Córdoba in flames: devastating forest fires and suspected real estate interests

The forest fires They are expanding at an unbridled pace, destroying everything in their path. Thousands of hectares devastated, dozens of destroyed houses, dead animals and hundreds of evacueesthis is a barren panorama in the province Cordova. As firefighters and volunteers battle the blaze, there is speculation about possible real estate and farming interests behind the tragedy.

The bleak panorama takes place in a context contributed to by urban expansion in areas with natural vegetation 95% of fires are caused by human intervention. Amidst the destruction, neighbors try to fight the flames with watering cans and improvised tools.

While the entire country looks on in shock at the devastation, it’s nothing new for the locals. actually The province of Córdoba is among the ten places with the highest incidence of forest fires in the worldit was even in first place in terms of frequency and spread for several months of the COVID-19 pandemic. DEF spoke to the CONICET geographer, teacher and researcher Joaquin Deonan expert in this type of meteorological phenomena.

-The province has been suffering from these voracious fires for the fifth consecutive year. The area burned – more than 69,000 hectares – is shocking considering that we are at the beginning of the dry season.

-One could think so when we consider that 41,000 hectares burned in the previous season. But the reality is this Córdoba suffers from systematic firesamong which those of 2021-2022 stand out, when 350,000 hectares were burned in one year.

-Many blame these disasters on climate change; However, no one ignores that there are other interests behind it.

-Undoubtedly. There is an economic interest that benefits from the loss of native vegetation and land use change. The greater the destruction, the greater the economic empowerment of people who have specific interests, because although there are regulatory frameworks that regulate permitted activities, many circumvent them and achieve their goals.

A clear example is what is happening in the city of La Calera, where despite the fact that the development of urban real estate is not allowed above the protected area or in the burned areas of state property, a public hearing of the urban project was held a few days ago. real estate in an area with burned native forests.

– When we think about the numbers, can we say that this is a sad record?

– Yes, an account of life in a province (and I’m not just talking about the current government) where the policy of destruction by agents in the state that are still there prevails. The goal is to monopolize and they will always find a way to exploit.

A clear example is water reservoirs where works of public interest are built – category authorized by law 9814 – to supply water to large dairy companieswhich are transnational and thus use a provincial water resource. I think the saddest record is that the mountains are less and less owned by the people of Córdoba and passed to private companies that care little about the environmental factor.

-According to reports, several firefighters were attacked by neighbors. What could be the reason?

-It was probably the families who feel that they didn’t intervene in time, not taking into account that firefighters have to put their own lives on the line in addition to the lives of others.

These people choose to live in a given location and conditions, and the reality is that when certain meteorological conditions, habitat conditions, and drought combine, they become risk zones for interface/interface fires.

-What does “interface/interface fire risk” mean?

-They are different areas where, once a fire occurs, it spreads further than where it started. For example, in adjacent urban and rural areas, where houses are surrounded by a lot of vegetation and flammable material, when a fire comes, it will consume everything. Although it seems elementary to say that it is better to lose your house than to lose your life, The reality is that many people who come from a precarious economic situation refuse to accept that something worth so much will disappear in a matter of minutes.. To the extent that they usually protest when asked to evacuate.

-How does the state intervene in these cases?

–The state provides emergency funds when the destruction is total and the economic damage is very important to agricultural or tourist facilities.but very rarely about households. The stage after these disasters, reconstruction, is carried out by municipalities that do not have financial resources. Returning to live in these spaces is extremely difficult, which is why many people decide to leave their home or sell it at a very low price to real estate speculators.

– The Liaison Commission of Agricultural Subjects in Córdoba proposed to think about territorial planning and seek balance with nature. How are these statements understood?

-Producers say they want to seek this balance through fires, because for them, in addition to being a way to accumulate economic power through land concentration, it is a tool for natural clearings. Fires cause depopulation of rural areas with forestsdevaluation of land with subsequent real estate speculation and possession of neighboring fields by landowners who maintain the land in obscure ways.

-Also in their statements, the leaders of agriculture mentioned that they have science in their favor. What are they referring to?

-What they have in their favor is the science of expropriation, genetics, and agrotoxins, great vehicles for transporting what is taken from the Earth, such as water. I am not referring to tank cars, but virtual water, the one that cannot be seen, the one that is carried in live cattle, in grain, in oilseeds. That means water that leaves, basins that dry up, forests that die. There is no balance to be found in expropriation.

-What do you suggest?

-In Córdoba, only monocultures or large-scale farming of livestock under trees are proposed. With the excuse of livestock farming or silvopastoral production, they seek shade for their animals (thousands of cattle) without taking into account It destroys other levels – bushes, herbs, mushrooms, lichens, cloves, bacteria, animals, everything that lives there.– necessary for the various ecosystem services provided by the forest. To achieve this, they use a banned method: chemical stripping.

-The government confirms it is investing millions of dollars in state-of-the-art technology, both in equipment and personal items for firefighters, as well as in vehicles and aircraft. Is it realistic that they have the appropriate technological and human resources for disaster prevention and control?

-There is a ranking related to the use of technology to fight fires where Córdoba appears to be one of the most important buyers of material for these businesses. There was a lawsuit with the backpack companies, involving the presidents of the Calamuchita fire stations, who turned out to be the ones who started the fires.

I am referring to the fires that occurred in 2012 and 2013. On the other hand, there are investigations that are already making arrests, connected to the concealment of evidence for other crimes.

-In this context, how would you define the environmental situation of Córdoba?

–Córdoba is a province that exports a unique extractivist model that uses fires to have an almost irreversible impact on the environment.which destroys watersheds and enables the taking of forests, water and land.