| Sumario: | In the late 1800s, agricultural activities in the
‘Pampas’ region near Buenos Aires expanded rapidly,
and as a result, livestock production (mainly sheep)
was pushed into marginal areas such as Patagonia
(Table 11.1). The unknown carrying capacity of
Patagonian rangelands resulted in severe overstocking,
and this, coupled with the fragility of the environment,
the mismanagement of natural resources
and other socioeconomic aspects led to a major
degradation of the natural resource base. There are
more than 6.5 million hectares affected by desertification
(del Valle et al., 1995), where annual pasture
production does not exceed 40 kg DM ha–1.
Furthermore, national and provincial governments
began to promote the planting of fast-growing exotic
forest species in Patagonia to solve the problem of
timber demand and at the same time to diversify the
regional production systems using grassland or shrub
land sites with different levels of degradation.
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