This Thursday, the Senate seeks to pass the bill called ‘inviolability of private property,’ an initiative that, according to social and environmental organizations, is the gateway to the looting of Argentine natural resources. The norm, promoted by the Minister of Deregulation, Federico Sturzenegger, modifies the rural land law, accelerates both urban and rural evictions, and eliminates key restrictions in the fire management law.
Currently, the amount of rural land in foreign hands reaches 13 million hectares, 5% of the total, while Law 26,737 sets a limit of 15%. However, in 36 departments of the country this threshold is already exceeded, especially in areas of the mountain range, wetlands, and the Paraná River corridor. There, foreign economic groups seek to deepen a business scheme that consolidates the looting of natural resources.
The repeal of the land law had already been included in DNU 70/2023, but was halted by a precautionary measure from the Federal Chamber of La Plata, currently before the Supreme Court. The shortcut found by the ruling party was to advance a reform that empties the norm of content, in line with the requests of corporate interests from the United States associated with the critical minerals business. Changes to the glaciers law and the RIGI are also part of the package of handing over the territory.
A day before the session, a press conference was held at the Conadu headquarters to expose the risks of the project. Participants included representatives from Inquilinos Agrupados, the Land Observatory, the internal commission of ATE in National Parks, and the Center for Former Combatants of the Malvinas Islands (CECIM), among others. In the afternoon, the same meeting was repeated in the Senate, organized by the head of the Science and Technology Commission, Eduardo De Pedro.
Gervasio Muñoz, head of Inquilinos Agrupados, recalled that in 2001, months before the social outbreak that ended with 36 deaths, the same Sturzenegger advanced a relaxation of evictions. ‘Now that change is being modified to further accelerate evictions and remove any guarantees from tenants. This correlates with DNU 70/2023, which deregulated reference prices for rentals,’ said Muñoz, who added: ‘This law comes to protect large landowners and property owners.’ He also recalled that the 1949 Constitution defined land and housing by their social use.
Ernesto Alonso, secretary of human rights of CECIM, was blunt: ‘What is at stake is the governance of the Argentine Republic. Just grab the periodic table and see in which regions the 15% is exceeded and relate it to critical minerals. We are a bicontinental country. Now in the Rivadavia chair is the US State Department, and in the Ministry of Defense, the Southern Command. We have all the elements to enter the fourth wave of industrialization, but we must defend those resources.’
Julieta Caggiano, from the Rural Land Observatory, explained that ‘behind the name inviolability of private property, what there is is a law of foreignization of Argentine territory. The articles that give meaning to the rural land law are eliminated, especially those related to the protection of strategic territories, water bodies, and border security zones. This government wants to hand over key spaces linked to natural assets, logistics corridors, glacier areas, and lakes.’
The Observatory, which depends on the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the UBA, analyzed the percentages of foreignization coinciding with the route of the Trunk Waterway. In Campana, foreign ownership is 50.27%; in Ituzaingó (Corrientes) it reaches 33.9%; in Iguazú (Misiones) 39.95%; and in Garay (Santa Fe) 15.73%. The same corporations that today have absolute participation in the commerce, ports, and logistics of the waterway (Cargill, Bunge, Dreyfus, Cofco, AGD, Molinos) are the main beneficiaries of a potential repeal of the land law, in addition to the mining companies that sealed agreements with the Executive Branch within the framework of the memorandums of understanding for critical minerals with the United States.
Alejo Fardjoume, delegate of ATE in National Parks, denounced that last year the Milei administration executed only 3% of the forest protection law. ‘This year, 60,000 hectares of forests were burned in Patagonia. The defunding of firefighting, low salaries, labor precarization, the low number of firefighters, and the imposition of placing our colleagues under the orbit of the Ministry of Security are all elements that constitute an attempt to hand over strategic resources, our common goods,’ he stated. Since December 2023, 350 workers from the National Parks area have been displaced.
The project includes changes to the fire management law: it eliminates restrictions on changes in land use on lands that have suffered fires, whether intentional or not. These restrictions, which ranged from 30 to 60 years, were included in 2020 based on a project by Máximo Kirchner as a response to intentional fires in wetlands to expand the agricultural or forestry frontier. Lucía Yánez, a graduate in Environmental Sciences from UBA, stated: ‘We are facing a process of weakening environmental protection laws. You cannot think only in market terms when we talk about strategic assets that require state regulation.’
Para mí estos hijos de puta nos quieren entregar el país a los yanquis, Milei es un vendepatria. Derogar la ley de tierras es legalizar el saqueo, nos dejan sin minerales críticos mientras ellos se llenan los bolsillos. ¡Qué se vayan todos!
Para mí esto es puro verso zurdo. La ley de tierras nos tiene atados, sacarla es libertad. Si vienen yankis a invertir, bienvenidos. Los kirchos lloran porque viven de ocupar. A laburar, vagos, que acá no se regala nada.