Chaco Area
"El Gran Chaco Sudamericano" covers 1.100.00 km2 and spreads over areas of 4 different countries, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. About 50% of the whole area is occupied by Argentina, 30% by Paraguay, 15% by Bolivia and 5% by Brazil.
It is a region of remarkable biological diversity and after Amazonia constitutes the largest forest region in South America. Despite the fact that a high proportion of the region is semi-arid, it is reckoned that it provides more edible plants per hectare than in the amazonian rain forest. The Wichí Indians in their traditional territory can name around 70 different edible plant species, while the Ayoreo, further to the north, in Paraguay and Bolivia can name over 200 species. The region is also famous for some of the hardest and heaviest woods in the world: Guayacan, Quebracho Colorado, and Palo Santo.
In terms of animal life it equally displays great diversity and formally great abundance, as all early travelers in the region attested. So it is not surprising that the term "Chaco" is thought to have derived from an ancient quechua word meaning "hunting ground".
The whole area is a huge alluvial plain with very few promontories. Apart from the western border where rainfall is relatively high, the tendency is for rainfall to increase as you move east. The area where Asociana works is one of the driest areas, with average rainfall not exceeding 500 mm., most of which falls in 3 or 4 months of the year during the summer. To this figure must be related the fact that the same area is subject to extremely high temperatures in summer, in fact the highest registered in South America, rising on occasions to over 50º C.
During the last century the area of the Chaco where we work has been subject to three major environmental pressures that have significantly changed the landscape and the natural resources available to the Indian people. In the first place, the area has been slowly occupied by "criollo" (non-Indians) cattle herders, who mostly let their animals, including goats, sheep and pigs, roam freely through the forest. As a result, native pasture has been badly depleted along with other plants and certain valuable species of trees. The change in vegetation has also affected fauna driving away certain species as their natural habitat was altered.
The second factor has been indiscriminate and uncontrolled logging of, in particular, two valuable tree species: Quebracho Colorado and Palo Santo.
More recently, organized agro industry has started to move into the western reaches of the Chaco, but as new and more resilient seeds are developed the tendency is for the agricultural frontier to move steadily eastwards. The result is huge areas of forest are bulldozered down and burnt to give way to Soya production and later to cattle ranches.
The consequences of all these pressures on the environment mean suffering for the Indian peoples. In some cases their lands are directly taken from them, fences are put up, and they are denied access to places where they grew up, where their forebears were buried and where they used to hunt, collect honey and wild fruits. In other cases the natural resources are so depleted that the forest has become an empty larder.
