Balancing food production and nature conservation in the Neotropical dry forests of northern Argentina

Balancing food production and nature conservation in the Neotropical dry forests of northern... The growing human population and the increase in per capita food consumption are driving agriculture expansion and affecting natural ecosystems around the world. To balance increasing agriculture production and nature conservation, we must assess the efficiency of land‐use strategies. Soybean production, mainly exported to China and Europe, has become the major driver of deforestation in dry forest/savanna ecosystems of South America. In this article we compared land cover patterns (based on satellite imagery) and land‐use and human population trends (based on government statistics) in regions with two contrasting development pathways in the Chaco dry forests of northern Argentina, since the early 1970s. The area (ca. 13 million hectares) includes one of the largest continuous patches of tropical dry forests and has experienced rapid land‐use change. In the region where land use has been driven by government‐sponsored colonization programs, the expansion of extensive grazing has led to a growing rural population, low food production, and widespread environmental degradation. In contrast, in the region dominated by market‐driven soybean expansion, the rural population has decreased, food production is between 300% and 800% greater, and low‐density extensive cattle production has declined over extensive remaining forested areas, resulting in a land‐use trend that appears to better balance food production and nature conservation. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Global Change Biology Wiley

Balancing food production and nature conservation in the Neotropical dry forests of northern Argentina

Download PDF
13 pages
Read Article

Loading next page...
1
 
/lp/wiley/balancing-food-production-and-nature-conservation-in-the-neotropical-OuP0CE90Mh
Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2008 The Authors
ISSN
1354-1013
eISSN
1365-2486
DOI
10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01554.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The growing human population and the increase in per capita food consumption are driving agriculture expansion and affecting natural ecosystems around the world. To balance increasing agriculture production and nature conservation, we must assess the efficiency of land‐use strategies. Soybean production, mainly exported to China and Europe, has become the major driver of deforestation in dry forest/savanna ecosystems of South America. In this article we compared land cover patterns (based on satellite imagery) and land‐use and human population trends (based on government statistics) in regions with two contrasting development pathways in the Chaco dry forests of northern Argentina, since the early 1970s. The area (ca. 13 million hectares) includes one of the largest continuous patches of tropical dry forests and has experienced rapid land‐use change. In the region where land use has been driven by government‐sponsored colonization programs, the expansion of extensive grazing has led to a growing rural population, low food production, and widespread environmental degradation. In contrast, in the region dominated by market‐driven soybean expansion, the rural population has decreased, food production is between 300% and 800% greater, and low‐density extensive cattle production has declined over extensive remaining forested areas, resulting in a land‐use trend that appears to better balance food production and nature conservation.

Journal

Global Change Biology – Wiley

Published: May 1, 2008

References

You’re reading a free preview. Subscribe to read the entire article.

Try 2 weeks free now

DeepDyve is your
personal research library

It’s your single place to instantly
discover and read the research
that matters to you.

Enjoy affordable access to
over 18 million articles from more than
15,000 peer-reviewed journals.

All for just $49/month

Explore the DeepDyve Library

or browse the journals available

Search

Query the DeepDyve database, plus search all of PubMed and Google Scholar seamlessly

Organize

Save any article or search result from DeepDyve, PubMed, and Google Scholar... all in one place.

Access

Get unlimited, online access to over 18 million full-text articles from more than 15,000 scientific journals.

Your journals are on DeepDyve

Read from thousands of the leading scholarly journals from SpringerNature, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford University Press and more.

All the latest content is available, no embargo periods.

See the journals in your area

DeepDyve

Freelancer

DeepDyve

Pro

Price

FREE

$49/month
$360/year

Save searches from
Google Scholar,
PubMed

Create folders to
organize your research

Export folders, citations

Read DeepDyve articles

Abstract access only

Unlimited access to over
18 million full-text articles

Print

20 pages / month

Sign up
for free
Start 14 day
Free Trial