Uruguay may be one of the smaller countries in South America with ‘only’ roughly 180.000 km² but that is still almost half the size of Germany, one of the larger countries in Europe. In the latest census Uruguay had 3,4 million inhabitants and almost 10 million cows. Thus, Uruguay is composed mostly of pampa grasslands (55% of the total land surface) – but it’s shrinking fast. In the past 40 years, more than 20% of its emblematic grasslands (or 2.5 million ha!!!) were lost mostly due to land use changes towards agriculture and improved pastures as well as due to eucalyptus forest plantations. Whereas the former now takes up 4.5 million ha (compared to 3.2 million ha in 1985), the latter expands 1.2 million ha (compared to a meagre 143.000 ha in 1985). Grasslands still take up 9.7 million ha in Uruguay, but are, as elsewhere in the world, one of the most threatened ecosystems. Numbers are taken from this newspaper article and more information about the changes in grasslands can be found on the page of MapBiomas, a phenomenal initiative of Uruguayan, Argentinian and Brazilian scientists to track land use changes in particular that of grasslands https://uruguay.mapbiomas.org/ .

Why are grasslands so important? They are home to vast and unique species making them biodiversity hotspots and also sequester carbon when managed appropriately (see for instance this article of the WWF on grasslands in the US). Carvino and Brazeiro (2021) showed that cumulative species richness decreased in afforested areas compared to neighboring grasslands and recommended that eucalyptus plantations should allow for connecting pathways and patches of native vegetation to allow for population exchange. Extensive cattle grazing is considered one of the most sustainable ways of keeping open grasslands (since most continents have lost their large mammals to do the maintenance). Bai and Cortrufo (2022) showed that grasslands hold about one third of the global terrestrial carbon stock and that improved grazing strategies and biodiversity restoration to higher grass species varieties can play a role in enhancing the carbon sequestering capacities of grasslands. However, since Uruguay has soooo many cows, about 70% of Uruguay’s total Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions stem from agricultural production and herein mostly from enteric fermentation, meaning cows (farts and burbs…) (data from 2019 UNFCC GHG profile). Ok, little parenthesis, Uruguay also is one of the countries with the highest rate of renewable energies with a whooping 90-98% !!! Here the TED talk of the man – Roberto Mendez Galain – who pulled off the shift towards renewables. You can find nice articles about this in the Guardian or NPR. Uruguay has mostly hydropower (which it sometimes sells to Brazil) and wind energy. OK, paranthesis closed. Back to the cows and GHG emissions. Curtailing GHG emissions from beef cow-calf systems is that paramount for the country. Becona et al. already showed in 2014 that GHG emissions could be reduced through adapted grazing strategies and that high intensity farm systems actually had poor GHG emission ratios. So, I guess the lesson learned from here is that (1) grasslands are really important, (2) Uruguay has lots of grasslands but that they are under threat, (3) grasslands are biodiversity hotspots, (4) sustainable grazing strategies are good for the grasslands and the planet as they keep the grasslands in good shape thus maintaining biodiversity and carbon sequestration potentials.

My little forest has a grasslandish area to it. It’s now not very well maintained and visible as lots of blackberries (invasive species!) are covering large amounts of the surface. Blackberries are really delicious, but they are a real pain in this area. One of the proposals I have put forward is a citizen science project with the local schools to make experimental plots of how to best manage blackberry spread. Maybe this is a project that you would like to help with?

Additional fun things to look at:

If you want to listen to how the country sounds check out this really awesome map of nature sounds of Uruguay made by Juna Pablo Culasso, a blind sound-scaper. Grand stuff.

Check out this rather cheezy promo video of the Uruguayan Ministry of Tourism to get a glimpse of what the country has to offer or this rather cute video made by Cubans on Uruguay for those who want to emigrate to Uruguay 😉