Perceptions on deforestation in the Chaco salteño: An environmental justice perspective

This note analyses the issue of deforestation in the Gran Chaco from an environmental justice perspective. The main purpose of the article is to understand the prevailing perceptions on the issue of deforestation and to assess possible ways forward. For this purpose, first the results of qualitative interviews were analysed through the use of Q method, which allows classifying local perceptions on deforestation in the Chaco Salteño through the use of factor analysis. This resulted in three factors (i.e. perceptions), called “Development”, “Family Agriculture” and “Subsistence”, which were subsequently used to inform future land-use scenarios. Secondly, a social multi-criteria evaluation was deployed to rank these possible land-use scenarios according to sustainability and environmental justice criteria. The results show that the “Subsistence” and “Family Agriculture” scenarios are the most environmentally just as well as the most sustainable. The “Development” scenario, together with the “status quo” scenario, which was added on an ad-hoc basis, are the worst. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of taking justice into account when considering land use issues, especially when indigenous peoples and other marginalized actors are involved

Prescriptive conflict prevention analysis:An application to the 2021 update of the Austrian flood risk management plan

Flood events have become more frequent in Europe, and the adaptation to the increasing flood risks is needed. The Flood Directive set up a series of measures to increase European resilience, establishing Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs) at the level of the river basin district as one relevant action. In order to efficiently fulfil this objective, the involvement of stakeholders as well as the analysis of their roles, responsibilities, and demands has been considered to be crucial to develop FRMPs. As a result, the hypothesis tested in this paper is that a consensus solution for the 2021 update Austrian Flood Risk Management Plan is feasible. To demonstrate this, both in-depth interviews and questionnaires to key Austrian stakeholders are implemented. The information collected in both participatory techniques are then used to run a conflict prevention analysis. The results show that (a) improving the coordination among regions and including better land-use planning approaches are preferable to a hypothetical business as usual scenario; and (b) a consensus solution for the 2021 update Austrian FRMP might be achievable on the basis of both a deep discussion on the state-of-the art and green infrastructure development

Why telecoupling research needs to account for environmental justice

Engaging with normative questions in land system science is a key challenge. This debate paper highlights the potential of incorporating elements of environmental justice scholarship into the evolving telecoupling framework that focuses on distant interactions in land systems. We first expose the reasons why environmental justice matters in understanding telecoupled systems, and the relevant approaches suited to mainstream environmental justice into telecoupled contexts. We then explore which specific elements of environmental justice need to be incorporated into telecoupling research. We focus on 1) the distribution of social-ecological burdens and benefits across distances, 2) power and justice issues in governing distantly tied systems, and 3) recognition issues in information flows, framings and discourses across distances. We conclude our paper highlighting key mechanisms to address injustices in telecoupled land systems

How rural actors relate to nature. Perceptions of ecosystem services in the semi-arid Chaco of northern Argentina

In drylands, rapid changes in land use have been interpreted as conflicts over the appropriation of ecosystem services (ES). A better understanding of these conflicts can lead to the formulation of sustainable management policies by capturing the value of nature. We undertake a Q-method study to identify perceptions related to ES and the main drivers of change threatening ES in the semi-arid Chaco region of northern Argentina. Our main results highlight the existence of three significant perspectives, with areas of consensus and disagreement among rural actors, namely: (1) Traditional Creole; (2) Agribusiness; and (3) Territorial Creole. The current viewpoints of rural actors are diverse but include certain unifying themes. All perspectives favor water and exotic grasses as the most important ES. As main drivers of change threatening ES, the legal framework is a very important factor as well as the availability of fodder. Our study is a significant contribution to understanding the reasons for land use decisions and the appropriation strategies that rural actors use in defining their valuation of several ES.Fil: Córdoba, Gisela Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del NOA. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales. Museo de Ciencias Naturales. Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del NOA; ArgentinaFil: Zepharovich, Elena. University of Bern; Suiz

Perceptions of deforestation in the Argentinean Chaco: Combining Q-method and environmental justice

The Gran Chaco, Latin America’s second largest forest after the Amazon, has one of the highest deforestation rates worldwide. In the province of Salta, Argentina, thedeforestation rate is particularly high, with substantial environmental and social impacts. The province is characterized by the presence of various actors (large-scaleproducers, small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples, governmental actors, civil society), who are differently exposed to the impacts of deforestation. To betterunderstand this unequal exposure, the paper looks at deforestation from a perspective of environmental justice. As justice is strongly dependent on the local context,we focus on capturing the perceptions of stakeholders on deforestation. We use Q-method, which combines qualitative and quantitative methods to study per-ceptions. Our results point to the existence of three significant perspectives. The first one, labelled “Development” perspective ranks distribution as the mostimportant dimension. The second one labelled “Family agriculture” perspective stresses the significance of procedural issues. The third one labelled “Subsistence”perspective elaborates mainly on matters of recognition. We conclude that, in order to slow down deforestation, it would be essential to create conditions wheremarginalized actors are given priority, to facilitate their participation and grant their rights with respect to land use

Jevons paradox and the loss of natural habitat in the Argentinean Chaco: the impact of the Indigenous Communities’ land titling and the Forest Law in the province of Salta

The Chaco Salteño in Argentina is part of the Dry Chaco ecoregion, the largest neotropical dry forest in the world, and represents an important hotspot for deforestation and natural habitat loss due to agricultural expansion. The purpose of this article is: i) to assess systematically the role of agricultural expansion, intensification and demographics on the loss of natural habitat and ii) to understand how institutional factors contribute to direct the impact of agricultural intensification towards land sparing or Jevons paradox. We use multivariate statistical methods to assess the effect of important institutional changes, including the promulgation of the Forest Law in the Province of Salta and the titling of communal lands to Indigenous Peoples (IPs), on the loss of natural forests, shrublands and grasslands in the Chaco Salteño. Our results show that the approval of the Forest Law in Salta has been ineffective at slowing down the loss of natural habitat and is associated with the emergence of Jevons paradox via the increase in agricultural productivity. Moreover, this new institutional context appears to have increased the pressures on IPs land and encouraged preventive clearing on these lands. Finally, we detect the decreasing importance of livestock heads as drivers of natural habitat loss

Land-Use Conflict in the Gran Chaco: Finding Common Ground through Use of the Q Method

In a world characterized by ongoing overexploitation of finite resources—such as land and forests—stakeholder conflicts over use of remaining resources occur frequently and are likely to intensify. There is increasing awareness of the need to better understand individual stakeholders’ perspectives, which often condition behavior, in order to address conflicts and inform wider policymaking. We used the Q method to capture the perspectives of diverse stakeholders and highlight consensus and distinguishing statements. Our results bring to the fore three main perspectives on deforestation (development, family agriculture, and subsistence) and several points of agreement and disagreement. The strongest disagreement concerns the benefits and costs of deforestation: the development perspective portrays benefits as mutual and costs as marginal, whereas the family agriculture and subsistence perspectives associate no benefits and extreme costs with deforestation—including loss of livelihoods and culture. Nevertheless, stakeholder consensus emerges on other points—especially the need for participatory long-term strategies of land use. This paper shows how the Q method can be applied to better understand land-use conflicts

Merging process ecology and historical materialism to study capitalism dynamics: lessons from Gran Chaco

1. The current pattern of anthropization of the biosphere, which has led scientist to coin the term Anthropocene, cannot be properly understood without accounting for the specific dynamics of capitalism. 2. Here we combine theoretical ecology with a framework from the social sciences, historical materialism, to study these dynamics by looking at the case of capital-intense agriculture in the Gran Chaco. In so doing we espouse a process perspective, and we obtain some important general insights for the transition towards sustainability. 3. We appreciate the interplay between contingencies and autocatalytic configuration of processes in the emergence, persistence and eventually transformation of a socio-economic system. 4. We point to the analogy between the capitalist urge for economic expansion, driven by the competitive search for maximum profits, and the intrinsic growth-enhancing tendency of autocatalytic configurations. 5. More broadly, we expose the dialectical relationship between the set of material/economic processes and cultural/institutional ones, which originates the historical development of capitalist dynamics and the associated pattern of dangerous anthropization. 6. Transition towards sustainability will require acting simultaneously on both spheres, while taking advantage of a suitable window of opportunity

Assessing adaptive capacity through governance networks: the elaboration of the flood risk management plan in Austria

One of the consequences of climate change is the increase in the frequency and entity of extreme weather events, including floods. Any strategy dealing with the various impacts of climate change must focus not only on mitigation aspects, but also on improving on the level of adaptive capacity. Over the past decades there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of floods in Europe, a fact which has prompted the European Union (EU) to put forward the Directive 60/2007 (the ‘Floods Directive’), requiring Member States to produce a comprehensive Flood Risk Management Plan (FRMP) by 2015. The purpose of this paper is to assess how the implementation of the ‘Floods Directive’ has contributed to the level of adaptive capacity in Austria, a EU member State hosting an important river basin. By relying on the existing literature, the paper first describes the governance system associated with flood risk management in Austria prior to the elaboration of the FRMP. Subsequently, based on collected primary data, the paper studies the governance structure associated with the elaboration of the FRMP in Austria by using descriptive social network analysis (SNA) and discusses the implications in terms of adaptive capacity of flood governance. The elaboration of the FRMP has had the merit of coordinating the pre-existing regional legislation into a coherent national framework, under the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Environment. A limited number of other public administration stakeholders act as brokers, but the overall governance structure appears centralized and exhibits low modularity. Such a structure, moreover, is exclusively composed of public administration actors with no de facto participation of other stakeholders (e.g., NGOs and private companies). The incorporation of a wider set of organizations in the earlier phases of the policy cycle is welcomed, in order to make the whole process less technocratic and effectively improve the overall level of adaptive capacity