Human Impacts and Threats to theConservation of South American Salt Marshes

COSTA, C; IRIBARNE, O; FARINA, J.M.

Human impacts on salt marshes. A global perspective

University of California Press

Lugar: Los Angeles; Año: 2009; p. 317 - 359

Except for pre-Columbian civilizations established in the Andes high plains, most indigenous Indian tribes of South America were hunter-gatherers, with rudimentary agriculture that had little structural impact on coastal salt marshes (e.g., construction of small ponds for salt production). Since the beginning of the European colonization of South America in the fifteenth century, most of the main cities have been established in bays, coastal lagoons, and estuaries at the expense of coastal wetlands. During the nineteenth century, after the long struggle for independence from Spain and Portugal, agriculture and ranching were the main drivers of habitat modification in the coastal regions of recently established countries. In the twentieth century, the expansion of agribusiness, forestry, and mining has supported the economic development of many South American countries. After World War II, the population explosion, rapid industrialization, and increased dumping of solid and liquid waste in waterways have become the primary drivers of human impacts on coastal marshes. Although there is significant geographic variation in the intensity and distribution of these human influences across South America, our activities have either directly (by habitat use) and/or indirectly (by pollution, basin modification, and changes of soil use and hydrology)