In the decades around 1990, large-scale conversion of Paraguay's Atlantic Forest for soya cultivation and cattle ranching accelerated dramatically, making it one of the world's fastest rates of subtropical deforestation. This forest, one of the most biodiverse on Earth, shrank to a fraction of its historical extent. Conservation writers and ecologists documented the loss of species and communities that had inspired naturalist and indigenous literary traditions across the region.

The loss of the Atlantic rainforest in Paraguay and Argentina in 1990 echoed in Southern Cone literature, addressing environmental costs of frontier expansion. Poets like Adolfo Bioy Casares highlighted the tension between development and ecological preservation in their narratives.