Ahuvit Trumper has published a new article, "Spatial social-ecological land systems of the tri-national Alto Paraná Atlantic Forest of South America," co-authored with Modelling Human-Environmental Interactions (MHEI) Group colleagues Lía Montti, Lucía Zarba, Alberto Anticoli, and María Piquer-Rodríguez. The study, published in Ecology and Society, explores a social-ecological land systems (SELS) approach that integrates spatial, ecological, and social dimensions into conservation and development planning, independent of administrative borders. Focusing on the Alto Paraná Atlantic Forest — a bio-culturally diverse but threatened ecoregion spanning Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay — the team combined quantitative analysis with participatory mapping to generate typologies grounded in historical, ecological, and socio-economic factors.

The analysis identified nine spatial SELS typologies capturing interdisciplinary land-use processes across the tri-national region, from SELS 4, a consolidated intensive agribusiness landscape shaped by the cross-border expansion of soybean agribusiness from Brazil into Paraguay, to SELS 1, a native-forested landscape preserved through historical governance differences and low population density. By layering measures such as the Human Development Index and Biodiversity Intactness Index, the authors surfaced social and ecological trade-offs that administrative-level units tend to obscure, underscoring the value of local expert input and international cooperation for cross-border landscape management.