The Andinia Plan: Patagonia fires and a myth that returns
As Patagonia burns and Javier Milei's government moves to change the rules on burned land, an old conspiracy theory about a supposed takeover of southern Argentina resurfaces online. We separate fact from myth.
- Patagonia is enduring its worst fire season in roughly 60 years, with more than 230,000 hectares burned.
- Javier Milei's government proposes easing the bans on selling and repurposing burned land, which ecologists see as an incentive for speculation.
- At the same time, the debunked antisemitic "Andinia Plan" myth about a takeover of southern Argentina is resurfacing online.
- Fact-checkers, Jewish organizations and even Milei himself have rejected claims of "foreign arsonists" as false.
Argentina’s south is burning this year as rarely before. According to Greenpeace, the 2025/2026 season is the worst in about six decades, and by the end of January more than 230,000 hectares had burned, mostly in the provinces of La Pampa and Chubut. This is a real, measurable event, and it deserves to be discussed seriously.
The trouble is that around every such disaster, one that touches land, money and fear, a different story quickly takes shape. One strand is political and verifiable. The other is a conspiracy theory more than half a century old. Mixing them means falling for disinformation, so here we deliberately keep them apart.
The real story: burned land and who profits from it
Argentina’s existing rules, under its fire management law, prohibit selling or repurposing burned land for 60 years in the case of forests and 30 years for farmland. The logic is simple: if scorched land cannot be built on or traded, the economic motive to set it alight disappears.
The government of Javier Milei has proposed loosening those provisions, alongside parallel changes to the native forests law and an announced repeal of the land law that currently caps foreign ownership of rural property. It is important to be precise: as of early June this is a proposal, not a done deal, and Argentine fact-checkers (Chequeado) explicitly debunk claims that the law has already been scrapped. Ecological and opposition groups warn that weaker bans could reward the very people who start fires.
Is there a basis for suspicion? Partly, yes. Prosecutors in Chubut have officially ruled one of the major fires, near the town of El Hoyo, to be deliberate, and offered a reward for information on the culprits, while an estimated 95 percent of forest fires in Argentina have a human cause. But no arrest for organized arson aimed at reselling land has been confirmed. What remains is a legitimate question of policy and oversight, not a proven conspiracy.
There is also a figure that often gets skipped. The largest foreign landowner in Argentina is the Italian Benetton group, with around 920,000 hectares, while Chinese, Brazilian, French and British investors hold large tracts too. In total, about five percent of the territory is in foreign hands. Land concentration is a real problem, but it is diverse and largely corporate, which matters for what follows.
Why does the same conspiracy theory return with every fire?
As soon as the fires broke out, a claim resurfaced online that “foreigners,” specifically Israelis, were behind them, supposedly burning forests to seize the land. This is not a new idea. It is a myth known as the Andinia Plan, born back in the 1960s in far-right circles and leaning on the notorious forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The myth claims there is a plan to break off Patagonia and turn it into a “second Israel.” There has never been any evidence for it.
What is presented as a “video of an arsonist” is in fact footage of a local resident approaching tourists over a campfire, and it led to no confirmation and no arrest. The claims have been debunked one by one:
- Argentine fact-checkers Chequeado and Spain’s Maldita showed there is no evidence of foreign involvement and that the investigation “is not heading in that direction,”
- the Jewish umbrella organization DAIA and the American ADL rejected the myth as a classic conspiracy theory,
- a radio host who voiced the accusation on air publicly apologized for spreading hate speech.
He called the accusations of foreign arsonists dangerous and stigmatizing, Argentine President Javier Milei said of these claims.
Why does this matter beyond Argentina? Because in moments of global tension, while the Gaza ceasefire has been straining since the autumn of 2025 and threatening to collapse, sensitive topics easily turn into fuel for disinformation. That is when the job of journalism is to be careful, to name what is proven, what is disputed and what is pure invention, and not to lend its credibility to claims it cannot support. The real debate about Argentina’s laws and forest protection deserves attention. The myth that travels alongside it deserves nothing but scrutiny.
So we ask you: how do we follow serious news about land and money without falling for the first eye-catching conspiracy theory offered alongside it?
