La dinámica socioambiental en el espacio santacruceño. Peculiaridades de la relación entre la población y el medio natural desde una perspectiva geográfica

Abstract

La metodología de trabajo se afirma en los postulados de la Geografía Histórica, combinando estrategias que permiten integrar las visiones cuantitativa, sistémica, ambiental, regional y sociocultural. Lo original de esta investigación radica, primeramente, en reconocer y demostrar que se trata de un espacio natural singular; luego, en aportar un análisis evolutivo de la ocupación humana de este territorio, detallando exhaustivamente la composición de la población y su dinamismo y, por último, en identificar áreas diferenciadas y ciclos geohistóricos en los que se llevó a cabo el proceso socioeconómico, advirtiendo los efectos que los mismos han ido generando en el ambiente, entendido éste como la conjunción de elementos naturales y antrópicos. Esta visión integradora del espacio y del tiempo, se presenta como insumo muy útil para entender la organización funcional de este ambiente y, de ese modo, proponer una planificación territorial ajustada a la realidad.

The province of Santa Cruz is a space of exception from the natural perspective, which has boosted favourable and unfavourable effects according to the external valuations to which natural resources have been subjected over time. Since the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st this territory has gone through a process of transformation, in which are recognized geo-historical cycles driven by the economic exploitation of its resources. Those cycles have had as a common denominator an environmental cost in which have played a significant role the political component, the external market, and the characteristics of population and the natural system involved in the valuations. The work methodology is based in the postulates of Historical Geography, combining strategies that integrate quantitative, systemic, environmental, regional and socio-cultural visions. The originality of this research is, first of all, acknowledge and demonstrate that this is a unique natural area; then, provide an evolutionary analysis of human occupation of this territory, thoroughly detailing the composition of the population and its dynamism and, finally, to identify differentiated areas and geo-historical cycles in which the socio-economic process was carried, warning the effects that they have been generating in the environment, understood this as a combination of natural and anthropic factors. This inclusive view of space and time is presented as a very useful input to understand the functional organization of this environment and, thereby, suggest a territorial planning adjusted to reality.