As the late-afternoon shadows stretch over his fields, Washington Lockart gazes past his herd of dairy cows, past his dried-up wells, to the wall of eucalyptus trees towering behind his modest farmhouse. “That’s where the green desert begins,” he says. Lockart and his neighbors in Cerro Alegre, near the town of Mercedes in northeastern Uruguay, have made their views known with hand-lettered signs posted on their fences. Among the messages: “Eucalyptuses dry up water wells,” “With forestation, we’re selling the nation,” “The forestry law forces us off the land,” “Monocultures noooooooo.” From time to time, someone comes along in the night and cuts a sign off a fence. Once, Lockart says, a new sign went up with an opposing view, apparently from... [Log in to read more]