Livestock Activity in Norwestern Patagonian Protected Areas

Abstract

This paper presents results on how livestock and livestock activity (or cattle ranching) is perceived by the National Park Administration in the Andean region of nor Patagonia, Argentina.Livestock activity in Argentinean Patagonian Andes has older antecedents than the establishment of National Parks. Its development and expansion is found around late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the entire Patagonian territory was incorporated into the National State of Argentina as agricultural-livestock colonies. By then and for a few decades, open-borders policy was proposed as a strategy for economic development of Argentina and Chile. A related activity, transhumance, has even older roots in Patagonia, dating back to the 16th century, but the network of herding roads or trails throughout the mountains had a clear expansion in this particular period, and just a few years before the creation of the firsts National Parks.Given that livestock activity precedes the creation of National Parks, we compared the way in which the ideas surrounding cattle ranching are presented in the Management Plans documents of the protected areas of nor western (where Andes mountains are) Patagonia in Argentina.