CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Patagonia is located between 40° and 55° S, in the westerlies belt; reason of two sharply contrasted faces in either side of the Andes. In the windward side, Chilean Patagonia is a narrow strip of snow-caped mountains, lakes and fjords, determined by a windy, rainy and cool climate; on the leeward side, Argentinean Patagonia consists of vast plateaus interspersed with glacial valleys; climate is also windy and cool yet dry, because of the rain-shadow effect of the Andean range: rainfall exceeding 200mm only in some favorable locations. Until the 19th century, due to the austere environment, Patagonia got rid of colonial ambitions of Spanish and British empires, although imperial attention was paid to the Falklands and the Straits of Magellan to control of transoceanic trade. Once the South American independence gained, power focused on the Argentine Pampas and in central Chile for their agro-pastoral potential. From 1879, the "Conquest of the Desert " by Argentine army appears to be due as much to the will of the young Argentinean Republic to control its national territory as to British interest to expand sheep farming devoted to woolen companies already well established in the Falklands and Buenos Aires. A similar process took place in Chile, in the Magellan area. The expansion of sheep was done at the expense of several thousands of native American victims, either dead, or reduced to servitude, or scattered outside the margins of the new order. Patagonia was freed ready to the implantation of settlers of European ancestry, coming from the Falklands, Buenos Aires or central Chile, for the greater benefit of British, Flemish or German woolen industries. The pattern of sheep farming was held on a very extensive basis in plots ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 hectares, depending on the time and region, to enable supporting herds from 2000 to 15000 sheep. Figures were much larger in the case of company-owned ranches. This model was largely based - apart from the size of the paddocks- on those which had done the wealth of the Pampas and the Falklands. However, less than a century after the beginning of pastoral colonization, this model has transformed much of the vast steppes of Patagonia in desert-like areas, especially in central and eastern part (i.e. the regions less favored by rainfall), to the point that sheep grazing has ceased in many ranch in several areas, (between 1/3 and 2/3 of them depending on locality). Some exploitations manage themselves to survive with a charge as low as a sheep for 8-12 hectares. Along with other authors, we argue that the combination of overgrazing added to the overtaking of firewood from the shrub land (even if necessary because of the harsh climate), dramatically reduced shrub and grass cover leaving the soil defenseless against weathering and thus triggering the negative feedback of desertification. However, sheep farming continues doing well in ranches located along the Andean piedmont and in the far south around the Straits, since these regions are wetter and consequently more productive; besides, some farms traversed by a watercourse can grow irrigated forage to supplement their flocks and cope with drought. Desertification in Patagonia would be a direct consequence of the unwise application in arid grasslands, of a productive model designed and proven in wetter ecosystems such as the Pampas or the Falklands. From the years 1950-60, this compelling bioclimatic context is aggravated by the weakening of the sheep industry of Patagonia, both wool and meat industries, worm, heavily influenced by the vagaries of Argentine politics, globalization, especially the international market for agricultural products . This resulted in a high vulnerability of family farms still existing, especially smaller ones, who had somehow found ways of managing their practices and to mitigate a declining productivity. The fragile sustainability of these farms led to unbalanced spatial regional development by depopulating the countryside and gradually throwing to suburbs a growing number of rural population, that became an acculturated proletariat. Luckily for the Patagonian economy, declining of the sheep sector was offset by alternatives such as petrol and gas production and tourism development. Although spatially very concentrated, these activities today support the territorial development along with increasing mining and fishing. Urban centers are interconnected by networks of roads, cables, pipelines and airports, that is to say, Patagonian economy can very well dispense with the rural sector (which currently only provides 5% of regional GDP). These changes concern the whole society, including traditional landowner families who reposition themselves in the reorganization of social networks. Rethinking the future of the Patagonian peasantry led to construct several scenarios, among them three of the most contrasting caught our attention. The first one can be termed "laissez faire ", that is to continue the momentum going on, which entail, for rural areas, development of land speculation and the creation of large ranches, possibly only partly productive, owned by a few major national and international groups. The second scenario, that we called "Park", is based on a decidedly tourist vocation of the rural landscape with the transformation in Parks of vast portions of Patagonian ecosystems, once deserted by sheep in Park. Current agro tourism in landscape-favored ranches might indicate an intermediate step in this sense. Thirdly, the "Sheep" scenario is based on the revival of the sheep vocation in Patagonia with the restarting of family businesses based on sustainable socio-technical systems that require human and financial resources through public policies (possibly derived from wealth of the subsoil) The current devolution of large spans of land to Indian communities, could contribute to this pastoral sight but a general zoning based on land use alternatives would be strongly needed.

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