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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Iñigo Alexander in Bogotá

‘We are witnessing ecocide’: Santander accused of funding vast deforestation

An aerial view shows green forest in the top third of the picture, with brown cleared land in the bottom two-thirds
The Gran Chaco, a vast area of arid woodland extending across Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia is subject to rampant deforestation. Photograph: Sebastian Pani/The Guardian

Sergio Rojas recalls how, as a child, he would see bulldozers rolling into Argentina’s Gran Chaco region, razing the forests to the ground and setting the felled trees alight. Animals would scatter and flee, with armadillos, deer, snakes and lizards darting across the ground in search of a new home.

The forests of the Gran Chaco were also Rojas’s home. He and his family, members of Argentina’s Indigenous Qom community, lived a nomadic lifestyle in the forest, relying on the woodlands and rivers for shelter and food, relocating about every 20 days to allow the land to regenerate and recover.

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