Deforestation, agricultural expansion and population dynamics in the Dry Chaco Argentina during the Nineties

The Argentine Gran Chaco is the largest forest and the largest reservoir of biomass in the extratropical Southern Hemisphere. The area west of the seven-hundred-millimeter isohyet is the semiarid environment or Dry Chaco, occupying parts of the provinces of Salta, Chaco, Formosa, Santiago del Estero, and Tucuman. This area of the Chaco has a great biological diversity and is characterized by an accelerated process of deforestation, especially as a result of farming soybean crops. The Dry Chaco has been generally considered a demographic vacuum, poor and marginal. But the changes currently occurring in relation to the advancement of the agricultural frontier are altering the demographic dynamics of local populations. This article tries to show the extent of deforestation and the impact of agricultural frontier expansion (especially from soybeans) on demographic dynamics of the area. Adapted from the source document.