Recovering life in the desert: successful experience with indigenous communities in Mendoza, Argentina

ABRAHAM, ELENA MARÍA; TORRES, LAURA; SORIA, NELSON DARÍO; RUBIO, CECILIA; RUBIO, CLARA

Living Land

Tudor Rose

Año: 2015; p. 155 - 158

Resumen:Incontrast to the widespread image of Argentina as the?the world?s breadbasket?,reality shows a vast territory(around 70 per cent) of dry, arid, semi-arid anddrysub-humid lands affected by different degrees of desertification.The MontePhytogeographic Province makes up anarid diagonal that crosses the country withall gradationsof aridity. This ecoregion, devoted to raising cattle andlivestock,is the driest of cattle lands in Argentina. Agricultureis confined toareas under intensive irrigation, the winemaking?oases?. Both types of land useare responsiblefor a great part of the degradation, evidenced not onlybybiodiversity loss and deforestation of native woodland, butfundamentally bythe poverty of the people, most of themsubsistence goat herders who stillremain in non-irrigateddrylands in extremely critical survival conditions.Theinitiative is an integrated one and involves environmental,social and economicdimensions, so duringthese years the results have increased impact inandoutside the community. The case was a Land DegradationAssessment in Drylandspilot site and is currently a pilotsite of the National Observatory of LandDegradation andDesertification, which ensures high visibility and potentialforreplication in areas with similar problems.Current results indicate thatdialogue and joint workamong populations, local governments, researchinstitutesand international financing agencies are of great importancefor thecoherence, depth and continuity of actions tocombat desertification. It isnecessary to work in interdisciplinaryteams, which go beyond the fragmentaryvisionsof scientific specialities. Experience indicates this as thebest way towork on mitigating the adverse consequencesof desertification and reach itsinvisible causes, transcendingisolated cases to tackle complex and dynamic problemsatterritory scale. Dialogues with local populations mustexceed consultationlevels, generating active processes ofempowerment and equality in terms ofdecision-making.Systematic work with populations affected in theirrightsdenotes the importance of attending, in the short term,to thepossibilities of social reproduction of the groups,solving their unmet basicneeds. Only thus will environmental,social and economic balance bepossible