In this paper we propose a geographical analysis highlighting the social and political role of environmental information in the implementation of complex legal systems aimed at regulating the advance of the agricultural frontier in South America; we present a case-study focusing on the Argentine Law on Forests ("Ley de Bosques") of 2007. In order to curb deforestation, this law requires every Argentine province to draw a native forest land planning map ("OTBN") classifying forests according to their conservation priority and sets up a scheme of financial incentives for landowners, within the constitutional framework of "minimum common environmental standards" ("presupuestos mínimos de protección"). By exploring the heterogeneity of the mapping processes across provinces we try to shed some light on their political implications. A geographical description of the patterns followed by the classification of forests in the different provinces, of the kinds of information mobilized by the actors, and of the methods employed to draw the land planning maps reveals that very little ecological information was actually used, that no new information was created specifically for the OTBN, and that no explicit mapping methods were applied, which resulted in extremely different ways of producing the maps. These results show that the implementation of the Ley de Bosques is backed by a feeble information basis and is far from responding to scientific quality standards. This may be read, first, as a sign of the inability of the public powers to initiate a serious public discussion regarding the ecological aspects of land planning. Second, we argue that environmental information functions as an asset in the negotiations between the federal and provincial powers. Third, we suggest that, in spite of the weak capacities of state agencies we detected, the process shows an emerging capacity of the federal environmental authorities to place themselves as an arbiter of the management of natural resources in Argentina, in the face of an adverse context marked by strong opposition to the regulation of activities affecting these resources.
