In recent years, economic growth has produced a global change in the demand for food, fibre and energy supply. This has gone together with the globalisation of the agro-industrial production systems, leading to a qualitative change in land use because of intensive use of technological inputs. Uruguay, just as the other countries of the region, is part of this phenomenon. The massive introduction of forest crops has been made over native grassland ecosystems, replacing traditional productive activities of the post-colonial period. Research on eucalyptus afforestation shows depletion of the ecosystem services associated with grassland and loss of the resilience capacity of the system. Impacts on soil organic matter, soil physicochemical properties, the hydrological cycle and on biodiversity are analysed. This review (with emphasis on Uruguay and the River Plata Basin) tries to contribute to an integrated vision of the environmental consequences of current land-use change.

The agri-exporting enclaves of the current corporate food regime intensively exploit natural assets in global strategies that govern the local processes. Their multidimensional impacts contribute to the environmental and civilizational crisis. Linked to the agrarian metabolism in its appropriation phase, land use has impacts on local systems. To understand this process, it is necessary to identify the systemic and spatial expression of environmental transformation. The objective of this work was to analyze the dynamic adjustment of aboveground net primary production (ANPP) to agricultural intensification between the years 2000 and 2017, using a land use intensity index and the soils’ productive potential. Agricultural expansion and consolidation are observed, as well as the significant intensification throughout the period in 65% of the country’s area—with differences between regions—associated with soil types. ANPP is higher in areas of low land use intensity and lower in high intensity areas, varying from high to low in soils with low to high productive potential, respectively, and growing throughout the period—depending on the area, with less growth in areas of greater intensity. The appropriation of edaphic wealth puts the systemic functionality at risk and challenges these transforming dynamics, with a strong impact on southern systems.