World’s Soil Resources

Figure 12.4: Organic carbon stock (or density) in soils of Latin America and the Caribbean, expressed in Gigagrams per hectare.
Source: Gardi et al., 2014.
Land use changes from forestry to urban or livestock use cause the greatest loss of soil carbon in LAC (Lal,
2005, 2006; van der Werf et al., 2010; INPE, 2010). The loss of ground cover due to deforestation exposes
the soil to direct precipitation that could cause erosion and compaction of the soil surface microstructure in
addition to carbon loss. Deforestation of tropical forests prevents the return to the soil of about 15 tonnes of
organic inputs per ha eachyear. Agricultural soils return on average only 2 tonnes of residues per ha each year
(Hughes, Kauffman and Jaramillo, 1999).
Forest cover loss in the global tropical rainforest biome accounts for about one third (32 percent) of all
global forest cover loss, and nearly half of this loss of tropical rainforest occurs in South American rainforests.
Several studies have been carried out and information is documented in the region related to deforestation
and reforestation (CIAT, 2014; Gardi et al., 2014). The tropical dry forests of South America had the highest rate
of tropical forest loss, due to deforestation dynamics in the Chaco woodlands of Argentina, Paraguay and
Bolivia (Grau and Aide, 2008; Viglizzo and Jobbagy, 2010). Brazil is a global exception in terms of forest policy
change, with a dramatic policy-driven reduction of deforestation in the Amazon Basin (INPE, 2010, 2013;
Spavorek, 2012) (Figure 12.5).
Status of the World’s Soil Resources | Main Report Regional Assessment of Soil Changes
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in Latin America and the Caribbean