Joining the World: Dialogues on the Gran Chaco Biome
Greater visibility for the Gran Chaco is what this biome will gain from coordinated efforts among various sectors of society, with a cross-border, complementary vision for the region's national and especially sub-national governments, to ensure the formulation of environmental policies to promote social inclusion and joint preservation of the Gran Chaco's natural assets and services.
Gran Chaco: 100 million hectares shared by Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and a small portion of Brazil. Photos: ProYungas Foundation.
On October 26, 27, and 28, a series of three events took place to address various scales of the Gran Chaco's expanding agricultural frontier and the intensification of its productive activities, and their implications for new opportunities to preserve nature's goods and services in the region.The Gran Chaco Dialogues were held under the auspices of the Land Innovation Dialogues (LID), an international initiative carried out by the Land Innovation Fund (LIF) together with local organizations, in this case the ProYungas Foundation.
The Gran Chaco ecoregion, with its 100 million hectares shared by Argentina with Bolivia, Paraguay, and a small portion of Brazil, is one of South America's great forest ecosystems. Currently, more than 20% of the ecoregion has been converted into intensive production activities, but much of its area is still subject to different, less intensive management, such as "mountain cattle raising" or the extraction of forest products (railway ties, firewood and charcoal, poles and logs). Although the transformation of this environment is not yet very extensive, more than 90% of the expansion of Paraguay and Argentina’s agricultural frontiers is concentrated in this ecoregion.
Until quite recently, the Gran Chaco was largely ignored and received little attention or efforts to protect it, especially in Argentina. So much so that less than 5% of the area is protected in small units, which cannot by themselves guarantee the maintenance of its biodiversity in the long term. In addition, they are isolated from each other and there is still no plan for ecological corridors in the region to provide connectivity among them. In this sense, the role of the productive sector is extremely important to integrate more effective (private and community) protection and ensure the flow of biodiversity throughout the production system.
What do farmers think?
The first Land Innovation Dialogues’ panel addressed the farmers' standpoints, highlighting their strong attachment to the land, which comes from strong family traditions in many cases, including true human odysseys and adventures in the process of settlement and production. Emphasis was also given to ongoing improvement efforts and how their assumptions about production practices and certification systems have varied over time. These systems have contributed to the adoption of more environmentally friendly practices that are responsive to social demands, while increasing energy and production efficiency. However, there is a risk that certifications might "turn their backs" on farming systems located in ecoregions of high environmental and social value, such as the Gran Chaco, given the need to convert natural systems, as well as frequent tensions and territorial conflicts caused by this expansion process. A "Protected Productive Landscape" model, presented as a new and growing alternative to forge positive links between productive development and nature preservation on a landscape scale, is beginning to emerge in the Chaco region.
Potentials and limits of public and private policies.
A major challenge for countries in the Gran Chaco region is the limited credibility and enforcement of their laws, with more than 80% of the population not believing in their implementation and effectiveness, and casting doubts on their institutions’ interest in or capacity to enforce them, in the midst of an abundant, growing regulatory framework ("legislative inflation"). On the other hand, private policies are very dynamic, very much aware of world market dictates, and entirely able to innovate and implement positive responses through their own activities.
Speakers also highlighted the need for systemic approaches and suggested the consolidation of technical standards as an opportunity to stimulate and sustain changes, emphasizing the importance of creating spaces for dialogue rather than increasing the number of legal injunctions, with little technical support. These better and more visible practices should also be combined with stronger and better consumer attitudes when choosing what to buy, prioritizing products from farming areas where production is more in tune with nature and the social context (Protected Production Landscapes, Forest Management with Integrated Livestock, and B-companies).
Sustainability is understood as a highly complex process, based on strengthening institutions and building coordination and dialogue among sectors that share a territory, whose experiences and knowledge are implemented (pilots), expand, and may become consensual norms or a legal framework. Processes seeking sustainable activities demand a long-term view, learning to withstand frustration, trial and error, understanding that solutions are based on specific interests, and must involve greater collaboration between the private and public sectors.
Another issue stressed by speakers was the private sector's contribution to the preservation of natural spaces located on its land, suggesting that forest plantations adopt a ratio of almost 1/1 between cultivated hectares and protected hectares. Related to this is the need to increase the capacity and improve the organization of institutions representing different production sectors, including greater professionalization of activities aimed at reducing all types of risks (labor, environmental, social). Moving towards sustainability involves reducing informality, complying with the laws, advancing in the institutionalization of supply chains, and promoting processes of organization and planning of the territories. In this sense, there is a clear and accentuated difference between these attributes in the forestry sector, in the development of plantation-based productions, and activities based on the use of native forests, including in this contrast the natural resources of the Gran Chaco.
Another highlight was the importance of considering territorial spaces as "Quality Public Goods", which entail a commitment by private companies to promote social equity and innovation, and by civil society organizations and the State to ensure territorial governance, assuming that in a transboundary region such as the Gran Chaco, different models of State organization should be considered in the planning and organization of territories. Despite these differences, participants recognized the importance of building brands like "It’s from Chaco", as going beyond and overcoming national and institutional differences. They also stressed the importance of Civil Society Organizations in the three countries of this ecoregion, which are grouped in a collective called "Redes Chaco" that supports institutional processes such as the "Forum of Representatives of the Gran Chaco", as well as working spaces in different commissions of ZICOSUR, and the "World Meetings of the Gran Chaco", one of which was this very seminar.
Finally, they stressed the importance of generating fora that promote trust among the sectors, the need to coordinate public and private initiatives to scale up good practices and commitments, and to generate the necessary synergies between traditional uses of the Chaco region, which occupy 60-70% of the territory, and the new, intensive forms of production targeting international markets.
How to achieve impacts on a global scale?
Of course, different ecoregions of South America have different histories of settlement, use, and transformation of their natural spaces. In this context, the Gran Chaco only recently began to adopt an intensive approach to the production of food and other commodities for national and international markets. About 20-25% of its territory has already been converted, but the rest is still occupied by traditional activities such as small-scale family farming, mountain ranching, and hunting and gathering ("marisca") by many numerous and diverse native communities in the ecoregion. All these players, in varying degrees and forms, have preserved nature in their environments and maintained the desired resilience of nature to make production part of the "solution" to this ecoregion’s major environmental challenges in the epicenter of South America's Southern Cone, which has become one of the world's most important centers of production, biodiversity, and ethnic wealth.
Without a doubt, we must show these qualities to the world, and do so in a clear and transparent way that can ensure a positive alliance among the different human interests. The "AGROIDEAL" application (https://soja.agroideal.org/ar/) has been identified as a suitable tool in this regard. Based on quality thematic maps, it provides a clear picture of the environmental and social context of the places of origin of products from the Chaco region of Argentina, especially for soybean buyers to easily evaluate the "risks" of sourcing products from certain areas of the Gran Chaco. The reality is that only a small fraction of the soy produced in Argentina comes from critical areas (less than 10%), and through the "Forestry Law", our country has made a strong commitment to preserving about 80% of its current forest cover. But we must generate and promote platforms that allow us to track, monitor and ensure traceability throughout the production value chain, transparently and in accordance with the national regulatory framework, thus ensuring the achievement of "Zero (illegally) Deforested Hectares" in areas producing for international markets (VISEC Initiative: Sectoral Vision of the Argentine Gran Chaco).
The objective, then, is to transform or perceive these areas in the Chaco as "Biofood Landscapes" enabling positive linkages between spaces designated for nature preservation and others used for different types of production, on various spatial scales, ensuring environmental heterogeneity, diversity of production, and social and productive integration.
Preservation efforts clearly differ from one country to another in the Chaco region, whose largest and most important formal conservation centers are in Bolivia and Paraguay, while Argentina's contribution is clearly insufficient in this sense, demanding innovative models such as the "Shared Management Areas" promoted by ZICOSUR (the Integration Zone of Central-Western South America).
“Preservation efforts clearly differ from one country to another in the Chaco region, whose largest and most important formal conservation centers are in Bolivia and Paraguay, while Argentina's contribution is clearly insufficient in this sense, demanding innovative models” -
Alejandro D. Brown, ProYungas Foundation
Undoubtedly, ZICOSUR is an unparalleled space for regional institutional networking, covering more than 70 subnational states, including a large part of the Gran Chaco region, in which it promotes training activities, integration and coordination of regional environmental regulations. This work is done under the Commission on Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development, with the active participation of Civil Society Organizations. The presence of CSOs has been encouraged and financed by several projects supported by the European Union, and this international institutional backing will be fundamental in future actions to integrate and generate an intersectoral platform focused on the transboundary region of the Chaco and, in the case of Argentina, expanded to include the "Great North" region covering the country's nine northern states.
The Gran Chaco's greater visibility will emerge from joint efforts among different sectors of society, with a cross-border and complementary vision among the region's national and especially sub-national governments, to successfully formulate environmental policies for social inclusion and coordination in the preservation of the Gran Chaco's natural goods and services, to become better integrated into the rest of the world not only through trade, but also by sharing experiences and knowledge with regions with similar socio-environmental conditions.
In short, this was another important step towards integration and long-term strategic planning. More nature, more production, more territorial integration. These are the goals to be achieved by a Gran Chaco that sparks interest and a positive vision of the world.
Speakers who participated in the Land Innovation Dialogues:
Gustavo Idigoras (CIARA-CEC), Mariano Fernández (ZICOSUR), Javier Beltran (TNC), Luca Pierantoni (European Union), Claudia Peirano (AFOA), Marcelo Naval (INTA Santiago del Estero), Agustín Mascotena (SOLIDARIDAD), Paola Díaz (AAPRESID), Ana Andreani (RTRS), Lucas Elizalde (Anta del Dorado S.A. / Andes Harvest Foods S.A.), Yan Speranza (Moisés Bertoni Foundation - Paraguay), Liliana Paniagua (Redes Chaco – Argentina / Bolivia), Stefan Isaak (Neuland Cooperative, Paraguay) and Felipe Mendieta Kramer (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia). Besides participation by Alejandro Brown, president of the ProYungas Foundation (Argentina) and Sebastián Malizia, executive director of the same foundation, we also had the presentation of the Land Innovation Dialogues by Carlos E. Quintela, director of the Land Innovation Fund.