What is still at stake in the Gran Chaco? Social-ecological impacts of alternative land-system futures in a global deforestation hotspot

LEVERS, CHRISTIAN; PIQUER-RODRÍGUEZ, MARÍA; GOLLNOW, FLORIAN; BAUMANN, MATTHIAS; CAMINO, MICAELA; GASPARRI, NESTOR IGNACIO; GAVIER-PIZARRO, GREGORIO IGNACIO; LE POLAIN DE WAROUX, YANN; MÜLLER, DANIEL; NORI, JAVIER; PÖTZSCHNER, FLORIAN; ROMERO-MUÑOZ, ALFREDO; KUEMMERLE, TOBIAS

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Año: 2024 vol. 19

1748-9326

SIGEVA no está funcionando correctamente y no me deja ingresar las filiaciones de los Doctores Gasparri y le Polain de Waroux. Para poder cargar esta publicación tuve que poner filiaciones incorrectas a estos autores que espero corregir cuando el sistema funcione correctamente.Commodity agriculture continues to spread into many tropical dry forests globally, eroding their social-ecological integrity. Understanding where deforestation frontiers might expand, and which social-ecological impacts this would trigger, is thus important for sustainability planning, but remains elusive for most dry forest regions. Focussing on the Gran Chaco, a 1.1 million km² global deforestation hotspot with high biological and cultural diversity, we reconstructed past land-system change (1985-2015) as a basis for simulating alternative land-system futures (2015-2045). We developed nine plausible future land-system scenarios, systematically comparing three contrasting policy narratives (Agribusiness, Ecomodernism, and Integration) and three agricultural expansion rates. We assessed the social-ecological impacts of our simulated land-system patterns by comparing them with current biodiversity, carbon density, and areas used by forest-dependent people. Our analyses revealed four major insights. First, intensified agriculture and mosaic landscapes of agriculture and natural vegetation have replaced large swaths of former woodland since 1985. Second, simulated land-system futures until 2045 revealed potential hotspots of natural vegetation loss due to the continued expansion of existing agricultural frontiers and the emergence of new ones. Third, the strongest social-ecological impacts were consistently connected to the Agribusiness narrative, while impacts were lower for the Ecomodernism and Integration narratives. Yet, we discovered differences between Integration (lower social impacts) and Ecomodernism (lower ecological impacts). Fourth, comparing recent land change trends with our simulations showed that large areas of the Chaco (10%) are currently on a pathway consistent with our Agribusiness narrative, with associated stark social-ecological impacts. Our results highlight that much is still at stake in the Chaco. Land-use and conservation planning are urgently needed to avoid strong social-ecological impacts, and our results charting the option space of plausible land-system futures can support such planning.