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The State’s largest re­main­ing na­ture re­serve—the Aripo Sa­van­nas–is rapid­ly be­ing de­stroyed by a fresh in­va­sion of squat­ters in the Va­len­cia dis­trict, with au­thor­i­ties yet to take ac­tion.

Be­hind the cur­tain of tow­er­ing trees that line the south­ern side of the Va­len­cia Stretch, a new squat­ting set­tle­ment is qui­et­ly ex­pand­ing with­in this 1,788-hectare En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sen­si­tive Area (ESA).

The grow­ing set­tle­ment is adding to the strain on an al­ready over­crowd­ed squat­ting com­mu­ni­ty in the North­east­ern re­gion.