Forest degradation and adaptive estrategies in peasant communities in the Argentine semiarid Chaco. A socio-ecological approach.

Abstract

Forest degradation is one of the main unsustainability problems at a global scale and also in
the Semiarid Chaco of Argentina. On the one hand, deforestation of large areas converted to
agriculture has severe consequences on local ecosystems, the environment and global society.
On the other hand, it increases pressure on the remnant forest and local peasant communities.
Many of them were displaced, others persist in their territories. The adaptive capacity to constant
changes of the environment, whether natural or anthropic, is called socioecological resilience.
This paper describes a novel methodology for interrelations analysis between processes of
different dimensions (social ecological) and scales (spatial temporal), through its application in
a case study. It constitutes a key contribution to research methodologies in Agroecology.