Abstract

LOPEZ-HERNANDEZ, Danilo; HERNANDEZ-HERNANDEZ, Rosa Mary  and  BROSSARD, Michel. Historia del uso reciente de tierras de las sabanas de américa del sur. Estudios de casos en sabanas del orinoco. INCI [online]. 2005, vol.30, n.10, pp.623-630. ISSN 0378-1844.

South American savannahs cover a surface of 269×106ha in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Bolivia. In a world scale savannahs are one of the most important land extensions with agricultural potential for crop and forestry production. These territories also constitute the main alternative to agricultural expansion into ecologically fragile tropical areas such as tropical rainforests and hillsides. Forty years ago anthropic activity had little effect on Latin American savannahs, since they were used for extensive cattle raising. In the last four decades, however, the natural herbaceous vegetation with low nutrient requirements in the savannahs (llanos) of Colombia and Venezuela, as well as in the Cerrado (Brazil) has been replaced by introduced African pastures, particularly from the genera Brachiaria and Andropogon. Furthermore, intensive reforestation programs for timber and pulpwood commercialization have introduced species able to cope with the environmental conditions, such as Pinus and Eucaliptus. The introduction of African pastures and annual and perennial crops has been possible with fertilization (N, P, K and lime). The landscape modifications caused by these land uses are usually far from the urban areas and are still considered to be low. However, if the entire land surface currently affected by agriculture and agroforestry use and the land yet to be incorporated into projects is taken into consideration, a profound modification is expected to occur in these biomes. Herein is presented a preliminary comparative review of the agricultural colonization processes in the Llanos and Cerrados. In the need to generate indicators related to biogeochemical processes, three case studies from Venezuelan savannahs are presented.

Keywords : Cerrado; Ciclos Biogeoquímicos; Gases Invernadero; Indicadores de Sostenibilidad; Llanos.