PUBLICATIONS
PUBLICACIONES
REVEALING LAND CONTROL DYNAMICS IN EMERGING AGRICULTURAL FRONTIERS
Olivia del Giorgio, Matthias Baumann, Tobias Kuemmerle, Yann le Polain de Waroux
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) - 2025
The expansion of commodity agriculture into tropical and subtropical woodlands degrades ecosystem functionality, biodiversity, and the livelihood base of millions of people. Understanding where and how agricultural frontiers emerge is thus important. Yet, existing monitoring approaches typically focus on mapping deforestation and do not capture the shifts in land access and ownership that lay the ground for agricultural expansion, thereby missing early stages of frontier development. We develop an approach that captures these early dynamics and apply it to the entire 1,1 million km2 of the Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. Through the detection of linear features indicative of land claims and the analysis of their spatial–temporal dynamics, we reveal that the footprint of agricultural frontiers in the region extends far beyond that of deforestation. Most of the Chaco shows signs of land claiming, and although claiming activity is especially concentrated close to active deforestation, emergent claiming in remote parts of the Bolivian and Paraguayan Chaco indicates rapidly growing interest in land in these regions. Finally, the strong spatial correlation between land claiming and the disappearance of smallholder homesteads points to the social repercussions of early agricultural frontier expansion in the Chaco. By offering a transferable template to map land-control indicators at scale, our approach enables a better understanding of frontier processes and more accurate targeting of policy interventions in emerging agricultural frontiers globally.
Traducción al español por venir.
SYSTEMIC SEXISM IN ACADEMIA - AN EARLY CAREER PERSPECTIVE
Olivia del Giorgio, Gabriela Fontanarrosa, Silvia Lomáscolo, María Piquer-Rodríguez
BioScience - 2025
The added trials we face as female early career researchers are seriously debilitating, and having to build, inflate, and constantly patch up our own lifeboat as we navigate these challenges is a systemic injustice. Ending misogyny in academia requires, first and foremost in our opinion, that we openly denounce the setbacks that we face, by virtue of our womanhood, starting at the very headwaters of our careers. So, in what follows, we share the main hurdles we and other women around us have faced, across institutions and continents, in the throes of our growth as researchers.
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A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICTS: THE CASE OF SMALLHOLDER LIVESTOCK DEPREDATION BY THE PUMA (PUMA CONCOLOR) IN THE ARGENTINE DRY CHACO.
Ana Sofia Nanni, Olivia del Giorgio, Loreley Cuadrado, Ana L. Dip Yordanoff, André Luis Regolin
Biological Conservation - 2025
Negative impacts of wildlife on livelihoods, such as livestock depredation by carnivores, often lead to human-wildlife conflicts that threaten wildlife populations and human well-being. Despite a growing number, few studies have assessed intervention effectiveness to mitigate such impacts. We present a participatory framework for selecting, implementing, and evaluating interventions targeting human-wildlife conflicts. Applied to a community in the Argentine Dry Chaco to mitigate puma (Puma concolor) livestock depredation, it led to the first test and deployment of a community-selected intervention in the region: studded leather collars placed on small livestock. The proposed framework begins with a stage 1 for characterizing the conflict, consisting of a regional assessment of the broader social-ecological context through interviews, and a local assessment via focus group discussions. It then includes three actionable stages for managing the conflict. Stages 2 and 3 involve selecting and testing potential interventions through a prioritization process based on effectiveness, feasibility, and cost. This led to the selection of studded leather collars, which were evaluated through a randomized controlled trial showing that depredation was ten times higher in the uncollared group. In stage 4, the intervention is fully deployed, which resulted in half the depredation rate to that observed during the trial. Our study demonstrates the effectiveness of studded leather collars in reducing puma attacks on small livestock and highlights the value of integrating local knowledge with evidence-based approaches to address human-wildlife conflicts. This framework can inform effective, context-sensitive strategies and be applied to mitigate conflicts arising from human-wildlife interactions elsewhere.
IMPACTS OF AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION ON THE RESOURCE AVAILABILITY OF FOREST-DEPENDENT INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE DRY CHACO
María Vallejos, Anna Álvarez, Olivia del Giorgio, Tobias Kuemmerle
AMBIO - 2025
Agricultural expansion into tropical and subtropical forests threatens forest-dependent communities by disrupting their access to vital resources. We explored these impacts for over 400 Indigenous communities in the ArgentineDry Chaco, a deforestation hotspot due to agricultural expansion. Using participatory mapping, we estimated resource collection footprints for plants and animals, and integrated these with deforestation data mapped from satellite images to show that by 2021, communities had lost on average 21% of their forests. An ecosystem services supply index revealed that 33% of communities saw 10–35% reductions in resource availability in 2001–2021. We also found substantial increase in access restrictions (42%), and communities had to travel over 10 km further to reach natural water sources. These findings highlight the severe consequences of agricultural expansion on Indigenous communities in the Chaco and likely many other dry forest regions, emphasizing the need for policies to prevent ecological marginalization of forest-dependent communities.
‘PARTICIPATORY’ CONSERVATION RESEARCH INVOLVING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES: FOURTEEN PRINCIPLES FOR GOOD PRACTICE
Helen Newing, Arash Ghoddousi, Stephanie Brittain, Ana Buchadas, Olivia del Giorgio, Catherine Grasham, Robert Fallon, Jaime Ferrito, Ricardo García Márquez, Munib Khanyari, Apoorva Kulkani, Ranjini Murali, Siyu Qin, Judith Rakowski, Bettina König, Fleur Winn
Biological Conservation - 2024
Good practice in ‘participatory’ research in conservation, especially where it involves Indigenous peoples and local communities, has become especially topical following the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022. The Framework sets out three cross-cutting stipulations that have implications for conservation research: (i) that the important role that Indigenous peoples and local communities play in global conservation should be recognised; (ii) that conservation should be rights-based, and (iii) that implementation needs to be based on traditional knowledge as well as scientific evidence. This will require a paradigm shift towards more equitable, inclusive approaches to conservation that support local environmental stewardship. Conservation researchers can play a significant role in supporting this shift, and we see this as a rational next step in the advancement of conservation science as a meta-discipline. Here, we explore these issues from our perspective as a group of researchers who work with Indigenous peoples and local communities. We briefly review the history of ‘participatory’ research in conservation and discuss three cross-cutting themes relating to conservation research that involves Indigenous peoples and local communities: participation across the different stages of the research process; data collection methods and their relative strengths and weaknesses in terms of participation; and ethical issues related to Indigenous and community participation. Finally, we present fourteen broad principles for good practice, which together provide a novel framework to build greater equity into the development and implementation of conservation research involving Indigenous peoples and local communities.
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HOW DO WE STUDY RESILIENCE? A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Yann le Polain de Waroux, Marie-Claude Carignan, Olivia del Giorgio, Leandro Díaz, Lucas Enrico,
Pedro Jaureguiberry, María Lucrecia Lipoma, Flavia Mazzini, Sandra Díaz
People and Nature - 2024
1. The concept of resilience has gained immense popularity as a way to frame social and environmental challenges. However, its empirical operationalization and the integration of social and ecological dimensions continue to present difficulties.
2. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of existing empirical studies of re silience in social, ecological and social-ecological systems (SESs) and examine how and to what extent these studies have achieved the operationalization of the concept of resilience.
3. We evaluate the operationalization of resilience in 463 papers based on whether they define the system of interest and disturbances, whether they define resilience, whether they evaluate resilience, and for papers focusing on SESs, whether that evaluation integrates social and ecological dimensions.
4. We find that 51% of empirical studies do not meet at least one of these operation alization criteria, and that even those that do often lack key features for effective operationalization, such as clear system boundaries and baseline state or an effective integration of social and ecological dimensions. Of the papers examining SESs and evaluating resilience, only 54% integrate social and ecological dimensions in that evaluation.
5. Building on these findings, we propose some design guidelines for operationalizing future empirical studies of resilience.​​
A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING LAND CONTROL TRANSFER IN AGRICULTURAL COMMODITY FRONTIERS
del Giorgio, Olivia
Journal of Agrarian Change - 2023
Across the globe, the expansion of large-scale commodity agriculture is occurring not into empty space but over existing social systems. An understanding of the dynamics of expansion and associated impacts of commodity agriculture thus fundamentally requires examining how existing control regimes are dissolved and, simultaneously, how novel ones are assembled in order to make way for the changes in resources use that characterize these transitional moments. With this in mind, in this article, I provide a broad review of the strategies used to secure control over land prospected for agricultural commodity production, distinguishing between the tactics that are applied by agro-interested actors in order to ‘break down’ forms of existing land control, those they apply in parallel to ‘build up’ new control structures, and those strategies that are applied by actors (often smallholders) wishing to ‘hold on to’ the control that they have. I then present a framework for examining the dynamics of control transfer that builds on this analytical structure of ‘breaking down’, ‘building up’, and ‘holding on to’ control.
IMPACTS OF AGRICULTURAL COMMODITY FRONTIER EXPANSION ON SMALLHOLDER LIVELIHOODS: AN ASSESSMENT THROUGH THE LENS OF ACCESS TO LAND AND RESOURCES IN THE ARGENTINE CHACO
Olivia del Giorgio, Brian E. Robinson, Yann le Polain de Waroux
Journal of Rural Studies - 2022
The global restructuring of productive systems in the last few decades has led to the rapid expansion of large-scale, industrial agriculture. This agricultural expansion has occurred by means of the acquisition and consolidation of vast tracts of land by agribusinesses, fundamentally changing the dynamics of land control. In order to secure access to resources, agribusinesses employ tactics of privatization and enclosure, which are supported by state-led processes of legalization and territorialization, as well as tactics of intimidation and violence. For smallholders faced with such pressures, maintaining access to land and resources is of critical importance. Here, we examine how changing access to land and resources influences what livelihood strategies smallholders are able to pursue in the Argentine Gran Chaco, a region that is experiencing high rates of deforestation for the expansion of large-scale soybean and cattle production. Our findings indicate that the ability of smallholders to engage in activities critical to their livelihoods has been impacted by changes in access brought about by the expansion of commodity frontiers in the Gran Chaco, leading to a restructuring of these activities. In particular, we found that cattle and goat herding were constrained by the spatial conditions and relational pressures associated with frontier expansion, possibly leading to a greater reliance on pig rearing, but that smallholders who deployed access mechanisms, such as working with lawyers to obtain land titles, were better able to maintain these activities. Our results demonstrate the value of adopting a disaggregated view on the different dimensions of smallholder access, and more generally highlight the need to assess smallholders’ access to land and resources, rather than merely the availability of resources, in order to better understand the impacts of agricultural commodity frontier expansion and properly target policy to reduce smallholder vulnerability.​
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​La reestructuración global de los sistemas productivos en las últimas décadas ha llevado a la rápida expansión de la agricultura industrial a gran escala. Esta expansión agrícola ha ocurrido por medio de la adquisición y consolidación de vastas extensiones de tierra por parte de los agronegocios, cambiando fundamentalmente la dinámica del control de la tierra. Para asegurar el acceso a los recursos, los agronegocios emplean tácticas de privatización y cercamiento, que están respaldadas por procesos de legalización y territorialización dirigidos por el Estado, así como tácticas de intimidación y violencia. Para los pequeños productores que enfrentan tales presiones, mantener el acceso a la tierra y los recursos es de vital importancia. Aquí, examinamos cómo el cambio en el acceso a la tierra y los recursos influye en las estrategias de subsistencia que los pequeños productores pueden emplear en el Gran Chaco argentino, una región que está experimentando altas tasas de deforestación por la expansión de la producción de soja y de ganado a gran escala. Nuestros hallazgos indican que la capacidad de los pequeños productores de participar en actividades vitales para sus medios de vida se ha visto afectada por los cambios en el acceso provocados por la expansión de las fronteras agropecuarias en el Gran Chaco, lo que ha llevado a una reestructuración de estas actividades. En particular, encontramos que el pastoreo de ganado vacuno y caprino se vio limitado por las condiciones espaciales y las presiones relacionales asociadas con la expansión de la frontera, lo que posiblemente condujo a una mayor dependencia de la cría de cerdos, pero que los pequeños productores que desplegaron mecanismos de acceso, como trabajar con abogados para obtener tierras tituladas, eran más capaces de mantener estas actividades. Nuestros resultados demuestran el valor de adoptar una visión desagregada sobre las diferentes dimensiones del acceso de los pequeños productores y, de manera más general, resaltan la necesidad de evaluar el acceso de los pequeños productores a la tierra y los recursos, en lugar de simplemente la disponibilidad de recursos, para comprender mejor los impactos de la expansión de las fronteras agropecuarias y orientar adecuadamente las políticas para reducir la vulnerabilidad de los pequeños productores.​
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FENCED OFF: MEASURING GROWING RESTRICTIONS ON RESOURCE ACCESS FOR SMALLHOLDERS IN THE ARGENTINE CHACO
Olivia del Giorgio, Mathis L. Messager, Yann le Polain de Waroux
Applied Geography - 2021
The rapid expansion of commodity agriculture worldwide has led to land use changes that are threatening forest ecosystems and the millions of people worldwide that are dependent on them. Forest-dwelling smallholders are facing pressures due to changes in land control, notably through the privatization and enclosure of natural resources. Consequently, the impacts of agricultural expansion go well beyond the limits of deforested areas. Yet the spatial extent of agricultural impacts on smallholders has been mostly measured through deforestation. We propose a novel approach for capturing the complex livelihood impacts of gradual changes in resource control dynamics along commodity frontiers. We apply this approach in the Argentine Gran Chaco, a region that has experienced amongst the highest global rates of deforestation for agriculture. Our findings suggest that access to natural resources has been reduced far beyond what would be expected if only looking at deforestation, and that the degree to which access has decreased differs between livelihoods. As such, this study highlights the fact that forest smallholders are likely facing pressures to shift livelihood strategies well in advance of the actual conversion of forest in their immediate vicinity.
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La rápida expansión de la agricultura intensiva al nivel global amenaza no sólo a ecosistemas forestales, si no también al sustento de millones de personas que dependen de éstos. En regiones donde la expansión de cultivo agrícola fronteriza con los bosques, una gran presión es ejercida sobre los pequeños productores, quienes se enfrentan a cambios importantes en el uso de la tierra a causa de la privatización y el confinamiento de los recursos naturales. El impacto de la expansión agrícola sobre los pequeños productores a menudo se aproxima midiendo los niveles de deforestación. Sin embargo, los cambios en el control de la tierra y las presiones relacionadas al sustento diario, van más allá de las zonas deforestadas. Proponemos un enfoque novedoso para la evaluación de cambios en el acceso a la tierra por parte de pequeños productores, los cuales resultan de cambios graduales en el control de la tierra en fronteras agropecuarios. Aplicamos este enfoque en el Gran Chaco argentino, una región que en los últimos años ha experimentado una de las mayores tasas de deforestación por cultivo intensivo a nivel mundial. Nuestros resultados sugieren que el acceso a los recursos naturales por parte de los pequeños productores se ha reducido mucho más de lo que cabría esperar si sólo se tuviera en cuenta la deforestación, y que el grado de disminución del acceso difiere entre las distintas actividades de sustento. Por ello, este estudio pone de manifiesto que los pequeños productores probablemente se enfrentan a presiones para trasladarse o cambiar sus estrategias de sustento, mucho antes de la conversión de los bosques en sus inmediaciones.​
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BUILDING CAPACITY THROUGH INTERDISCIPLINARY GRADUATE COLLABORATION
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment - Guest Editorial
Olivia del Giorgio, Morgan A. Crowley, Luci X. Lu, Kerstin Schreiber
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution - 2020
As graduate students, and despite having vastly different backgrounds, we share a common goal: to positively impact society by producing actionable, social–ecological science. Making the leap from student to impactful researcher, however, was harder than we had each anticipated... In steps interdisciplinary graduate collaboration, which has empowered us as graduate researchers.​
Coming soon
FROM PEOPLE TO CROPS: UNPACKING DISPLACEMENT FOR THE EXPANSION OF COMMODITY AGRICULTURE
Olivia del Giorgio, Carla Gras, Daniel M. Cáceres, Lorenzo Langbehn, Yann le Polain de Waroux
In review
Today, nearly half of the world's habitable area has been converted to crop- and pastureland. As this agricultural land-use footprint continues to grow, understanding how the presence of people gives way to the presence of crops is urgent. In this paper, we unpack the process of smallholder displacement due to the expansion of commodity agriculture. Our analysis draws on qualitative fieldwork in Pellegrini, a department of the Argentine Gran Chaco where large-scale soy and cattle operations are advancing over forest. We find that the enclosure of resources by agribusiness is often brought to term when already access-limited campesino communities experience a shock—such as a legal defeat or the death of community leader—that turns the same migratory channels sustaining the community into self-reinforcing drains of its members. This internally produced feedback cycle, triggered by a single event but enabled by the build-up of constraints over time, the resultant fatigue that it produces, and a race to sell as displacement becomes imminent, leads to a relatively sudden dissolution of rural communities. What this case draws attention to, then, is the pacing of displacement: how it is slow until it is not. It is in these final, accelerated moments of community dissolution that land is made available for large-scale, commodity production, underscoring the importance of examining how people hold on to land, and what finally causes them to let it go.
HUMAN-PUMA CONVIVIAL RELATIONS AMIDST PATCHY WATER ACCESS IN THE ARGENTINE CHACO
Jaime Burton, Soffia A. Nanni, Soledad Andrade-Diaz, Micaela Camino, Olivia del Giorgio, Alfredo Romero Muñoz, Jerry Sun Zhanli, Melina Faingerch, Tobias Kuemmerle
Submited
Human-large carnivore coexistence is increasingly urgent in rapidly changing landscapes like the Argentine Chaco. This study moves beyond traditional conflict mitigation to explore “convivial relations”—complex, place-based interactions—framing coexistence as an ethical and political endeavor shaped by resource access and land control. While research often focuses on economic costs, this paper investigates how water access and fencing, as a more-than-human infrastructure, influence human-livestock-puma interactions in the Argentine Dry Chaco, a region facing vast agricultural expansion and water insecurity. Employing a mixed-methods approach, we integrated qualitative interviews with smallholder ranchers into Bayesian network modeling and spatial analysis to assess these dynamics. Our Bayesian network, validated with field data, identified overall water access as a primary factor influencing puma predation on livestock, after puma likelihood and livestock vulnerability. Simulations revealed that improving household water reliability significantly decreased puma predation risk (by 12.7%). Increased farm-level enclosure also directly reduced predation (by 23.3%). Conversely, high landscape fencing, while increasing farm enclosure levels also led to a restricted water access for smallholders, and had a small effect on puma predation in our simulations. These findings underscore that human-puma interactions are profoundly shaped by struggles over water and the socio-political implications of fencing. Achieving convivial coexistence necessitates addressing these fundamental drivers by challenging exclusionary land and resource management paradigms and supporting equitable access for local communities, thereby fostering shared landscapes for humans, livestock, and carnivores.
RIPPLES IN THE FRONTIER: IMPACTS OF AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION ON SMALLHOLDER LIVESTOCK HERDING IN THE ARGENTINE CHACO
Baumann, Mathias; del Giorgio, Olivia; Fernández, Pedro; Gasparri, Ignacio; Kuemmerle, Tobias; le Polain de Waroux, Yann; Levers, Christian
In prep