Il Chaco Salteño. Specificità e fragilità del sistema territoriale indigeno

Abstract

The Chaco Salteño is a region in northwest Argentina of great ecological and anthropological interest. Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, the area underwent a progressive process of land exploitation, with serious ecological and social consequences. Given the low population density, large-scale industrial systems such as intensive livestock farms, monocultures and oil wells met little resistance and proliferated rapidly causing massive deforestation. As a result the habitat of the different ethnic groups inhabiting the region was radically altered. The indigenous territorial system, based on a strong harmonious relationship between society and nature was disrupted. The damage was not only to the material conditions of life, but above all to the ability to hand down and preserve their cultural identity. It was only since the beginning of the 2000s, after decades of exploitation, that legislation attempted to halt the process of extractivism and guarantee land rights to the people who have inhabited these territories since pre-Columbian times. The goals tbe research reported here was to analyze the consequences of environmental alterations on the current indigenous territorial systems. The specificities of the territorial dynamics of the indigenous world within the question of development linked to local resources could lead to important reflections on contemporary settlement patterns, especially in times of adverse social and climatic changes.