El Niño Will 'Collect Its Toll' After Forest Destruction, Asunción Residents Warn

Organized residents in Asunción are warning that the upcoming El Niño phenomenon, with its expected severe climatic effects, will dramatically expose the ecological consequences of clearing the San Vicente forest for a supermarket. They are urging Mayor Luis Bello to urgently revoke the construction authorization.

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nature will inevitably collect its toll

The community's warning comes nearly two years after the extensive felling of 117 centenary trees in October 2024. This action, authorized by the then-mayor Óscar “Nenecho” Rodríguez, was denounced by residents as a deliberate act to solidify irreversible environmental destruction before organized citizen resistance could mobilize.

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divert the debate with technicalities from the Urban Arbor Law

Rosa Vacchetta, a spokesperson for the San Vicente residents' organization, stated that nature will "inevitably collect its toll" on Asunción due to the "criminal destruction" of this vital natural buffer. The forest previously mitigated recurrent overflows from the Ferreira stream, which she described as one of the capital's "most conflictive and voluminous" waterways.

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the land 'is not a forest' due to its size

Vacchetta criticized recent statements by the municipal director of Cadastre, Nicolás Chaparro, as an attempt to "divert the debate with technicalities from the Urban Arbor Law." She argued that Chaparro's claim that the land is "not a forest" due to its size ignores the ecological reality and the function the area served. The residents emphasize that the property's location, just 20 meters from the Ferreira stream, made its arboreal cover crucial for flood control, regardless of its size.

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it is forest by its function, not by its size