THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF ECONOMIC POLICIES ON FUTURE LAND-USE CONVERSIONS IN ARGENTINA

M. PIQUER-RODRÍGUEZ; BAUMANN MATIAS; BUTSIC, V.; GASPARRI, N. IGNACIO; GAVIER-PIZARRO, GREGORIO; VOLANTE, J; MULLER DANIEL; KUEMMERLE TOBIAS

Conferencia; IUFRO Conference 2018; 2018

Agricultural expansion and intensification drive the loss of ecosystems worldwide. Scenarios are powerful tools to explore future changes in land-use patterns and their effect on ecosystems and the services they bring to society. Focusing on Argentina?s prime agricultural areas, the Pampas, Espinal and Chaco, we developed spatially-explicit future land-use scenarios from 2010 to 2030,considering both agricultural expansion (i.e., conversions from woodland to either grazing land/grasslands or cropland) and agricultural intensification (i.e., conversions from grazing land/grasslands to cropland). Our simulations were based on an econometric model of net returns, allowing us to assess the amount and spatial patterns of future land-use change under current zoning (i.e., the so-called Forest Law) in our study region. We systematically tested the impact of economic policies (e.g., taxes or subsidies), infrastructure improvement (e.g., road paving), and technological innovation (i.e., yield increases) on the spatial patterns of land-use conversions and on the remaining woody and grasslands ecosystems. We also evaluated which priority areas forconservation would undergo land conversions under all scenarios. Assuming land-conversions continue at 2000-2010 rates, resulted in continued expansion of cattle ranching into woodlands in the western Chaco, and of cropland in both in the western and eastern Chaco, whereas intensification dominated in the southern Chaco and in the Pampas. Economic policies affected expansion rates of ranching in the Chaco markedly. Improving the region?s road network would create a strong incentive to expand cropland further into remaining woodlands and over grazing lands. Given that our study also highlights the continued land conversion pressure under all scenarios on the region?s remaining natural areas, zoning, if properly enforced, appears to be a more straightforward tool for avoiding unwanted ecosystem impacts in the Chaco. Overall, our study provides insights into how alternative economic policies might change land-conversion patterns affecting regional ecosystems and the services they provide.