Putting livestock systems on the map: eleven geographies across 4.2 million km² of the dry woodlands in South America

We used vaccination records, farm registers & transaction permits — with active learning — to map 11 distinct livestock systems across the Caatinga, Cerrado, Chaco & Chiquitano. From small goat herders to industrial cattle fattening operations.

The geography tells a stark story: capitalised cattle concentrate on the most productive land; pastoralists & smallholders hold on in the driest, most marginal areas. Both resilience and dispossession — and it matters for where land policy lands in these regions.

See the full paper here: Burton, J., Fernandez, D. P., Camino, M., Andrade-Díaz, S. M., Baumman, M., Gibbs, H., Munger, J., Rausch, L., Tasquera, M. and Kuemmerle, T. (2026), Mapping the geography of livestock systems in South America’s dry diagonal. Global Environmental Change 98, 103156.