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The paper focuses on the study of social-ecological conflicts, more specifically on ecological distribution conflicts. First, it analyzes how these conflicts can be assessed from the conceptual framework of Nature’s Contributions to People. It then formulates some conceptualizations based on the conflicts addressed in the paper. And finally, it discusses how these conflicts highlight the contradictions of the dominant models of nature’s appropriation, in current capitalist societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience—the capacity of an ecosystem to recover from disturbance—is a popular concept but quantitative empirical studies are still uncommon. This lack of empirical evidence is especially true for semi‐arid ecosystems in the face of the combined and often confounding impacts of land use and climate changes.We designed a methodology to disentangle vegetation responses to land‐use exclusion and weather variability, and piloted it at the southern extreme of the Gran Chaco forest, the most extensive seasonally dry forest in South America. We established 16 pairs of neighbouring fenced and unfenced plots in four ecosystem types resulting from different long‐term land‐use regimes under the same climate and on highly similar soil parental material. From lower to higher land‐use intensity, related with logging and livestock grazing and trampling, these types were: primary forest (no land use in the last 50 years), secondary forest, closed species‐rich shrubland and open shrubland. In each plot we monitored plant species composition during the first 5 years following land‐use exclusion, and evaluated the resilience as the rate of change of vegetation towards the primary forest, considered as the reference ecosystem.We found that during the first 5 years of exclusion and despite the high rainfall, only grass cover in the secondary forest showed positive resilience (recovery towards the reference ecosystem). The rest of the variables in the other ecosystem types showed either no significant change (null resilience) or even transitioned away from the reference state (negative resilience).Synthesis. The lack of detectable recovery after 5 years of exclusion suggests that (a) long‐term land use, even at lower intensities, has affected the sources of resilience of this ecosystem; (b) rainy periods do not necessarily speed up recovery as suggested in the literature; and (c) study designs should incorporate the variation of the reference ecosystem in order to differentiate the effect of land use from other factors in a context of climate change. Although still confined to the early post‐disturbance stages, our findings suggest that recovery of these systems may be slower and more complicated than predicted in the literature on the basis of space‐for‐time substitutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon the four categories that regulate property, access and appropriation of economic goods (i.e., private, public, open access, and common), this paper aims to analyze how the approval of a law that fosters the conservation of native forests a) promotes the enclosure of common goods, and b) causes different impacts among social actors. By using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and combining different information sources (interviews to different social actors, mass media, and government documents), we analyzed the socioeconomic impacts of the Law for the Protection of Native Forests, in the Province of Córdoba (Argentina). The results suggest that the new law prioritize the concept of private property over customary norms, local arrangements, and flexible access to ecosystem services which are major features of the social and productive approach followed by subsistence farmers. Capitalized farmers, holding higher economic and political power, have access to different mechanisms allowing them to lessen the new-laws restrictive effects, and have better chances to receive monetary compensations from the Estate for payments for ecosystem services. Thus, new social conditions emerge, which translate into economic asymmetries and processes of social exclusion among different kinds of farmers settled in the same territory. Those who hold lower political and economic power are the most vulnerable ones (i.e., subsistence farmers) and therefore are the most negatively impacted by the new scenario. In a globalized world dominated by an economy market that prioritizes short-term profits, native ecosystems face growing extractivist pressures, which is generating high social and environmental consequences. The State has the responsibility to protect these threatened ecosystems and to guarantee social wellbeing. But all new environmental legislation must also consider its possible socioeconomic impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to (a) identify, describe and analyse the socio-productive diversity observed in an alternative agrarian model; and to (b) identify and discuss its most important features, focusing on an agroecological type of production, in the Province of Córdoba (Argentina). The results help to describe the main characteristics of farmers linked to agroecology from which the main productive types can be classified. The four primary analytical axes are: socio-productive heterogeneity, agroecological transitions, socio-productive innovation, and technological hybridisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argentina is globally known as a beef producer and consumer. Although the national and international significance of Argentinean bovine meat production, only few but valuable attempts were made to systematize and evaluate the environmental impact of the beef cattle sector by using a life cycle perspective. In the present work we aim to assess the environmental performance of the Argentinean beef cattle sector by performing a cradle-to-farm-gate partial life cycle analysis. Firstly, we modeled 75 beef cow-calf and finishing systems distributed among 8 livestock regions to obtain the environmental footprint per ton of live weight (LW) at farm gate for each cow-calf and finishing system. Secondly, the cow-calf and finishing systems were linked to form full production systems for each region and weighted by regional stocks. Thirdly, the regional data were integrated to determine the weighted average footprint per ton of LW and the absolute environmental impacts of the entire beef cattle sector. For 2016, the weighted means of environmental footprints at national scale were: 22.6 ton DM/ton LW for biomass consumption, 10.7 ha/ton LW for land occupation, 17.4 ton CO 2 /ton LW for GHG emissions, 10.3 GJ/ton LW for fossil energy use, 182 kg N-P-S/ton LW for synthetic fertilizer use and 4.68 kg a.i./ton LW for pesticides use. As a result, the total production of beef cattle in Argentina during 2016 consumed an estimated 129 Mton of biomass, of which 92% was grass (71% native pastures and 21% seeded pastures) and 8% were supplements as maize grain, silage (maize and sorghum) and hay. Regarding land occupation 61.1 Mha was necessary to supply the sector, 95% of it represented by grasslands (81% native pastures and 14% seeded pastures). Also, the beef cattle sector emitted to the atmosphere 99.3 Mton CO 2 -eq and used a total of 58.8 million GJ of fossil energy, 1.04 Mton of synthetic fertilizer and 26.7 thousand kg a.i. of pesticides. • Biomass consumption was 22.6 kg DMI/kg LW (92 % grass and 8% supplements). • Land occupation was 107 m2/kg LW (81% native pastures and 14% seeded pastures). • Greenhouse gas emissions were 17.4 kg CO 2 -eq/kg LW. • Fossil energy use was 10.4 MJ/kg LW. • Pesticide use was 0.468 g a.i./kg LW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The livestock sector contributes significantly to the resource-use and pollution from food systems. Therefore, assessing the current and future environmental impacts of livestock production under different systems in different countries, has become an important area of solution-oriented research in sustainability science. We performed a cradle-to-farm-gate life cycle analysis to quantify biomass consumption (edible and non-edible for humans), land occupation (including cropland), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the use of fossil energy, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides related to beef, chicken, pork, milk and egg production in Argentina, a major producer and consumer of animal foods. We found that in 2016 the livestock sector consumed a total of 157 Mt of biomass (87% non edible for humans), required 66.2 Mha of land, of which 7.01 Mha were cropland, and emitted 157 Mt CO 2 -eq to the atmosphere (46 Mt CO 2 -eq from land-use change). In addition, 83 PJ of fossil energy were used, including that for the manufacture of 534 kt of N–P–S synthetic fertilizers and 59.6 kt of active ingredients of synthetic pesticides. However, the relative participation of each livestock group on the total environmental footprints was different, being beef the dominant one for all the indicators. When footprints per unit of protein weight were analyzed, all products had similar values regarding edible-biomass consumption, fossil energy use and pesticide use. However, delivering proteins from beef required between 12 and 28 times more land, and emits 6–34 more GHGs than the rest of the livestock products. The options for reducing such impacts are briefly discussed, emphasizing that solutions have to be tailored based on the management traditions and associated with the country's high ecological heterogeneity. • The environmental footprints of Argentina's livestock sector were assessed. • It consumed 157 Mt of biomass (13% edible for humans) and required 66.2 Mha. • It emitted 157 Mt CO 2 -eq and used 83 PJ of fossil energy. • It required 534 kt of N–P–S synthetic fertilizer and 59.6 kt (a.i.) of pesticides. • Beef had the largest footprint for all the analyzed indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]