Beef Cattle Production Systems in South Pantanal: Considerations on Territories and Integration Scales

Abstract

Pantanal is one of the largest wetlands in the world. In its southern portion, it hosts significant beef cattle ranching, having a herd of 4,832,200 head of cattle in 2016 (IBGE, 2018). Yet it presents intra-regional differences and complementarities. This article discusses such current territory definition, focusing on cattle ranching in Pantanal, considering its forms of occupation, agents, and its intra-regional flow of cattle. This recognition is essential for the identification of the arrangements developed in the territory, its temporal dynamics and spatial strategies, assuming different forms of interaction with the environment. In order to identify multiple livestock territories and their logics of action, data grouped into four dimensions were considered: (i) agents, (ii) product, (iii) space used, and (iv) flows and circulation, approached in different scales (farms, municipal and units of landscape floodplain/plateau). The analyzes show different forms of domination and territorial appropriation, continuous and discontinuous, permanent and temporary. Mapping of cattle territories in the South Pantanal identified a scenario of multiterritoriality. While maintaining its “nursery” profile, it presents more intensive arrangements with the rearing and fattening phases. New territorialities represented by external agents and the fragmentation of old properties has genereted a new mapping of the “used spaces” for cattle breeding and posed new challenges for the maintenance of the traditional cattle production systems in the region.

Sustainability Agenda for the Pantanal Wetland: Perspectives on a Collaborative Interface for Science, Policy, and Decision-Making

“…Even though the emission of greenhouse effect gases by cattle in the Pantanal is essential to understand the contribution of this activity to the Pantanal ecosystem emission budget (Bergier et al, 2018;Dalmagro et al, 2019;Rojas-Downing, Nejadhashemi, Harrigan, & Woznicki, 2017), achieving this objective is unlikely to reduce the impacts of climate change in the Pantanal. As Brazil's CO 2 greenhouse gases represent less than 4% of the global total (Den Elzen, Olivier, H€ ohne, & Janssens-Maenhout, 2013) and the emission by cattle 18% of the Brazilian total (Bogaerts et al, 2017), it is clear that zeroing the emissions of the Pantanal herd that represent $5% of the Brazilian heads (Araujo et al, 2018) will not substantially alter the current global emission scenario. The supposed neutrality of cattle emission in the Pantanal (Bergier et al, 2019) should be cautiously viewed as natural emissions from wetlands should not be used when accounting for anthropogenic emission (Desjardins et al, 2012;Steinfeld et al, 2006).…”

Compound impact of land use and extreme climate on the 2020 fire record of the Brazilian Pantanal

“…Our results show that native grasses burn the most in the Pantanal, suggesting that fire might be used for pasture maintenance in areas that do not flood. Native grasses are the primary food for the cattle in the Pantanal, with cattle production characterized by the movement of animals according to grassland availability, which is renewed seasonally by the temporarily flooded areas (Araujo, Monteiro, et al, 2018). Cattle production is considered to be the main economic activity in the Pantanal, whereas owing to the flood season, only a small portion of the area is destignated for crop production (SOS‐Pantanal, 2021).…”

O Uso do Espaço pela Onça-Pintada é Influenciado pela Luz da Lua? Iluminando o Movimento de Felinos de Grande Porte no Sul do Pantanal

“…The study area totals ~131,000 ha of which 91,400 ha, or ~69.8%, correspond to fields; 39,400 ha, or ~30%, are forests; and, finally, water bodies correspond to less than 1 thousand ha. Large areas of land are devoted to cattle farming in the Pantanal and livestock is almost exclusively kept free in the farms, on native pastures, except in protected areas (Abreu et al, 2010;Araujo et al, 2018). Thus, all fields are assumed potential pastures in our study.…”