Argentina court case: rights of jaguars in the Gran Chaco ecoregion

Summary

In 2019, Greenpeace Argentina and the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers/CAJE filed an injunction before the Supreme Court of Justice on behalf of the last 20 Yaguaretés (Jaguars) that inhabit the Argentine Gran Chaco region, to stop the advance of deforestation in their habitat territory, which is pushing the jaguar towards extinction. The lawsuit was filed against four provinces of northern Argentina where the jaguar’s habitat is located – Salta, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, and Formosa – and the national State for violating the National Forest Law and therefore not guaranteeing the survival of the species in the Gran Chaco region. The lawsuit asks for an end to deforestation in the Argentine Gran Chaco forest and asks the court to recognize that jaguars have rights, and “allow said species to continue to exist, enjoy its ecosystems, maintaining its plans for life, health, well-being, food, freedom, reproduction and security of the last less than 20 vulnerable subjects.”

In 2021, Fundación Greenpeace Argentina filed a request for urgent injunctive relief (medidas cautelares) due to the emergence of new evidence of systemic violations of the National Forest Law in the Province of Chaco and the consequent deforestation affecting the habitat for the endangered jaguars. In November 2023, the Supreme Court declared itself competent in the case and requested reports from the State and the four defendant provinces.

The regions Salta, Chaco, Santiago del Estero and Formosa have experienced rapid deforestation in recent decades as a result of the introduction of genetically modified soy two decades ago. According to official data in Argentina, approximately 200 thousand hectares are cleared per year, 75% in the requested provinces. The jaguar population in Argentina is estimated at 250 individuals – approximately 160 individuals in the Yungas Forest, 80 in the Paranaense Forest, and 20 in the Gran Chaco region.

This action follows previous animal rights legal actions in 2015 and 2016 in Argentina on behalf of orangutans and chimpanzees to recognize two individual animals as a “non-human person.” Unlike these previous actions, this case is the first time an action has been brought in Argentina in the name and representation of an entire species.