Introduction	Versión en español

The GEPAMA (Grupo de Ecología del Paisaje y Medio Ambiente=Landscape Ecology and Environment Research Team) is an academic interdisciplinary team formed by ecologists, geographers, biologists, and agronomists. It focuses in the study of interactions between pattern and processes at various scales. It arises and establishes as a research team during the past 8 years (1995), after a long period of independent development of its senior researchers Jorge Morello y Silvia Diana Matteucci.

Dr. Morello started his activities in regional and landscape ecology in the 60', when he developed a methodology to study the Argentinian Chaco landscapes, known as the "GUVA approach" (GUVA stands for Grandes Unidades de Vegetación y Ambiente). His ideas and techniques had a strong regional influence, and were adopted by researchers in Paraguay, Brasil and Mexico.

Dr. Matteucci, known in Latin America for her monograph on methods for the analysis of vegetation, worked in Venezuela for 13 years in landscape and regional ecology, before returning to Argentina in the late '80.

Between 1994 and 1995, both Morello and Matteucci took part in a project to study the environmental consequences of recent technological changes in the pampean agricultural systems. The first results were published in 1997 (Morello y Solbrig, eds., Argentina granero del mundo:¿ hasta cuando?). The main achievement in this work was the introduction of the systems approach to analyze the complexity of the recent pampean rural development. This approach is described in two of the chapters (Morello, "Cambios, indeterminaciones y agricultura sustentable en la llanura ondulada chaco-pampeana"; Morello y Matteucci, "El modelo agrícola del Núcleo Maicero como sistema complejo")

In the early ‘90s, Morello is appointed as member of the Board of the Latin American Chapter of the International Society for Environment and Development, and, under the influence of Jorge E. Hardoy, he becomes interested in the ecological consequences of the urban encroachment of high fertility agricultural lands on the undulating pampas, such as the cases of Córdoba, Rosario and Buenos Aires cities. The results were published in 1992, as the chapter "Human settlements and sustainable development, the Latinoamerican case", by Hardoy et al., in the book Sustainable cities: urbanization and environment in international perspective, edited by R. Stren, R. White and J. Whitney.

With the experience in both landscape ecology and urban-rural borders, the GEPAMA, quickly leant towards the study of the complexity of interfaces between rural and urban landscapes in coastal and inland territories, with the analysis and interpretation of landscape patterns as a tool. By this time, the group had defined its study area and subject: the Rolling Pampas and within them, the urban and technological frontiers.

As a consequence of this shift, the geographer Gustavo D. Buzai, joins team in 1995. Dr. Buzai, who specializes in geographic information science and advocates quantitative geography as a tool for understanding and transmitting relations between space and social phenomena, achieved international recognition with the theoretical study of implications to geography of the various schools in geography. His papers are published in international journals edited in USA, Brasil, Chile, Spain and Great Britain. In 1998, Silvia D. Matteucci y Gustavo D. Buzai, finish an editorial project, which had begun 2 years earlier inviting specialists in methods of spatial analysis to share their expertise through a book: Sistemas ambientales complejos: herramientas para el análisis especial.

In 1998, the agroecologist Walter A. Pengue joins to the group. He has a background in ecological economy, acquired in the study of the dominant agricultural practices in the pampean region (characterized by high inputs and farms bordering the minimal critical size), and the alternatives for the small farmer. The results of this work were published in 2000, in a book sponsored by UNESCO: “Cultivos transgénicos. ¿Hacia donde vamos?”

In 1999, the coastal ecologist José Dadon joins the GEPAMA. His studies include the long term population dynamics of endangered species in sandy beaches, as well as the effects of tourism in the marine coastal ecosystems. With his incorporation the team succeeded in obtaining partial international financing to study the coastal development dynamics of the critical counties of Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay.

The GEPAMA has appointed graduate and undergraduate students to perform partial studies in critical aspects of our main subject. This contributes to the training of young researchers in quantitative techniques applied to landscape ecology, and in geographical information science. We consider that this is an essential activity of GEPAMA, in a country which lacks a critical mass of scientists in these fields, and has a great demand for them.

The history of GEPAMA shows that it has developed through blending together the interest and expertise in various fields. At the present moment it has reached a point in which it can contribute to solve environmental problems arising from the conversion of landscape uses from agricultural to urban and industrial. The team structure allows an integrated approach to the study of these problems.