mask a network of boundary lines, which divide the region between the large companies and private businesses.

“All this is private. Unless you pay, you can’t enter” says Romina Rocca, member of the Bosque Alegre Assembly, the group established to protect the public woodland.

“The law says that access to the river should be public, but in reality that isn’t what happens at all. Everything is privatised and access to the river has been cut off and closed in. There are only two or three areas along the river that the public can access now” she says.

Bosque Alegre is one of these areas. With its reed beds and towering trees, it occupies one of the Campos; a grid of fields divided into tennis courts, football fields, and a conference centre. The Bosque is one of the last coastal forests found in Buenos Aires and is home to many increasingly rare indigenous species as well as being a recreational ground for the local community.

However on 10th May, 2011, the municipal government, led by Gustavo Posse, signed an agreement with Club Atlético San Isidro (CASI) to cede the club the area covered by Bosque Alegre. According to Posse, the agreement was intended to secure investment for San Isidro while sustaining the woodland’s identity as a public recreation area. “An agreement was reached whereby CASI would make investments in the area by installing lights, changing rooms, and new turf,” says Posse.

“The club would only be using the area for a small percentage of time and it would be used by the public the rest of the time.”

Posse claims the land was always intended to remain public, but many disagree with this assessment.

“The government didn’t technically sell the land, they gifted it. Officially, the government has ceded the land to CASI, but that’s not public land, that’s a lie,” says Rocca.

Buenos Aires province’s general environmental law (11,723), states that any changes to public property must be preceded by an environmental impact assessment and a community consultation. Neither of these were undertaken prior to the CASI agreement, prompting widespread community anger. This anger reached new heights in September 2011, when un-identified workers arrived to fell trees before the conclusion of the deal – prompting accusations of illegality and corruption between the sports club and municipal government.

“The community have to be consulted, have to be able to participate and give their views on the works. No-one consulted anyone on anything about this. All that happened was that one day, they came in and cut down all the trees,” says Johanna Rudich, member of the assembly.

Mayor Posse acknowledged this at the time, and now says “there have been communication issues from CASI, however there have also been misunderstandings.”

Bosque or Not?

One of the biggest misunderstandings revolves around the definition of the forest and its assessment in terms of ecological importance.

According to  Arturo Flier, Secretary of Community Integration for San Isidro, “Bosque Alegre does not qualify for legal protection because it is not a native forest. It was used as landfill until the 1990s and contains mostly non native species.”

While this is true, biologist Analia Dalia claims the woodland still qualifies for protection under the Ley de Bosques due to its value as a site of biodiversity and urban ecology. “Bosque Alegre is one of the last remaining typical coastal forests on the Río de la Plata and is home to more than 200 species of wildlife,” she says.

“Before the felling, Bosque Alegre had a large number of native species, including Creole willows and alder trees. We know that the tree felling destroyed a plant called Equisetum giganteum rarely observed elsewhere in Buenos Aires.”

The trees and plants also help to protect San Isidro from flooding, as well as retaining nutrients and the purification of water.

Protecting the Woodland

These struggles to define Bosque Alegre and its ecological value are crucial for its legal and political protection.

The assembly have so far succeeded in obtaining an injunction to stop all current works on the Bosque, and now are seeking a mandatory halt and re-definition of the area as a ‘natural park’. At the moment, it is only protected through a lesser ‘protected landscape’ designation.

This designation was obtained on 11^th April 2012 and does little to prevent development on the woodland as it permits private administration as well as alteration and manipulation of the land. The futility of this label was proven just a day after its introduction, when un-identified workers arrived to undertake the second tree felling. In an event the assembly refer to as ‘the repression’, municipal workers cleared half of the four hectares, prompting the mass protests which made headlines across the city.

“I stood in front of the chainsaws, many people did,” says Madero. “It was a terrible day.”

“After the repression, we got advice,” she says. “At this point, we have a team of lawyers working to find out how they can stop this happening. But everybody says that the best way to put pressure on them is through public humiliation”

Madero knows that legal protections are hard to achieve, even when laws do exist. She watched the passage of the ‘Minimum measures for the environmental protection of native forests’ law (commonly known as the ‘forests’ law’), introduced in 2007, which despite enshrining numerous protections for Argentina’s forests does not help the Bosque Alegre. It was never included in the original list.

“Bosque Alegre is a woodland, it is,” says Rocca, “but it’s not in the land registry, it doesn’t officially exist.”

Public Land, Private Interests 

“Argentina has excellent laws, but there is a phrase in English – “where there’s a will there’s a way” – and this is very accurate here; sadly when there is a private powerful interest, they find a way to get around it,” says Emiliano Ezcurra.

Ezcurra is the head of ‘Banco de Bosques’, an NGO established to protect native woodland across Argentina. He has a big task on his hands. By the time the forests’ law was passed in 2007, 70% of the native forests across the country had been lost, divided between agricultural giants using the land for monoculture cropping.

According to figures from the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development, between 1998 and 2006, deforested land in Argentina accounted for 2,295,567 hectares, the equivalent of 250,000 hectares a year and one hectare every two minutes.

“The Bosque Alegre is a very different case to the larger forests in the country, but it is still an issue of privatisation,” Ezcurra says, referring to the fact that Bosque Alegre is a much smaller, urban woodland.

“This is about the relationship between the government and a private company. It’s about how governments can twist and change laws to enable private companies to use land which belongs to the community.”

In this green, spacious suburb, recreational land is hard to come by. For those who can’t afford private club memberships, there are few places to enjoy the natural coastline. It is this that so many want to protect.

“I grew up here, I want my children to play outside and enjoy nature. We need that” says local resident Alison Salas.

So far more than 5,000 signatures have been gathered by the assembly and protests are regularly held on the land, but the future of Bosque Alegre remains uncertain.

“We’re fighting for the forest, but we’re fighting for more than that,” says Rocca. “The idea is to put these topics on the agenda, to ask what is happening to public space in San Isidro”

The fight looks set to continue for a long time yet. However for many, including Ezcurra, the decision is clear.

“The community want it to be saved and it’s public land, so it should be saved. It’s as simple as that.”

To find out what locals think of the issue, click here.

Tierra-i real time satellite imaging reveals rapid deforestation throughout Latin America, and estimates that nearly 250,000 hectares of forest are lost in Argentina alone every year. Deforestation is particularly a problem in the northern provinces, home to the Argentine part of the Gran Chaco forest. As farmers have found soy to be more lucrative than cattle, traditional crops are traded for the profitable bean.

The Argentina Independent hits the streets to find out what the locals think about deforestation. Do you think that deforestation is a significant concern? Why is a problem in Argentina in particular?

Photos: Agus Carini

Susana, 41, Administrative Assistant, San Martín

Yes, it is important. More than anything because of everything that it has to do with oxygen itself, and when we consider how it has contributed throughout the years to the destruction of the ozone layer…One can sense that the climate has changed, and now winters are no longer the same winters, and summers are not the same summers, either…I speak from my own understanding, because sometimes there are things that one does not fully understand, but one can perceive…

Maybe the reason that deforestation is a big problem in Argentina would have to do with the regulations, that the regulations are not well formed or that there is no legislation that covers the area well at this moment…. For me it must have to do with this, that the legislation is not managing to cover everything that has to do with natural reserves… there could be other undercurrents that one doesn’t know about.

Pablo, 20, Mechanic, Palermo

Yes, it’s important, because to cut down trees in an effort to get more lands is crazy, I don’t know the percentage of lands that they have taken in order to make furniture, things like that, but yes, it should be.

It’s such a big problem in Argentina because we have a lot of land. There are other countries where it’s not as big of a problem because they have less area. But for example, they also take lands from tribes.

The forests allow us to breath; without them, we couldn’t breathe. It’s important to have them, definitely for this reason, but also because I like green spaces. When I go to the country, I tell you – I love Buenos Aires, but when I go to Juaní, it’s completely different….it’s beautiful.

Alberto, 48, Stone Mason, Berazategui

Yes, I think that deforestation is certainly a problem. The climate has changed, there are days that are so cold in the middle of summer that we have to bundle up. It’s the same in the winter; this past week, there was a polar wind and then it rose to 24 degrees.

It may be that the problem is that the politicians have only recently taken note of the issue, not much importance is given to protecting the forests. We cut down twenty trees, and not one is planted to replace the twenty. They only remember to plant again when the fields are bare.

That’s why today many people are against the planting of soy, [which] is at once a step forward and a step backwards, because it ruins the soil. Where you plant soy, you can’t then go plant other grains. Because there has to be a process to make the earth fertile again, in order to plant grains such as wheat and barley.

Camila, 20, Promoter, San Fernando

Yes, it seems to me that it is a concern…it seems to me that they should inform people a little more, because I, obviously, am not well informed, but I know that deforestation is a problem. Or, better put, that they inform people a little more, so that people can be aware and can realise that it is really bad.

Deforestation is a problem here because here are many cities, there are many buildings, and the little green now isn’t anything more than the plazas, and the few green spaces we have, we can’t take advantage of them often.

These green spaces are important so that people can take advantage of the free time they have, to at least spend some time in a green area, now that we have so much city, streets, cars, noise; when one wants pass a little time in peace, to study, share mate with friends, play the guitar.

Agustín, 23, Unemployed, Pilar

Yes, deforestation is definitely a topic of concern, because trees are extremely important in the equilibrium of the environment, the ecosystem. We’re outside of nature’s harmony. This disconnection causes various problems.

I am not very familiar, but I know – because of Greenpeace’s campaigns more than anything, perhaps – that there is a lot of deforestation in the north, in Missiones, in Entre Ríos, in Formosa… It’s not good to lose even one hectare of forest a day; a hectare is a lot, and a lot more than that is being lost.

One time, I was traveling in the mountains in the south. It was a lovely trip, I was alone, with the birds and the trees. And after climbing for three hours I came upon a logging field. It was rather sad; I had travelled looking at all of the nature, all of the force of nature, and the harmony, and it was all dead there, murdered.

Yesterday Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia, launched a new environmental policy, declaring that the government will “no longer allow [the] environmental massacres” that the country has seen over the last 20 years, in which 10% of its forests have been destroyed.

The president called for an end to the deforestation of Colombia, an act that is ruining their “great treasure”. He stated that the total area of decimated forests equates roughly to the size of the entire Atlantico department. A proposed US$55 million investment will come from the government, aimed at a programme of reforestation.

The new environmental policy aims not only to restore the forests, but also to act as the country’s “great protector against future harsh winters” like the one Colombia has just experienced, which was plagued by 190 landslides between September and December, in which 185 people were killed and more than 900,000 were affected.

Santos blamed the extreme deforestation for the landslides, which occurred as often as three times a day in different areas of the country. He stated: “Deforestation holds a lot of the responsibility, because without trees, erosion occurs, and this erosion leads to fragile lands collapsing.”

Finally, Santos also launched a crusade against illegal logging and wood trafficking, which according to the World Bank, accounts for 42% of Colombia’s deforestation. He stated that his government aims to ensure that all wood extracted, commercialised and used comes from legal sources.