Since she was a child, Argentine park ranger Natay Collet can remember seeing trucks rolling through her hometown, throwing up dust clouds and piled high with the reddish-brown trunks of the Chaco’s famed quebracho tree.

“You used to know people who lived in the forest. Now, the land belongs to big business owners who come to exploit it,” said Collet, 40, gesturing towards a dusty plain that was once covered by forest in Argentina’s northern province of Chaco.

Collet’s determination to do what she could to save Gran Chaco – the second-biggest forest biome in South America after the Amazon – led her to become a park ranger as the region’s dry, scrubby forest comes under intense pressure from agricultural expansion and illegal logging.

Chaco province alone has lost 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of tree cover since 2001, equivalent to 18% of the area covered by trees in 2000, according to Global Forest Watch. As a whole, the country has lost about 7 million hectares (17.3 million acres) of tree cover over the same period, in tandem with rising output of grains – especially soybeans.

Argentina’s native forests are protected by law – and it backed a commitment by countries at the Glasgow COP26 climate summit to halt forest loss by 2030.

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But two years since pro-business libertarian President Javier Milei was elected on pledges to get the country’s unruly finances in order, environmentalists and climate campaigners fear the country’s forests are in growing danger because of sweeping spending cuts for forest protection – including park rangers like Collet.

“It’s getting worse and worse,” she told Climate Home News, describing increasingly precarious working conditions, with rangers’ contracts renewed every three months, low pay and no money for new equipment or repairs.

The budget of the National Parks Administration (APN) fell 34% in real terms between 2023 and 2024, according to a report published by the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), an Argentine NGO.

The APN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Deforestation jumps under Milei

Milei, an ideological ally of US President Donald Trump who took office in December 2023, faces a crucial midterm election this month that could make it even easier for him to push environmental protection cutbacks through by bolstering his support in Congress, where his government currently holds a minority.

Environmentalists say the impact of his government’s spending cuts and other policies is already becoming evident, contributing to an increase in deforestation across the country last year, including in the northern provinces that straddle the Gran Chaco region, which covers about 1 million square km (386,000 square miles) in total across Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia.

Argentine government data indicates a loss of around 254,000 hectares nationwide in 2024, up 34% from 2023, despite a court injunction completely banning deforestation in Chaco since August 2024. Neighbouring northern provinces are also deforestation hotspots.

Milei has in the past called climate change a hoax and earlier this year he expressed interest in withdrawing Argentina from the Paris Agreement. Officials from his government, however, have said his administration will honour its environmental agreements and its commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The Subsecretariat of the Environment did not reply to a request for comment.

Milei scrapped the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, downgrading it to the Secretariat of Tourism, Environment and Sports. That move led to a decrease of almost 80%, in real terms, in the environmental budget between 2023 and 2024, according to FARN.

And in an October 2024 decree, Milei eliminated the national Fund for the Environmental Protection of Native Forests, making less funding available for conservation, sustainable use and forest restoration projects.

International credibility at risk

Under Milei, the “dismantling” of the state apparatus has “encouraged institutional permissiveness over deforestation”, said Ana di Pangracio, interim executive director of FARN.

“The failure to comply with international commitments and national laws affects Argentina’s international credibility, hinders access to climate and biodiversity financing, and affects the conditions for entering international markets that are of interest to Argentina,” Di Pangracio added.

Last year, Milei attempted to modify the country’s Forest Law as part of a broader reform bill, seeking to loosen the legislation’s controls on deforestation on certain land, but eventually dropped the plan in order to garner sufficient support from opposition lawmakers to pass the wider measures.

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“Axe-breaker” tree no match for chainsaws

The biggest driver of deforestation in northern Argentina is agriculture: mainly soy farming and cattle grazing, which has been pushed northwards as the best arable land is used up further south.

Decades of “systematic clearing” have taken a heavy toll on Chaco’s emblematic quebracho tree – meaning axe-breaker due to its hard wood, said Collet, the park ranger. Along with its wood, the tree is exploited for its tannins, which are used for curing leather products such as luxury handbags and car upholstery.

Despite the 2024 deforestation ban, there are signs that trees continue to be cut down in Chaco.

During a July visit to the town of Juan José Castelli, which lies just outside the El Impenetrable national park, a large truck loaded with tree trunks was parked up in front of the police station – apparently confiscated along with its load.

In May, Governor Leandro Zdero hailed the arrival of new satellite-equipped trucks, which he said had helped forest service officials halt an illegal deforestation incident.

But environmental activists told Climate Home that for the most part, those responsible for deforestation, including large-scale landowners, do so with impunity in a province plagued by corruption.

Struggle to protect Indigenous land

For Chaco’s forest defenders, who include members of Indigenous communities, there have been some small victories.

In August, the provincial government partially vetoed a law that had been heavily criticised in April for lessening fines and allowing the use of illegally deforested timber for profit, creating an incentive for illicit tree-cutting.

Bigger battles continue, however.

Óscar Villalba, a member of the Moqoit Indigenous community, has been fighting in the courts to secure his people’s land rights since 2012, when the 308,000 hectares (761,000 acres) of the forested Reserva Grande in western Chaco were recognised as Indigenous land jointly belonging to the Moqoit, Wichí and Toba – or Qom – communities.

Despite the recognition by a provincial Indigenous rights body, governors have twice blocked court rulings that supported the Indigenous communities’ exclusive rights to live on and work the land, Villalba said, adding that in the meantime, loggers have had free rein to encroach on the land and cut down trees.

The provincial government did not reply to requests for comment.

“For many years we have been travelling, walking, denouncing, demanding that the government grant us hearings,” Villalba said, struggling to hold back tears as he stood by the side of a dusty road near the reserve. “There is no response. But they are cutting down trees to their heart’s content, day and night.”

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Milei’s budget cuts fuel deforestation fears in Argentina’s Chaco