Walter Alberto Pengue is an Agricultural Engineer, with a specialization in Plant Breeding (Phytotechnology) from the University of Buenos Aires. He obtained his Master's degree in Environmental and Territorial Policies at the same University. Dr. in Agroecology, Sociology and Sustainable Rural Development from the School of Agricultural and Forestry Engineers at the University of Cordoba (Spain). He did postdoctoral stays at the Universities of Tromso (Norway) and INBI, University of Canterbury (New Zealand). He is currently full professor of Ecological Economics and Agroecology at the National University of General Sarmiento (UNGS) and director of the Landscape Ecology and Environment Group (GEPAMA) at the University of Buenos Aires (FADU UBA).

Walter Pengue is founder and former president of the Argentine-Uruguayan Society of Ecological Economics (ASAUEE) and was a member of the ISEE World Board. He is one of the founders of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA), of which he is currently responsible for its Ethics Committee. He has been studying for more than 30 years the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of industrial agriculture, transgenic agriculture and the food system at national, regional and global levels and their relationship with natural resources (soil, water, genetic resources). International expert, reviewer, lead author and author coordinator of IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) (since 2019), TEEB (2015 to 2019) and the United Nations Environment Resource Panel (2007 to 2015). He has been lead author of Chapter 16 of IPCC Round 6 (2019/2022), submitted in 2023. He is currently lead author and author coordinator of the IPBES Nexus Project, a thematic analysis on the interrelationships between food systems, biodiversity, health, water and climate change (2021 to 2025). Currently participates in the CLACSO Network on Andean Agroecology. Member of the Argentine Academy of Environmental Sciences and of several Scientific Advisory Committees on Sustainable Development, Environment, Agriculture and Food of Argentina. Visiting Professor at Universities in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Member of the Group of Foundational Environmental Thinkers of ECLAC, United Nations.

 

Publications

Entre sus obras más destacadas (todos los materiales pueden bajarse libremente de https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Walter-Pengue) ha preferido resaltar los siguientes libros, vinculados a sus proyectos. Papers y documentos pueden bajarse de la página indicada:

Books

2023. Economía Ecológica, Recursos Naturales y Sistemas Alimentarios ¿Quién se Come a Quién? - 1a ed. - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Orientación Gráfica Editora, 2023. 354 p. ISBN 978-987-1922-51-2.

2021. (coord.). Tajos en la tierra. Miradas sobre la explotación del ambiente y los recursos naturales en la Argentina. Ediciones UNGS y CLACSO. Programa Revolución en Democracia. Democracia en revolución. Buenos Aires.

2021. Principios agroecológicos y sistemas participativos de garantías: Una guía hacia la agricultura, la alimentación y el desarrollo rural sostenible. GEPAMA, FADU. UNIVERSIDAD DE BUENOS AIRES.

2021. Agenda verde en Argentina: Una mirada desde lo global a lo local. 1a ed. compendiada. – Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Orientación Gráfica Editora, 2021. Libro digital, PDF Archivo Digital: online ISBN 978-987-1922-42-0.

2020. Gligo, Nicolo – Barkin, David – Brzovic, Francisco – Durán, Hernán – Gallopín, Gilberto C. – Marino de Botero, Margarita – Ortiz Monasterio, Fernando – Pengue, Walter – Rofman, Alejandro B. – Sejenovich, Héctor – Villamil, José J. – Alonso, Gisela – Brailovsky, Antonio – Carrizosa, Julio – Fernández, Patricio – Leal, José – Morales, César – Panario, Daniel – Rodríguez Becerra, Manuel – Saa, René – Sunkel, Osvaldo.  La tragedia ambiental de América Latina. CEPAL, SANTIAGO, CHILE.

2018. con A. Rodriguez. Agroecología, Ambiente y Salud: Escudos Verdes Productivos y Pueblos Sustentables. GEPAMA FADU UBA y FUNDACIÓN HEINRICH BÖLL CONO SUR. Buenos Aires.

2018. (coord.). El pensamiento ambiental del Sur. Complejidad, recursos y ecología política latinoamericana. Editorial Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento.

2017. El vaciamiento de las pampas. La exportación de nutrientes y el final del granero del mundo. GEPAMA FADU UBA y FUNDACIÓN HEINRICHI BÖLL Cono Sur. Buenos Aires.

2017. Cultivos Transgénicos ¿Hacia dónde fuimos? Veinte años después: La soja argentina 1996-2016. Buenos Aires y Santiago. Libro bajo Licencia de Creative Commons.

2015. Dinámicas y Perspectivas de la Agricultura actual en Latinoamérica: Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay y Uruguay. Fundación Heinrich Böll Cono Sur. Santiago, Chile. Primera Edición.

2013. con Horacio Feinstein (coords.). Nuevos enfoques de la economía ecológica. Una perspectiva latinoamericana sobre el desarrollo. LUGAR EDITORIAL,ISBN 978-950-892- BUENOS AIRES, 310 páginas.

2012. Los desafíos de la Economía Verde ¿Oportunismo capitalista o desarrollo sustentable? EDITORIAL KAICRON, BUENOS AIRES, ISBN 978-987-1758-10-4.

2009. con Rosa Binimelis e Iliana Monterroso. Bioinvasiones y Bioeconomía. El caso del sorgo de Alepo en la agricultura argentina. ISBN: 978-99939-72-83-9.

2008. Fundamentos de Economía Ecológica. Bases teóricas e instrumentos para la resolución de los conflictos sociedad naturaleza. Buenos Aires: Editorial Kaicron. ISBN 978-987-23841-8-0, 370 pp.

2008. El saqueo y apropiación de la naturaleza. Conflictos ecológico distributivos en la Argentina del Bicentenario. Fundación H. Böll, GEPAMA y Federación Agraria Argentina. Lugar Editorial. Buenos Aires. ISBN - 978-950-892-305-9, 341 pp.

2005. Agricultura Industrial y Transnacionalización en América Latina ¿La transgénesis de un continente? Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente, PNUMA Ediciones en México (UACM) y Buenos Aires (GEPAMA). ISBN 968-7913-34-7

2000. Cultivos transgénicos. ¿Hacia dónde vamos? Algunos efectos sobre el ambiente, la sociedad y la economía de la nueva “recombinación tecnológica”. Buenos Aires: UNESCO: Oficina Regional de Ciencia y Tecnología para América Latina y el Caribe. ISBN: 950-892-107-2. Diciembre. 205 pp.

 

Research Project as CALAS-HIAS Fellow 2024 (Cátedra CALAS-HIAS Alemania)

Title: Food systems, natural resources, environmental invisibles, land and climate change: Opportunities and challenges in Latin America.

Latin America and the large countries of the region are facing one of the greatest crossroads, both for themselves and for humanity. The enormous availability of land, water and its geographical space under a temperate maritime climate that does not restrict annual production at almost any time, opens up a scenario of new opportunities as well as enormous risks.  Land for agriculture and food systems not only competes with the demand for land for such purposes, but also for new spaces for energy production and the expansion of towns, cities, ports and other infrastructure.  And even with the interference of large international financial capital.  On the other hand, important global research is currently seeking to review and understand the links between water, energy, climate change, health and food systems. Strikingly, "land" as an element, base and anchor for production has not been directly included in such studies.  For Latin America, a region that appears to be the great supplier of this vital element, it seems to be once again the great supplier of land to meet world demand, particularly that of the developed world and India (China and India).

For this reason, this research will focus on what is happening with land use change in the region, its relations with the other resources involved (water, energy, biodiversity) and especially its relations with the different food systems at different scales, from the local to the regional level. On the other hand, these relationships should incorporate new concepts, beyond (economic) externalities, such as environmental intangibles and invisibles, which begin to place value not only on the ecosystem services recovered by sustainable agriculture, but also on the integral value that agriculture provides to society as a whole. Finally, the research contrasts the effects of geopolitical decisions driven by both Europe and China, the former with its farm-to-fork project and investments, and the latter with a growing demand for food products for a population that is changing its consumption patterns and demands. And which, in the latter case, is quite distant from the concern for safeguarding environmental and social variables in the countries of origin of the resources and products it demands. The processes involved have a different impact on regional resources, affect small and medium farmers differently, have an impact on towns and cities, pollute soil and water and promote the loss of genetic resources (biodiversity), and generate other unprecedented investment processes in the region that, in a medium-term scenario, merit review in terms of identifying costs and opportunities for one or the other.