Gran Chaco Americano: a forest in South America still suffering deforestation.
Every day the world loses more and more biodiversity because of the lack of conservation measures to prevent the destruction of ecoregions. Thinking about this reminded me of an interesting work different organizations and institututions have developed in order to conservate the ecorregion called “Gran Chaco Americano”.
WWF defines an ecoregion as a “large unit of land or water containing a geographically distinct assemblage of species, natural communities, and environmental conditions”.
Historically in this area the forestry industry (that many years ago didn´t produce in a sustainable way but as an extractive industry) and the cattle breeding have created negative impacts in the environment. These activities lead to deforestation, and the overgrazing affected the natural pastures and biodiversity. This loss of pastures has increased the growth of woody plants, that has increased the fires leeding all to the soil´s degradation. Since the beginning of the XX century another economic activity has started also creating impact in the landscape: this region has become an agricultural area having an effect in the deforestation problem.
The effects of this process not only affect the biodiversity but impact the local communities´way of life. Heavy precipitations combined with degradation of the soil generate floods and reduced the water holding capacity, having serious concequences during the dry seasons. I had to travel to that region several times (to evaluate a project that aimed to provide water for local people), and the concecuences of deforestation in the area could be easily seen: local communities suffer not only the lack of water, but these groups that had historically made a living out out of the ecosystem aren´t able to do it any more because of the loss of natural resources.
This is still going on, in May 2013 a local report claimed that over 13.000 hectares of forest had been deforestated. But even though this area is still being degradated by the lack of sustainable approach of the local economic activities, there are different awareness projects and campaigns to change the way things are being done that should be pointed out.
At the beginning in 2003 The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina (FVSA), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Bolivia, the Fundación para el Desarrollo Sustentable del Chaco (DeSdel Chaco) in Paraguay, and a large number of specialists from those three countries, have been part of the “Gran Chaco Americano Ecoregional Assessment”, integrating a large variety of previous efforts carried out by other organizations.
This Ecoregional Assessment is an interesting work that aimed to create a workable plan for the region that considers economic activities. It is a good tool for local stakeholders (governments, agricultures, companies, etc) to plan their activities in a sustainable way, being aware of the impact they could have in the biological diversity. If focuses in different alternatives as regional planning, integrated river basin management, sustainable agriculture and livestock breeding, fire management practices, amongst others.
Other sustainable economic options for local communities to develop without jeopardizing the environment could be the implementation of REDD+ projects. These are initiatives that promote alternative economic activities to deforestation in local communities, which receive an income by doing this, as part of mitigation efforts related to CO2 emissions. Conservation of the forest is a way to mitigate CO2 emissions in the world because of the capacity of the forests in the area to absorb this CO2.
Other organizations and institutions are actively working to create conservation areas. This is the case of “La Fidelidad”, a project to create a legally protected area in this argentinean 5.000 hectares land extension whose previous owner had conservated totally. This project supported by local NGOs, politicians, opinion leaders, companies and regular citizens is not only having positive results in the protectionist objective, but it is also raising public awareness about the situation of the whole ecoregion.
These are some of the projects going on, but there are other interested actors in society creating awareness to conservate this ecoregion and making efforts to changing things through different ways. I truly hope they can achieve this objective and we can save the Gran Chaco Americano, the second largest forested area in South America, after the Amazon.
Some references:
http://www.acdi.org.ar/agregados/docs/17248016215248e0b098226.pdf
http://www.agrotecnicounne.com.ar/biblioteca/Anexo%203-%20Satorre%20en%20colores-1.pdf
http://awsassets.wwfar.panda.org/downloads/dossier.pdf
http://www.avina.net/esp/oportunidades/gran-chaco-americano/
http://www.bosquenativo.org/2013/06/gran-chaco-sudamericano-sufrio-perdida-de-bosques-de-13-714-ha-en-de-mayo/
http://cegae.unne.edu.ar/gtz/Proyecto.pdf
http://www.fvsa.org.ar/situacionambiental/uso%20y%20deg%20del%20suelo.pdf
http://www.fvsa.org.ar/situacionambiental/chacoseco.pdf
http://www.gepama.com.ar/pengue/pdf/DESERTIFICACIONlemondeMORELLOPENGUE.pdf
http://redaf.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/gran-chaco_version-1-9-07_anexos-final.pdf
Comments Off on Gran Chaco Americano: a forest in South America still suffering deforestation. /
21 Jan 2014
por
celinalesta
IMSD /
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