Chronicle of a death foretold. Forestry activity in Alba Posse (Misiones-Argentina): from immigration to rural emigration. (1930-2016)

Abstract

The present study aims to explain the way in which forestry activity was developed in the town of Alba Posse, province of Misiones, which went from being a place that attracted population to one that expels it. To do this, a brief racconto of production in the province was used. Subsequently, the contextualization of forest exploitation in the Alba Posse was carried out, in the period between 1930 and 2016.

This is a case study. To carry it out, the historical method was used with the purpose of analyzing forestry activity and accounting for the historical transformations of forest explotation and identifying its environmental and social impacts.

Rural exile was particularly evident starting in the 1990s, when the price of the peso favored Argentines to make purchases in Brazil and decreased the settlers' income from their production, based mainly on tobacco and yerba mate. That, added to the few possibilities for progress in the region due to the difficulties in obtaining jobs, led many of its inhabitants to look for new places to settle.

Keywords: forest activity, rural exodus, extractive front.