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Paraguay
Background info
The ratification was progressing in Paraguay’s congress, but it stalled due to opposition by religious and conservative groups
→“Problems began when the Archbishop of Asunción, Edmundo Valenzuela, argued that the environmental agreement would allow for legalisation of the so-called ‘gender ideology’, a vague concept coined by conservative sectors to encompass progressive policies on gender. His statements led President Mario Abdo Benitez to withdraw the bill on December 2. Foreign minister Antonio Rivas announced consultations with various sectors, such as religious groups and the Union of Production Guilds (UGP), which feared that production would be affected. The newspaper ABC Color reported that the foreign ministry was ready to take the text back to Congress in the first week of March, but that didn’t happen because of the coronavirus epidemic. Meanwhile, the bill’s promoters have attempted to show its value to industrial sectors. “Not only does it serve to protect the environment, but it’s an excellent letter of introduction to open new markets, since it facilitates the traceability of the products that Paraguay exports. This traceability allows for transparency in the production process, rewarding those that have faced the challenge of sustainability,” says Ezequiel Santagada, director of the Institute of Environmental Law and Economics (Idea)
Environment
Deforestation
The country’s more pressing environmental threat is the rapid deforestation “The disappearance of the eastern Atlantic Forest has been alarming; much of the rainforest has been logged for agriculture, especially soy and wheat crops, and mostly for the benefit of large-scale, wealthy farmers. The construction of the Itaipú hydroelectric plant was not without controversy, and a second dam at Yacyretá, near Ayolas, has permanently altered the country's southern coast (made up of gallery forest).
The country's most pressing environmental threat, however, now concerns the rapid deforestation of the previously pristine Chaco. With the Paraguayan economy healthy and new technological advances making it easier than ever to raise cattle in this harsh environment, wealthy ranchers are taking advantage of the low land prices in the western region to establish new estancias (ranches). The resulting deforestation has been rapid and has made international headlines.
Furthermore, experiments in the development of soybean strains that can withstand the harsh Chaco climate potentially pose a serious threat to the remaining natural habitats. This prospect would introduce highly profitable monocultures into this delicate ecosystem, threatening to tip the ecological balance permanently.”
Defenders
“Indigenous people must also contend with the difficulties of environmental destruction produced by the agricultural boom of recent decades (as outlined in the IWGIA report). They are continually exposed to the dangerous health effects of agrochemicals used in the soy fields that now surround many villages. In addition, communities must deal with fires caused by burning practices employed to clear land for agriculture. Earlier this year, a large part of Jasuka Venda—a wooded area that is the most sacred site of the Paĩ Tavyterã people—went up in flames. There was no state response.
The widespread loss of Paraguay’s forests has also limited most indigenous communities’ possibilities for using traditional knowledge to live from the natural resources around them. As such, they are obliged to enter into the mainstream economic system to survive. Endemic racism and a lack of educational opportunities leave them with little options other than to take work under difficult conditions. The Guardian reported last year that indigenous people have been recruited in the Chaco to do agricultural work best described as debt slavery.” ( )
“The 1,000 hectares of ancestral territory claimed by the Tacuara'i community lie in the district of Corpus Christi in the department of Canindeyú, at under a kilometre from the Brazilian border. [...] In August 2018, descendants of the expelled families—children and grandchildren—made their way back to Tacuara'i to try to recover the lost territory, now in the hands of Brazilian soya farmers. A series of violent responses followed from the farmers, including the forced disappearance of a young man named Isidoro Barrios; members of the community claim that they saw him tortured and executed. [..] A key cause of the Tacuara'i land conflict, as in many others cases, according to the World Bank, is the demand from the mechanised agriculture sector for ever-larger extensions of land for the production of soya and meat (World Bank). The acquisition—both legally and illegally—of enormous amounts of terrain by a small number of groups has left Paraguay with the highest level of inequality of land ownership in the world.” ()
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