The Livestock Frontier in the Paraguayan Chaco: A Local Agent-based Perspective

Deforestation is one of the most relevant transformations characterizing global environmental change in the tropics at present. There is wide consensus in pointing the context-dependent nature of tropical deforestation. In this sense, a better characterization of the phenomenon considering the social context could provide a more accurate picture of tropical deforestation. With this aim, a Q-methodology discourse analysis was conducted to characterise the different discourses that coexist in the particular region of the Paraguayan Chaco concerning the development of cattle ranching and derived deforestation. Four different discourses were identified as making sense the wide range of interests and values coexisting and clashing in the Paraguayan Chaco, namely: the Environmentalist discourse, the Business discourse, the Resigned discourse, and the Possibilist discourse. The results point that the fundamental differences between the discourses are largely explained by the different positions on three specific domains: (i) the socio-economic benefits the expansion of cattle ranching brings about; (ii) the environmental impacts the expansion of cattle ranching and the derived deforestation brings on; and, finally (iii) the degree to which an active intervention from the side of policy making to regulate the expansion of cattle ranching and to minimize possible detrimental effects is seen as necessary. The position of the different discourses in relation to these domains could help policy makers to make measures and regulations more widely accepted and followed.