A complaint lodged with the government alleges that Argentine provincial officials and businessmen are profiting from clearing the native forest.

In northern Argentina, lush, green spaces of forest give way to wide, open clearings. In aerial photos, the contrast couldn’t be starker: treetops with varying tones of green, and next to them, brownish empty land. Such is the reality for some parts of the province of Chaco, home to a part of the Gran Chaco, the second-largest forest in South America, after the Amazon. This vast dry forest has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, losing more than 130 square miles every month.