The Pampas: The Temperate Grasslands of Argentina

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The Pampas: The Temperate Grasslands of Argentina

By: Vithushaa Panchadcharam

        The temperate grasslands of South America are the vast, grassy plain that stretch across Argentina and wander through Brazil and Peru. Being an illustrious part of the South American landscape, the plains are often referred to as “The Pampas”, meaning “flat, unbounded land” in Quechua (Britannica.)

The temperate, regulated climate of Argentina makes this region ideal for agriculture. Some regions tend to be more humid, while others are dryer and more arid (Smith), which makes the Pampas as a whole the perfect environment to host a large variety of different plants and animals native to the grasslands, including foxes, giant ant-eaters and Pampas deer.

        For centuries, native Argentinian horsemen, called Gauchos have been using the natural abundance of the Pampas to their advantage, introducing cattle farming to the land. Once Europeans discovered the potential the Pampas had to offer in the 16th century, they exported large amount of cattle to Argentina in hopes of making a monopoly of the situation (Smith) to economically benefit their home countries. This began to threaten the ecological integrity of the biome as the agriculture became more and more aggressive.

Figure 2 A Gaucho herding a group of cattle in the Pampas. (5)

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According to S.E Smith, overgrazing has caused the rivers to become muddy and murky, “causing problem downstream”. Intense agriculture of the region has “stripped the soil of nutrients”, slowly crippling the once plentiful abundance of the land. On top of this, farmers are now experimenting with extralocal plants and herbs, which call for suppression by fire to protect the land. He process not only places “heavy demands on water supplies”, but has also begun a chain of disastrous wildfires in the region, which cause the build-up of dead organic material and brush in the Pampas. (Smith)

        Cattle farming, despite ...

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