Let's focus in on South America; a stronghold of forests and the mighty Amazon, but what about the smaller less known forests that inhabit the continent, such as the Gran Chaco forest? The Gran Chaco, a smaller forest in Argentina, in recent years has been facing a multitude of issues and conflicts that have led to irreversible damage to multiple communities in the area.
The Gran Chaco has been getting cut down with no stop in sight. In recent years laws have been passed to halt this deforestation process, but to no avail. Deforestation worsens the climate crisis, as carbon stored by trees is released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The continuous destruction of the Gran Chaco has led to devastating effects such as carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere, extinction of local species, decrease in resources for local and rural communities, a decrease in food sources for animals and biodiversity loss.
In Colombia, the people of the indigenous Nasa group are putting in an enormous amount of effort to fight and even end the deforestation occurring in Colombia. The Nasa people are doing this through reclamation of ancestral lands, teaching the next generation to preserve nature, and physically resisting deforestation through peaceful movement. Members of the Indigenous group say birds and other wildlife have returned to the area that was once only sugarcane.
Indigenous territories with secure land rights not only reduce deforestation inside their lands in the Brazilian Amazon, but also lead to higher secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas, says a new study.