Abstract

Environmental determinants and challenges for sustainable forest management in the Prosopis flexuosa woodlands from the Monte desert, Argentina. Ecol. austral [online]. 2019, vol.29, n.1, pp.146-155. ISSN 1667-782X.

A significant proportion of the world-degraded forests is located in arid zones. The P. flexuosa woodlands from the Monte Biogeographic Province are among the most environmentally constrained forest in the country, which suggests the sustainable forest management is difficult to achieve. In this paper, we propose to discuss the environmental determinants of woodland productivity, and to evaluate territorial and management strategies that contribute to increase the sustainability of their use, and to the conservation and restoration of degraded forests. These woodlands show a latitudinal gradient in the population structure; this determines their forestry potential. The woodlands from the Northern sector have trees of greater size and higher growth and productivity, allowing us to think about timber forest management. In the central and southern sectors, in turn, it would only be possible to extract products of lower economic value (i.e., firewood and posts), integrated with extensive livestock and other non-timber products use. Precipitation is the main determinant of livestock carrying capacity, and the history of use has generated different states of woodland degradation. The great challenge is to be able to carry out a territorial planning that takes into account the spatial heterogeneity described above, that improves the technological processes used in order to optimize woodland production, and that makes it possible to decide on the priority activities for each area. The analytical comparison of maps of potential, historical and current distribution is proposed as a tool with strong implications on the woodland management and conservation, since it allows for the discrimination of areas with forest-use potential, reforestation zones and areas with no forest vocation.

Keywords : Prosopis; Sustainability; Arid zone woodlands; Forestry; Land use planning; OTBN.

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