The two reservations of Leo: Park rangers at the Saltos del Moconá, chose to live producing banana, pineapple, and even protected coffee.

When he is not on duty at Moconá, he is taking care of his bananas, pineapples, or guavas in the middle of the jungle. This is the life of Leonardo Rangel, a Uruguayan naturalized Argentine who arrived in the eastern part of Misiones 30 years ago and, from there, promotes a very particular project. In his free time, this park ranger works the land on his own establishment located on the access route to Moconá, where he produces dozens of fruit trees, aromatic plants, infusions, and other native species contrary to tradition: instead of separating them from the jungle, he reintroduces them. He has also become a specialist in essential oils. The challenge is to “go back” several steps in the domestication of tropical crops. And thus, he maintains, recover the jungle that shrank decades ago but without losing sight of subsistence. “Why does a producer have to be poor?” asks Leo, who, with his proposal, hopes to “infect” other neighbors in that rural area of Misiones, near El ...