06 October 2010

PARAGUAY: Chaco Being Deforested By Mennonites And Brasilian Ranchers.

GUARDIAN/ John Vidal:
   "Hitler was said to have fled there, the Spanish conquistadores failed to penetrate it, and the only uncontacted tribe outside Amazonia lives within its borders.    But now the vast Paraguayan wilderness of thorn trees, jaguars and snakes known as the Chaco is being transformed by a Christian fundamentalist sect and hundreds of Brazilian ranchers.
  Worldwide food shortages and rock-bottom land prices in Paraguay have made the Chaco the last agricultural frontier. Great swaths of the virgin thorn forest once dubbed Latin America's "green hell", are being turned into prairie-style grasslands to rear meat for Europe and grow biofuel crops for cars."