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Promised Lands: The Anabaptist Immigration To Paraguay And Bolivia And Its Unintended Consequences For The Environment, Sarah M. Hanners

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

There is a human dimension to the slaughter of the Amazon that does not always make its way into the conventional deforestation narrative. This note examines the destruction of the Amazon through the very human experience of the Anabaptists: religious outliers who fled Europe for the Americas, seeking freedom from persecution and a promise of greener pastures. They have since indelibly transformed the landscape of the Amazon in Bolivia and Paraguay, and their efforts have caught the attention of huge agricultural conglomerates, whose bottom lines have little respect for forest life. The environmental regulations of these countries fall short of …