Rural outmigration drives political, economic, and environmental change. Educational, socioeconomic, and cultural factors foster youth outmigration, influencing changes in land use patterns through either intensification or deintensification of agriculture. This study describes demographic changes and migration patterns at regional and local scales in the High Monte of northwest Argentina and the associated changes in socioeconomic dynamics. Based on data from the National Population Census and National Agricultural Census, we analyzed (1) migratory movements within and outside of the High Monte of northwest Argentina, (2) changes in heads of livestock and crop production area, and (3) by evaluating population, changes at a more local scale, including whether these changes differ between areas of high and those of low population density and with different extents of cultivated area. We found that people tend to remain within northwest Argentina but are moving toward emerging cities in valleys, departments, and province capitals. At a local scale, people are abandoning mountainous land that is unsuitable for agricultural production, whereas populated centers and valley areas with suitable land for agriculture are growing. Heads of livestock decreased in most departments, and cultivated areas decreased in half of the departments and increased in the other half. Our study suggests that emerging cities are becoming new hotspots, retaining population at the regional level while promoting the abandonment of marginal, mountainous areas at the local level, in the context of a general reduction in livestock activity in most departments. This could potentially be expressed through differential patterns of land use deintensification and intensification that are linked to demographic changes.

ABSTRACT Aim We investigated the effects of habitat destruction and hunting on the functional decline of top predators, specifically jaguar and puma, in the Gran Chaco. Location The 1.1 million km 2 South American Gran Chaco. Methods We used spatially explicit, individual‐based models for jaguars and pumas, incorporating detailed information on habitat suitability and hunting pressure. We parameterized our models with literature data and calibrated them through a Delphi expert‐elicitation process. We simulated population trajectories under a hypothetical, threat‐free, baseline versus different threat scenarios. Results Under combined threats of hunting and habitat loss, jaguar and puma populations declined by 88% and 80%, respectively, compared to range contractions of 48% and 35%, respectively. Both species remained regionally viable, particularly due to large protected areas, which acted as population sources but were surrounded by strong sinks. We observed a widespread weakening of the top carnivore guild function, with at least one species extirpated across 67% of the Chaco and strong declines (> 80%; considered here as functional loss) for both species concurrently across 61% of their area of historical co‐occurrence. Hunting was a much stronger driver of population declines (88% and 77% for jaguars and pumas, respectively) compared to habitat destruction (26% and 22%). Main Conclusions Large predators play key functional roles in ecosystems. Our findings reveal that these functions can be lost over vast areas due to the combined effects of habitat destruction and hunting, with functional loss extending far beyond the areas of species' extirpation. Very large protected areas, like Kaa‐Iya in Bolivia, are crucial for maintaining viable populations of top predators, highlighting the pressing need for increased protection and connectivity in the Chaco to prevent further trophic downgrading. More generally, our research underscores the value of spatially detailed, mechanistic models for disentangling the complex dynamics of multiple threats on ecological functioning at broad scales.

Interactions between humans and carnivores are widespread and shaped by diverse social-ecological factors. In Argentina, interactions with pumas (Puma concolor) primarily involve livestock depredation and hunting. Since both interaction types are threatening the coexistence between humans and pumas, understanding their spatial patterns is essential for promoting sustainable coexistence. We identified 90 interaction locations (51 depredation, 39 hunting) from online news and literature (2017–2022) and analyzed spatial social-ecological variables influencing these interactions using generalized linear models. Depredation interactions were associated with lower cattle density, higher human population density, and increased agriculture, while hunting interactions were linked to a higher number of settlements and greater small-livestock density. Within Social-Ecological Land Systems (SELS), these interactions occurred predominantly in “urbanized large-scale agricultural plains” and “low-diversity cold and temperate grassy rangelands”. These findings advance the understanding of interaction dynamics in socially and ecologically complex landscapes, highlighting the need for targeted policies for different regions.

Land use is a key driver of the ongoing biodiversity crisis and therefore also a major opportunity for its mitigation. However, appropriately considering the diversity of land-use actors and activities in conservation assessments and planning is challenging. As a result, top-down conservation policy and planning are often criticized for a lack of contextual nuance widely acknowledged to be required for effective and just conservation action. To address these challenges, we have developed a conceptually consistent, scalable land system typology and demonstrated its usefulness for the world's tropical dry woodlands. Our typology identifies key land-use actors and activities that represent typical threats to biodiversity and opportunities for conservation action. We identified land systems in a hierarchical way, with a global level allowing for broad-scale planning and comparative work. Nested within it, a regionalized level provides social-ecological specificity and context. We showcase this regionalization for five hotspots of land-use change and biodiversity loss in dry woodlands in Argentina, Bolivia, Mozambique, India, and Cambodia. Unlike other approaches to present land use, our typology accounts for the complexity of overlapping land uses. This allows, for example, assessment of how conservation measures conflict with other land uses, understanding of the social-ecological co-benefits and trade-offs of area-based conservation, mapping of threats, or targeting area-based and actor-based conservation measures. Moreover, our framework enables cross-regional learning by revealing both commonalities and social-ecological differences, as we demonstrate here for the world's tropical dry woodlands. By bridging the gap between global, top-down, and regional, bottom-up initiatives, our framework enables more contextually appropriate sustainability planning across scales and more targeted and social-ecologically nuanced interventions.

In a recent speech to the UN General Assembly, Argentine President Javier Milei rejected the Pact for the Future and the 2030 Agenda, a comprehensive global framework for sustainable development encompassing ‘people, planet, and prosperity.’ This position undermines Argentina’s capacity to tackle urgent socio-environmental challenges like poverty, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and wildfires. By walking away from this international initiative, Argentina risks isolation and exacerbating these interconnected crises.

Aim: The persistence of large carnivore populations depends on their survival outside protected areas, where they often impact local livelihoods through livestock depredation. Understanding the impacts of human behaviour on large carnivores in shared landscapes is thus important but is often overlooked in habitat assessments or conservation planning. We employed an integrated approach that considers human behaviour and landscape structure metrics to assess the potential for human-puma (Puma concolor) coexistence in the Chaco region, a global deforestation and defaunation hotspot. LocationArgentine Dry Chaco (similar to 490,000 km(2)). Methods: We identified suitable puma habitat patches and movement areas using occupancy modelling and combined it with a spatial human-puma conflict risk model based on interview data to identify 'safe' and 'unsafe' habitat patches. We then used resistance surfaces to identify 'safe' and 'unsafe' movement areas, as well as 'severed' movement areas where anthropogenic land conversion inhibits movement. Results: Safe puma habitat patches (i.e., suitable and safe) covered 29% of the region, whereas attractive sinks (i.e., suitable but risky) represented 12%. Movement areas corresponded to 60% of the region, while conflict risk and high landscape resistance undermined connectivity: unsafe and severed movement areas covered 10% and 11% of the region, respectively. Nearly 98% of safe habitat and movement areas occurred outside protected areas. Main Conclusions: We provide an integrated conceptual framework and spatial explicit template for a three-pronged conservation strategy to (1) protect safe habitat and movement areas, (2) mitigate livestock depredation in attractive sinks and unsafe movement areas and (3) restore landscape in severed and matrix areas to improve ecological connectivity. This would allow pumas to maintain viable populations while reducing negative impacts on local people. More generally, we show how integrating habitat and conflict risk models can reveal opportunities and challenges for human-carnivore coexistence beyond protected areas.

El ocelote (Leopardus pardalis) es uno de los 11 felinos presentes en Argentina, y ha sido categorizado como “Vulnerable” (VU), reportando una disminución en sus poblaciones del 25% en la ecorregión Yungas. En este trabajo estimamos la abundancia relativa, densidad, y patrones de actividad del ocelote (Leopardus pardalis) y caracterizamos al ensamble de mamíferos mediano-grandes a lo largo de un gradiente altitudinal (500 a 1400 m s.n.m.) de las Yungas de Tucumán, dentro de en un área protegida privada de 3000 hectáreas. Establecimos 10 sitios de muestreo separados entre sí por 500 a 900 m. En cada sitio ubicamos dos cámaras-trampa enfrentadas para identificar individuos de ocelote a través de marcas distintivas. El esfuerzo de muestreo fue de 1408 días-trampa y registramos 11 especies de mamíferos mediano-grandes (nueve especies nativas y dos exóticas: el perro doméstico y la liebre). La densidad estimada de ocelotes fue de 15,2 ind/100 km2, un valor similar a los obtenidos en la Selva Paranaense de Misiones (17,6 ind/100 km2), el cual requiere un esfuerzo más exhaustivo de muestreo para corroborarse. Este estudio brinda una primera aproximación sobre el estado poblacional del ocelote, y un importante aporte a la línea de base de la Reserva San Pablo.

The puma (Puma concolor) is distributed over most vegetation types and elevation ranges, but is still sensitive to habitat loss and human persecution. Due to its large spatial requirements, pumas must persist in human-modified landscapes, where vegetation cover and prey availability can limit its occurrence. Few studies have assessed the suite of factors that may influence carnivore persistence in deforestation frontiers such as the Dry Chaco. We explored the influence of landscape structure, native prey availability, and local anthropogenic proxies on puma occupancy in Argentine Dry Chaco agroecosystems through a single-season occupancy framework based on camera-trap surveys. We used the results to predict puma occupancy for the ecoregion. Woody cover and the proportion of pasture within the surrounding matrix influenced puma occupancy: in areas with moderate to little woody cover, puma occupancy was negatively influenced by the proportion of pasture relative to cropland. Predicted puma occupancy probability was very high throughout half of the ecoregion. Our results corroborate the landscape-scale importance of woody cover for the puma in the Dry Chaco. However, the negative relation between puma occupancy and pasture dominance in areas with little woody cover could be suggesting potential negative interactions with humans, or seasonal variations in environmental condictions and resource availability that should be further explored.

ContextFor nearly three years, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted human well-being and livelihoods, communities, and economies in myriad ways with consequences for social-ecological systems across the planet. The pandemic represents a global shock in multiple dimensions that has already, and is likely to continue to have, far-reaching effects on land systems and on those depending on them for their livelihoods.ObjectivesWe focus on the observed effects of the pandemic on landscapes and people composing diverse land systems across the globe.MethodsWe highlight the interrelated impacts of the pandemic shock on the economic, health, and mobility dimensions of land systems using six vignettes from different land systems on four continents, analyzed through the lens of socio-ecological resilience and the telecoupling framework. We present preliminary comparative insights gathered through interviews, surveys, key informants, and authors' observations and propose new research avenues for land system scientists.ResultsThe pandemic's effects have been unevenly distributed, context-specific, and dependent on the multiple connections that link land systems across the globe.ConclusionsWe argue that the pandemic presents concurrent "natural experiments" that can advance our understanding of the intricate ways in which global shocks produce direct, indirect, and spillover effects on local and regional landscapes and land systems. These propagating shock effects disrupt existing connections, forge new connections, and re-establish former connections between peoples, landscapes, and land systems.

Tropical and subtropical dry woodlands are rich in biodiversity and carbon. Yet, many of these woodlands are under high deforestation pressure and remain weakly protected. Here, we assessed how deforestation dynamics relate to areas of woodland protection and to conservation priorities across the world's tropical dry woodlands. Specifically, we characterized different types of deforestation frontier from 2000 to 2020 and compared them to protected areas (PAs), Indigenous Peoples' lands and conservation areas for biodiversity, carbon and water. We found that global conservation priorities were always overrepresented in tropical dry woodlands compared to the rest of the globe (between 4% and 96% more than expected, depending on the type of conservation priority). Moreover, about 41% of all dry woodlands were characterized as deforestation frontiers, and these frontiers have been falling disproportionately in areas with important regional (i.e. tropical dry woodland) conservation assets. While deforestation frontiers were identified within all tropical dry woodland classes of woodland protection, they were lower than the average within protected areas coinciding with Indigenous Peoples' lands (23%), and within other PAs (28%). However, within PAs, deforestation frontiers have also been disproportionately affecting regional conservation assets. Many emerging deforestation frontiers were identified outside but close to PAs, highlighting a growing threat that the conserved areas of dry woodland will become isolated. Understanding how deforestation frontiers coincide with major types of current woodland protection can help target context-specific conservation policies and interventions to tropical dry woodland conservation assets (e.g. PAs in which deforestation is rampant require stronger enforcement, inactive deforestation frontiers could benefit from restoration). Our analyses also identify recurring patterns that can be used to test the transferability of governance approaches and promote learning across social-ecological contexts.

Human-carnivore conflicts threaten the survival of large carnivore populations and impose high costs for humans. Knowledge co-building approaches can be successful for tackling these problems. We examined conflicts between the puma (Puma concolor) and pastoralists from an Argentine Puna village through semi-structured interviews and a focus group discussion. According to data from the community, 6% of livestock were killed by pumas in 2017, causing an estimated US $14,340 loss. Interviewees perceived pumas as dangerous and hunted them to protect livestock. Predation and diseases were identified as major causes of livestock losses, and infrequent checks on livestock, livestock being free-ranging, and an increase in the puma population were underlying causes of predation. Interviewees mentioned direct economic costs and indirect and hidden costs as consequences of livestock loss. Given that social factors are important drivers in human- wildlife conflicts, we highlight the importance of engaging the community during conflict research and management.

Human settlement into rural areas (counterurbanization) is generating new patterns of reforestation, with distinctive features compared to the previously considered pathways of forest transition through "economic development" and "forest scarcity". Here, we discuss the specific features of this neglected pathway of forest recovery and describe the process with the support of study cases around the world. This pathway includes specific motivations (e.g., natural amenities, outdoor recreation), particular socio-economic processes, conflicts between newcomers and locals, and specific ecological outcomes (e.g., a larger proportion of non-native species in the new forests). Although this pathway locally affects small areas, as a widespread and expanding process around the world, counterurbanization could have a growing global effect, with the potential to modify biodiversity, ecosystem services, and cultural values. These novel characteristics should be further explored to better understand the patterns and processes of forest transitions in a context of a globally connected world.

As an apex predator, pumas (Puma concolor) frequently enter into conflict with humans because of predation on livestock. We analyzed the association between puma predation and human tolerance in six agroecosystems of the Argentine Dry Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. Specifically, we addressed attitudes and behaviors of local social actors toward pumas, their association to reported livestock predation, and the incidence of livestock management and puma abundance on predation on livestock. Puma predation on livestock was considered an important cause of livestock loss. Attitudes toward pumas were negative, but were not strongly associated with predation. However, retaliatory hunting was more common among respondents who experienced livestock predation. Breeding goats and sheep and the lack of corrals increased livestock predation probability, which decreased with low puma abundance. Tolerance toward pumas is low in agroecosystems of this region, and further qualitative studies should address its likely hidden causes.

Leopardus colocola (Molina, 1782) is a poorly known small felid distributed throughout a large portion of South America, reported as extinct in the Pampas of Argentina, and absent from a large portion of the Argentine Dry Chaco. We compile data from the field and national collections to report new occurrence records of this species from the Dry Chaco of Argentina and update its distribution. We discuss the need of further assessments of the distribution of this species in the light of ongoing land-use changes in the area.

The Pampas cat is a poorly-known small felid distributed throughout a large portion of South America, reported as extinct in the Pampas of Argentina, and absent from a large portion of the Argentine Dry Chaco. Here, we compile data from the field and collections to report new presence records of the Pampas cat from the Dry Chaco of Argentina, which update to the distribution of this felid in the region. We discuss the need of further assessments for the species distribution in the light of ongoing land-use changes in the area.

Disparity between the knowledge produced and knowledge required to address complex environmental challenges, such as biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation, continues to grow. Systems thinking under the Open Standards for Conservation framework can help close this gap by facilitating interdisciplinary engagement, advancing conversations on how environmental systems work, and identifying actions that could be implemented to achieve defined conservation goals. Here, we present a modelling exercise for one of the most endangered forested systems in the world: The Gran Chaco. We focus on unsustainable hunting, a pressing threat to this system. We highlight knowledge gaps that underpin all parts of an adaptive management process from understanding key relationships in social-ecological systems to design and implementation of strategies for Gran Chaco conservation as well as evaluation of outcomes.

In most of the planet, large herbivore communities have been replaced by livestock, but this process is reversing in many places. Here, we outline and review the pathways of “megaherbivore rewilding transitions” in three social-ecological-systems of subtropical Argentina. In the extensive arid high-elevation Puna plateau we observed a “rapid rewilding pathway” where the reduction of livestock was accompanied by the recovery of native camelid populations from near extinction in a few decades. In the forest-grassland ecotone, decreasing livestock favored higher fire frequency, probably limiting the speed of native herbivore recovery in an “increasing fire pathway”. In lowland montane forests, the recovery of native herbivore communities appears to be lagged by fragmentation, local extinctions and human pressure, representing a case of “connectivity-limited rewilding”. These typologies exemplify the complexity of outcomes resulting from livestock diminishing density, and provide a framework to understand and optimize processes of large herbivore rewilding according to different social-ecological contexts.

The Dry Chaco is mostly known as a forested ecosystem. However it includes natural grasslands, savannas, scrublands, and wetlands. With one of the highest global deforestation rates in the last two decades and only 12% of the area protected, the concern about land-use change in this ecoregion has raised exponentially; but conservation initiatives developed in last years almost exclusively targeted forests whereas natural grasslands and savannas remain as neglected ecosystem within scientific and governmental agendas. While currently the distribution of natural grassland and savanna area encompasses over 20,000 km2, historical records and spatial models indicate that natural grassland and savannas were more widespread in pre-European era. Two main reasons drove this reduction in natural grasslands and savannas: woody encroachment by fire suppression and overgrazing, and conversion to agriculture and implanted pastures. In this article, through a combination of analyzes and bibliographic revisions, we describe biotic and abiotic components of natural grassland and savannas of the Dry Chaco. We also present the current distribution and conservation status of these ecosystems, and describe the process of change and the ecological consequences for biogeochemical cycles and biologic interactions. To provide basis for management, we estimate current grazing stocking rates on natural grasslands and savannas of Argentine Dry Chaco and we propose an alternative approach to sustainably intensify the use of these ecosystems and improve cattle rancher livelihoods. Despite the existent knowledge about natural grasslands and savannas in the region, we believe that is necessary to motivate the scientific community and national institutions to increase efforts to reconcile the restoration and conservation of these particular rangelands.