LOS ULTIMOS (The Last)

Dir. Sebastián Peña Escobar

Chaco, Paraguay. The midday sun flattens the landscape. Driving down a dirt road, a pick-up truck leaves a trail of dust behind. Jota (65) is driving. Ulf (75) sits as a co-pilot. From the back seat, I film them.

Ulf, a German with an acid tongue, is an internationally renowned butterfly specialist. Jota, a witty Paraguayan considered the foremost bird expert in the country.  

For decades, this odd duo has been studying the forests of Paraguay while witnessing relentless deforestation and wildfires caused by cattle ranchers. I on the other hand have been fascinated with an endangered dry forest ecosystem called the Chaco, the largest green mass in South America after the Amazon rainforest. So when we all met, a small tribe of skeptic nature travelers was formed. Over the next 15 years we went on to make countless expeditions together. 

In 2019, after hearing a rumor about a massive deforestation in Chovoreca, one of the few remaining virgin areas of the Chaco, I proposed Ulf and Jota a new expedition to film the vanishing forests. 

A two-day road trip takes us to the northwest of the country, near the border with Bolivia. Cutting across an arid landscape, the expedition passes through silent towns, large cattle territories and solitary woodlands. Not without a nostalgic tone, my rhetorical questions stimulate debates about the nature of human behavior, the consequences of deforestation, the reality of climate change and the most likely future of our species. Ulf and Jota, possessing portentous and diverse knowledge from biology and anthropology, to history and philosophy, respond with a sarcastic rationality that seems to arrive at fatal conclusions. 

When the expedition reaches Chovoreca, we find out a huge wildfire is spreading through the region, destroying everything in its path. Undeterred, we set up camp and wait for the right moment to get near the virgin forests. As days go by, Ulf and Jota’s usual skepticism turns into a strange form of hope. Life is a wonderful miracle and can always surprise us. Nothing is over until is over, and we can do something: filming those forests is a way of keeping them alive.

One night, we are informed that the wildfire is critically close to the campsite. The expedition must leave immediately.

Unshaken in our intention to film the last forests of Paraguay, we stay put, watching the night sky reveal gleams of the nearby fires.

A long circular journey - Director's notes

I have a melancholic infatuation with forests. 

Not until long ago, Paraguay was still a little-known green patch on the world map. In the late seventies and early eighties, the country had around 70% of virgin forests, and the capital Asunción was a city covered by big old trees, surrounded by lush woodlands. In some neighborhoods, it was not uncommon to run into monkeys, foxes, large lizards and armadillos.

Growing up in this context, I developed a connection with the natural world that fed my early imaginary and sensibility.  But when I started becoming aware that human societies seem to have a hostile attitude towards them, I began to actually miss the forests that I never got to see, and also those that I did see but would soon be no more.

One day I met Ulf and Jota, and for the following 15 years we travelled to so many forest reserves that, with time, it felt as one long circular journey. I immediately noticed that we shared an attraction to forests but also that they expressed their love of nature in a very curious way. They seem to have internalized the fact that forests will, eventually, become extinct, and that this was an unavoidable outcome because it was the result of our species’ pattern of behavior. So, though they often can’t help but complain and become a bitter about this situation, most of the time they just mock humans and laugh.

At some point I became a filmmaker, and I felt the need to tell their story. However, when I started filming and began to think about the film, I realized it was not only about them but also about my own obsession with forests. How can something that covers immense areas of the planet vanish? And more so, what is the root of this strange behavior of our species towards them? Is this a biological or a cultural trait of our species? Or maybe both?

Paraguay has one of the worst deforestation records in the world. Its rocky history of dictatorships, international wars and decades-long political unrest had the serendipitous effect of leaving the Chaco ecosystem practically untouched until just 30 years ago. But since then, a rapid process of deforestation begun and today agribusiness has transformed this territory almost beyond recognition. 

Besides direct deforestation, the biggest threat to its forests is wildfires caused as a result of “burning season”. This is the time of the year in which many cattle ranchers, and people in general, start burning grass, dry leaves, and garbage. Actually, this happens throughout the year, but more so between July and October, a.k.a. the “white months”, because the sky is literally white due to all the burnings. Last year, there were huge deforestation-led wildfires that burnt an insane number of forests in South America. In fact, around the world. The planet’s yearly burning has become a global habit of humanity. Last year in Australia. Almost every year in the Amazon, California and the Chaco. We’ve all seen that image of a world map set ablaze in a deadly, yellowish, crimson red. 

And yet, nothing of major significance is being done to change this. Nothing of a worthy, global scale anyway. 

So, as the current situation goes, the Chaco will likely disappear in a decade or so, and the loss of the natural habitat also means the loss of the socio-cultural realm. There are dozens of endangered indigenous groups with diverse languages and cosmogonies still alive in the Chaco. Due to Paraguay’s lack of global visibility, these are definitely the most underrepresented voices in a country full of invisible stories. The urgency of this film derives then from the fact that the entire biocultural content of this territory is at the brink of extinction. 

But, if according to Ulf and Jota all this is irreversible—because it seems to be—what to do, then, with our time?

During all these years of journeys to the edge of the Paraguayan forests, the conversations with Ulf and Jota helped me reflect upon these questions as I witnessed the advance of a model of human society that, since its origins, appears to have implied a fundamental hostility between its institutions and the natural landscapes. This film will condense these conversations in the context of forests which are bound to disappear in the next few years. I believe this narrative context is relevant for several reasons. 

For once, the film takes place in one of the lasts global frontiers: a developing country whose narrow notion of prosperity is based upon the extraction of natural resources that will be mostly consumed, as end products, in rich countries. Led by naturalists with a profound love of forests, but who appear to have lost all hope, this documentary will be an evidence that the forests of Chovoreca are still standing. And, just by being there, they underline the possibility of hope: society still has time to preserve them. 

Finally, throughout years of journeys and debates with Ulf and Jota, I always wondered what the end of the forests means for the future of life on earth. To my surprise, in doing so, I found new ways of understanding this vanishing world. So, this film could be a sort of essay on the disappearance of forests, and an attempt to land my own ideas about the future. But more so, it is a petit dark comedy about two naturalists with a punk attitude whose cynical erudition makes us laugh even in front of the grayest of perspectives.

Sebastián Peña Escobar, Writer & Director.