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‘From horrible to merely bad’: will Javier Milei take his chainsaw to the environment in Argentina?
December 10, 2023
As the new far-right president is sworn in, the world is watching to see if his destructive campaign promises can survive the realities of office
Javier Milei, Argentina’s incoming president, wielding a chainsaw during a rally in September in Buenos Aires.
With days to go until the inauguration of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, the current minister for the environment and sustainable development, Juan Cabandié, who will be leaving the government alongside the current president, Alberto Fernández, is still waiting for a call from the president-elect’s team to organise the transfer of power. “We still haven’t received any contact about how the transition will take place,” Cabandié tells the Guardian.
The reason is simple: environment is one of the ministries that will cease to exist with the inauguration on 10 December since the newly elected far-right president has promised to reduce his ministerial cabinet from 18 to eight portfolios – eliminating those that “are not a priority”.
A climate change denier, Milei has promised not to comply with the 2030 agenda – which is centred on 17 sustainable development goals – and to withdraw from the Paris agreement because he will not accept “impositions from outside”. He says his government will not have policies to fight the climate crisis, protect Indigenous people, or decrease deforestation, nor to sustainably regulate the production of the shale oil and gas reserve of Vaca Muerta, seen in Argentina as a golden goose.
But in recent weeks, there have been signs of a possible softening of the rhetoric as Milei prepares to take office in Casa Rosada on Sunday. Nature defenders in Argentina and Latin America are watching to see if he will implement his destructive environmental agenda, as his Brazilian ideological partner, Jair Bolsonaro, did in Brazil between 2018 and 2022, or whether he will moderate his tone.
Here are five key areas of concern highlighted by politicians, analysts and environmentalists.
A farmer prepares a field for planting soya beans in Serodino, Santa Fe province, Argentina.
1 Deforestation and sustainable agriculture
Currently, 75% of deforestation in Argentina is concentrated in the provinces of Salta, Santiago del Estero, Chaco and Formosa due to the expansion of soya bean cultivation and cattle farming, Argentina’s main export products.
After a national forest law was enacted in 2007 to regulate which areas should be protected, set limits on deforestation, and consider lands inhabited by Indigenous people, the deforestation rate decreased from 0.94% to 0.34% until 2015. But the relative early success of the legislation was short-lived, and since 2016 the deforestation rate has risen, reaching 0.42% in 2018 – a loss of 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres).
"There is no good oversight and not even an environmental justice structure to regulate this destruction Juan Cabandié outgoing environment minister"
Cabandié says the penalties for those who break the law are too low to deter illegal loggers, who don’t mind paying. Moreover, they are often not charged. Greenpeace reported that in Chaco province, in 2021, 18,000 hectares (44,500 acres) of native forest were destroyed despite the ban by the provincial court.
As a member of the outgoing government, Cabandié holds up his hands: “There is no good oversight and not even an environmental justice structure to regulate this destruction,” he admits.
Sociologist and environmentalist Maristella Svampa says: “If environmental justice is not enforced, deforestation, human-sparked fires and the displacement of the Indigenous people living there to unhealthy areas will increase.”
However, moderate voices in Milei’s entourage argue that in 2023, the country lost $20bn due to the drought that devastated soya bean and corn crops for export. Milei wants to sign new free-trade deals to compensate for the losses, so green countermeasures will be demanded by trading partners.
Diego Guelar, a diplomat and former Argentine ambassador to China, says: “The truth is we need money from outside, and he knows it.”
Such arguments appear to have led Milei to rethink and step back from his total lack of interest in the environment. “It seems we are going from the horrible to the merely bad,” says Guelar.
Milei has yet to confirm the appointment of an undersecretary of the environment focused on agricultural matters.
Oil pump jacks at work in the Vaca Muerta field, Neuquén province, Argentina.
2 Oil and gas
Fossil fuels account for 88% of the energy produced in Argentina. According to official data, the energy sector is the most significant contributor to the climate crisis, responsible for more than 50% of the country’s emissions.Like the outgoing government, the new administration sees the energy sector as key to solving the country’s economic crisis. Fossil fuels are considered the best short-term solution.
According to the manifesto of Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, investments in oil and gas will be maintained. Vaca Muerta, the country’s main reserve in Neuquén province, will remain at the heart of Argentine energy policy. Milei aims to “generate income in foreign currency” through fossil fuel exports.
Milei has promised to privatise the energy sector, including YPF, the national oil company brought under state control in 2012 during Cristina Kirchner’s centre-left government.
Svampa warns of environmental problems ahead. “Vaca Muerta covers the whole province of Neuquén, but also the south of Mendoza, the south of La Pampa and part of the upper Rio Negro valley. And it’s all fracking.”
The Vaca Muerta field has been controlled by transnational companies conducting large-scale fracking since 2012. Production increases have caused seismic activity and difficulties for local communities. Milei’s manifesto doesn’t mention using wind power or other clean, renewable energy sources.
Brine pools used to extract lithium at the Salar del Rincon salt flat in Salta province, Argentina.
3 Lithium in Jujuy
Argentina’s lithium reserves are key to the Milei government’s development strategy as the metal is vital for the electronics, technology and electric vehicle industries. The northern province of Jujuy is located in the “lithium triangle”, straddling the border area between Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which contains the world’s largest reserves of the metal. Milei has always advocated lithium mining without any reference to mitigating environmental damage.Patricia Bullrich, who ran against Milei in the presidential race but is now his ally and security minister, supports sustainable exploitation by adopting new conservation standards. Environment defenders hope she can influence the president on this issue.
Pía Marchegiani, director of environmental policy at the Environment & Natural Resources Foundation (Farn), says lithium mining brings three key problems to Argentina: “The impact on salt flats in the region and neighbouring countries; the changes to the water system used in mining that affect local communities; and the exclusion of those communities from decision making.”
Marchegiani says “lithium fever is ravaging wetlands” and local communities do not want to be left behind and want to have a say in the energy transition. “We have to carry out the transition to reduce energy costs, not so that a family in Europe can have three electric cars.”
Wichí Indigenous people in Mision Chaquena, Salta province, Argentina.
4 Indigenous peoples
Argentina is home to an Indigenous population of almost 1 million people, some of whom are more threatened than others. The Wichí people, an Indigenous group living on Argentina’s northern border with Bolivia, are being displaced from their lands due to the expansion of soya bean farms, and forced to relocate to areas with limited access to water, arable land and education.
The Mapuche people, who live in the southern region and are linked to the more populous Chilean Mapuche, suffer similar problems. They are often forcibly removed from their lands by mining companies and face prejudice and repression when they protest.
"The poblem is that there is a race or natural goods in Argentina, and Indigenous people are found in these territories Alejo de Risio, law expert"
However, the fight for Indigenous rights is nothing new in Argentina. During the administration of Mauricio Macri in 2017, Santiago Maldonado, an ally of the Mapuche people, was killed when a protest was shut down by police, and Rafael Nahuel, a member of the Mapuche, was shot when resisting the eviction of his community in Villa Mascardi, in Río Negro province.
In an aggressive move, Bullrich, while campaigning for the presidency, proposed the deployment of the army to address such escalating tensions.
Alejo de Risio, an expert in environmental law at the Ecosocial Justice Action Collective, is concerned about the effects of mining and oil exploitation on Indigenous peoples. “The big problem is that there is a race for natural goods in Argentina, and the Indigenous people are those who are found in these territories,” he says. “We can expect a very hard time for them.”
Argentina has a National Institute for Indigenous Affairs, but it is among the institutions that Milei plans to abolish.
Argentina’s vice-president Amado Boudou is welcomed by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon on the opening day of Cop21 at Le Bourget, near Paris, in 2015.
