‘Winners’ and ‘losers’ of the agricultural expansion in the Argentine Dry Chaco

ABSTRACT

Biodiversity and natural resources constitute a social safety net for forest-dependent communities and represent their main source of livelihood. Agricultural expansion driven by global food demand is not only deeply altering landscapes at the local level but also affect the forms of life and culture of rural life. These changes are increasing inequalities between stakeholders in developing countries and causing the direct displacement of numerous rural families. In this article, we focus on the Argentine Dry Chaco, one of the most threatened forest systems in the world, to analyse evidence about how land-use changes asymmetrically affect social wellbeing across landscapes and generate conflicts between stakeholders regarding the use and access to natural resources. This information needs to be considered for better territorial planning and to propose conflict resolution strategies towards more just and sustainable relationships between people and nature in complex landscapes.

KEYWORDS:

• Landscape justice
• Chaco
• injustice
• land tenure
• quality of life
• vulnerability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica [PICTO 2014-0046]; Interamerican Institute for Global Change (IAI) [IAI – CRN 3095]; Landscape Reserch Group [50th Anniversary Research Fund].

Notes on contributors

María Vallejos

María Vallejos is Agricultural Engineer and PhD in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work is based on the sustainable management of ecosystems, with a focus on the problems associated with agricultural expansion and land use changes.

Melina Faingerch

Melina Faingerch has a degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. She studies the changes in land tenure and its relationship with the loss of native forest in the Chaco ecoregion.

Daniel Blum

Daniel Blum has a degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. He studies the role of agents and power relations of illegal deforestation in the Argentine Dry Chaco.

Matías Mastrángelo

Matías Mastrángelo is a Biologist from the University of Mar del Plata and PhD in Conservation Biology from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He works in the field of Ecology and Environmental Sciences. His research is based on the ecological and social change in rural landscapes for the design and implementation of public policy.