Deforestation in the Chaqueña Region in Argentina

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to relate the degradation of the “Chaco Forest” to the Argentine socio-economic process using a systemic approach and to propose alternative measures to relieve its consequences. Three distinct periods in the degradation process were found: forest degradation from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1940s, deforestation and extra regional crops substitutions during the 1950s and the 1960s and erosion and desertification since the 1970s. The relationship between the socio-economic model of the “Pampeana region”, Argentina’s most developed one, and their cultural view of the forest taking into account the deforestation process, were analyzed. It was found that the Federal Government land use policy played an important role in forest land conversion to agricultural land. Sometimes it resembles a metropolis — periphery relationship.