The role of South American grazing lands in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. A reply to: “Reassessing the role of grazing lands in carbon-balance estimations: Meta-analysis and review”, by Viglizzo et al., (2019)

VILLARINO, SEBASTIÁN H.; PINTO, PRISCILA; DELLA CHIESA, TOMAS; JOBBÁGY, ESTEBAN G.; STUDDERT, GUILLERMO A.; BAZZONI, BRUNO; CONTI, GEORGINA; RUFINO, MARIANA; ÁLVAREZ, ROBERTO; BODDEY, ROBERT; BAYER, CIMÉLIO; DE F. CARVALHO, PAULO C.; FERNÁNDEZ, ROBERTO J.; LATTANZI, FERNANDO A.; OESTERHELD, MARTÍN; OYHANTÇABAL, WALTER; PARUELO, JOSÉ M.; PRAVIA, VIRGINIA; PIÑEIRO, GERVASIO

THE SCIENCE OF TOTAL ENVIRONMENT

Elsevier

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2020

0048-9697

The paper by Viglizzo et al. (2019) "Reassessing the role of grazing lands in carbon-balance estimations: Meta-analysis and review" proposed a new methodology to assess changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) stock associated with land use, and applied it to four countries of South America: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, all members of the MERCOSUR trade bloc. One finding of their assessment was that grazing lands are currently accumulating SOC at rates high enough to"... generate C surpluses that could not only offset rural emissions, but could alsopartially or totally offset the emissions of non-rural sectors".