A social-ecological network analysis of Argentinean Andes transhumant pastoralism

Abstract

Many mountainous regions worldwide arecharacterized by harsh environments, scarce infrastructure,and extreme contrasts between mountains and neighboringplateaus and plains. Transhumance is a social adaptation tohandle geomorphological heterogeneity such as lowlandsand highlands, and to cope with environmental variability(seasonal and regional rainfall and snowfall). We studiedthe regional transhumant system with a network approachin the Andes of North Patagonia, Argentina. We measuredthe connectivity promoted by the seasonal movements ofherds and people (relationships) among different ecosystems(nodes), defined as winter and summer lands. Weidentified 238 networks. The highest frequencies correspondedto small network structures (dyads and triads),suggesting that landscape management is highly decentralized.Network complexity was positively related toecological richness and diversity of connected nodes.However, most networks were dependent upon a centralnode, suggesting vulnerable situations regardingdisturbances affecting such key nodes. The identification ofsocial?ecological traps of this mobile system providednovel insights for policy decision making, which otherwisewould not be evidenced with traditional approaches.Management proposals and policy making should considerthe spatial and temporal scales of transhumant pastoralism,in order to avoid problems derived from fixation logics,scale mismatches, and disconnection.