Mr.

Homero Bibiloni Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9G U

Secretario de Ambiente y Desarrollo Telephone 020-3353 2000
Secretaría de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sustentable guardian.co.uk
San Martín 451
C1004AAI C. de Buenos Aires
Argentina

October 5, 2010

Dear Secretary for Environment and Development,

I am writing on behalf of the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom and our readers
worldwide to ask you to consider a proposal for protecting Argentina’s biodiversity.

The action has been proposed by our online readers and developed by professional scientists. It
is based by scientific evidence.

We believe it will both protect important species and habitat and send a clear signal to the
negotiations at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP10 in Nagoya later this month
that the decisive, concrete actions can and must be taken to halt the alarming decline in global
biodiversity.

Our campaign, Biodiversity 100, has identified 26 achievable actions in a number of countries
and has the support of the international scientific community. We are sharing our proposals with
journalists around the world, who will be able to measure the success of their national and local
governments in implementing the actions we have put forward. For more details of the
campaign please go to guardian.co.uk/biodiversity100.

The specific proposal we request that you consider is to fully Implement the Ley de Bosques
(Forest Law) across Argentina (more details below).

We kindly request you to react publicly to our recommendation, both through national media
and through your statements to the CBD COP10 plenary. We also urge you to consider
including our proposed action when you revise your National Biodiversity Strategy and Action
Plan after COP10.

As a major international media outlet with a global audience, the Guardian takes seriously its
responsibility to report on the planet’s biodiversity crisis. We would be very keen to hear back
from you about your country’s efforts to protect the natural environment and, especially, to hear
of your reaction to our proposal.
Yours Sincerely,

Alan Rusbridger
Editor-in Chief
The Guardian
CC: S.E. Sra. Silvia Merega, Ambassador, and Director General of Environmental Affairs
Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive secretary, CBD

Ley de Bosques (Forest Law) - Forest clearing for agriculture

Action: Implement a landmark law to prevent forest clearing for agriculture

Description: Argentina’s milestone Ley de Bosques (Forest Law) passed in 2007, was one
of the first national laws to set minimum standards of use of natural resources, largely in
response to the rapid expansion of soy bean crops. However, the northern provinces of
Argentina have been slow to implement the law in full. Hastily authorised, as well as illegal, forest
clearings still threaten valuable corridors of native forest and their incredible biodiversity including
jaguars, giant armadillos and Chacoan peccaries (which resemble hairy jungle pigs). Without
proper implementation of the forest law, vast swathes of forest will be lost in the coming
decades.

Evidence: Teams of researchers led by Grau (2005) and Boletta (2006) agree that soy bean
agriculture threatens the Chaco forest – one of the largest forest biomes in South America – and
also the Yungas forests on the eastern slopes of the Andes, which are susceptible to further
deforestation. Between 1969 and 2000, 85 per cent of lowland and mountain subtropical dry
forests has been cleared (1.2m hectares), according to a Zac (2004). Deforestation has been
accelerating since 1997, largely due to the reduced plantation costs of GM soy, with an
estimated yearly loss of at least 2,000km².

For the full version of this text with links to scientific papers, please visit the Biodiversity 100 site:
guardian.co.uk/biodiversity100