Less and less public resources are being allocated to forest protection in Argentina in the face of the threat of wildfires. This is the conclusion reached by the report Environmental Budget Monitor, which reports an 81% drop in budget execution for the Fire Management Service in 2024 compared to 2023.
Although the budget allocated for this area of the National Government (responsible for controlling fires) increased from $12.101 million to $33.142 million, in 2024 only $7.739 million were executed, representing only 22% of the total.
This represents an under-execution compared to 2023 when 99.9% of the budget was used. “It represents a real drop of 81%,” stated the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), the organization that conducted the monitoring.
What is the control and management of wildfires?
The Fire Management Service is the state agency responsible for coordinating resources and actions for combating forest fires throughout the country. Last December, this section was transferred from the Subsecretariat of Environment to the Ministry of Security.
According to FARN, this transfer is reflected in a change in focus to address the issue of wildfires. Specialists describe the government’s policy as reactive rather than preventive. “A preventive approach to fire management is urgent. Delayed reaction and lack of budget execution put human lives, ecosystems, and property at risk,” they explained in the report.
Amidst this decrease in investment, fires continue to spread in Argentine forests. The latest monthly report from the Fire Management Service shows that 70,900 hectares of forests were burned in March of this year, almost five times more than in the same month of 2024 (13,900 hectares).
According to FARN’s assessments, a reactive behavior was already evident at the beginning of 2025. The budget started to be executed only in February, when reports of fires in Patagonia had been ongoing for over a month.
Who starts the fires?
95% of forest fires in Argentina are caused by human hands, according to data from the Fire Management Service.
Fires can start from campfires, improperly extinguished cigarette butts, land preparation for grazing with fire, land abandonment, agricultural and real estate development, mining activities, among others.
In many cases, these situations may be deliberate or have some intentionality. This is what the National Parks team found when investigating fires that occurred between December 2023 and February of this year in the Patagonian region. “We had several fire outbreaks, surveyed 95% of them, and only one was due to natural causes,” revealed Cristian Larsen, president of the board of the National Parks Administration (APN).
Climate factors must be taken into account. Climate change – manifested in prolonged droughts and heatwaves – increases the frequency and intensity of forest fires. By facilitating fire spread, it becomes more difficult to contain and control fires.
A study conducted by scientists from Conicet (National Scientific and Technical Research Council) analyzed 20 years of fire occurrence in the Sierras de Córdoba and found that the most affected years by fires were those with the greatest water deficit.
Impacts
The underfunding of the environmental sector during 2024 was also evident in other departments. For example, the Subsecretariat of Environment underwent a real budget cut of 79.4%, having to operate with less than a quarter of the funds used in 2023. Likewise, funds for the promotion of renewable energies and energy efficiency fell by 66.4% in real terms.
