Argentina

Argentina is emblematic of Latin America's abundance of life and ecosystems. The country's 18 eco-regions form a complex territory that includes a sub-tropical zone, Antarctic, the tallest mountains in the Americas, and some of the Atlantic Ocean's greatest depths. According to the National Biodiversity Strategy, Argentina is the habitat of 1,002 bird varieties and hundreds of reptile, mammal, and amphibian species. Unfortunately, 25 percent of them are under the threat of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

Like many of its neighbors, Argentina faces the many challenges that the continued expansion of industrial-scale agriculture, especially soy and cattle production, has brought about in the last few decades. The ever-increasing global demand for food means that farmed areas keep increasing and that deforestation and habitat conversion have become major environmental issues. Land-use changes have affected climate, and thousands of Argentines throughout the country experience droughts and flood events in the same year. Although favorable commodity-market conditions for soy production make the crop the primary driver of conversion, insufficient land-use planning and lack of environmental law enforcement also contribute. These problems may have been more than a hundred years in the making, and solutions will require an increasingly focused change to set long-term success in motion. 

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been driving initiatives that combine value for nature and production and use technology and innovation to leverage existing knowledge and expertise to implement solutions that reduce the agricultural footprint. Having worked in Argentina since 2008, TNC is tackling structural problems through a systemic and collaborative approach, and connecting people with nature through science, smart networking, and joint learning. Involving producers in the efforts to maintain the natural base of productive lands, demonstrates that conservation and development can not only coexist but boost the preservation of forests, grasslands, wetlands, and other ecosystems across the working landscape.

TNC’s Argentina Program has gathered knowledge and learning, including by working with academics, government agencies, ranchers and farmers, local communities, and global markets to chart a course toward a different, more sustainable future. TNC’s vision for Argentina is that of a country with an ever-growing balance between nature and human development, where natural systems underpin an economy that is vibrant and sustainable and enables people to improve their livelihoods for decades to come.

TNC expanded its work in Argentina through the Patagonian Grasslands Conservation project. Thereafter, it extended the work to the humid Pampas, the drylands of the Mendoza River, the Gran Chaco, and the Southern Mediterranean Savannas of eastern Argentina. Among the most important eco-regions in Argentina, whose degradation represents a risk not only to the country but globally, are the Gran Chaco and Patagonia, two Iconic Places in Latin America. 

TNC can deliver nature-based solutions at a scale that addresses the next decade's global environmental challenges in these areas. Those solutions can provide a triple benefit for biodiversity, climate change, and sustainable growth. 

Decisions made today will impact generations and determine the future of these lands in Argentina. Our goals go beyond solving problems; they aim at creating a new vision. Time is limited, resources are finite, and we need to hone in and focus. In Argentina, TNC has three strategic pillars: 

• Freshwater - To help provide water security and conserve water sources and the territories under their influence. 
• Nature and Agriculture  - To promote healthy agricultural systems that benefit nature, people, and agriculture and that are climatically resilient, nature-based, and provenly humane, improving biodiversity and ecosystem conditions across functional landscapes and enhanced social welfare.
• Nature Conservation - To preserve natural environments with high conservation value through a wide array of approaches and promote private land conservation with strategies that vary from the most traditional protection methods to other effective area-based measures that combine different land uses. 

We need support to demonstrate solutions and achieve lasting, large-scale conservation results. Throughout, and implicit in our vision, is the idea that the dual goals of thriving nature and thriving people are compatible now and tomorrow.