History · ConservationHow much forest is left
The Yungas cover about a third of Tucumán today, but they are not the same forest as a century ago. The low belt at the foot of the ranges was almost entirely replaced by sugar cane and crops. This page gathers the published figures and shows them on the map.
Read this before the mapNo published map of the forest of Tucumán from a hundred years ago exists. What you see is a sketch: the piedmont belt (400–700 m) is drawn at the share it has today within the Yungas area, and it “dissolves” as sugar cane grows. The hectares of cane are real data; the size of each clearing on the map is not. The map through time
TodayWhat is left
The tipa and pacará forest of Tucumán was completely transformed, and the low belt has almost disappeared. The montane forest and high-altitude woodland on the steep slopes are what is best preserved.
The lowland forest, almost gone
- Cloud forest and montane forest
- Piedmont forest (low belt)
- Converted to farmland
- Dry Chaco (not Yungas)
The numbers at a glance
770.000 haYungas of TucumánThat is 34% of the province, spread over four altitude floors. 110.000 haPiedmont beltBetween 400 and 700 m: 4.9% of the province and the most transformed floor. ×63More cane in 42 yearsFrom 1,687 ha (1872) to 106,765 ha (1914). 37.000 haTree cover lost 2015–2025Province-wide and mostly in the eastern Chaco, not in the Yungas. Sugar cane grows, the lowland forest retreats
Hectares of sugar cane grown in Tucumán. It went from 1,687 ha in 1872 to 106,765 ha in 1914: about 63 times more in 42 years.
Moyano (2014), Mundo Agrario 15(29), from Schleh (1935) and Simois (1912). The source has no data between 1895 and 1906.What was lost and what remains
The piedmont belt (400–700 m)
The tipa and pacará forest of Tucumán was completely converted to intensive agriculture, mainly sugar cane, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Citrus orchards followed at the foot of the ranges. In the Aconquija piedmont a loss of 3,888 ha was measured between 1986 and 1997 (1.01% per year).
Sources: Brown et al. (2002), Ecotrópicos ↗ · Las selvas pedemontanas de las Yungas en el umbral de la extinción (2004) ↗
Montane forest and high woodland
They cover about 510,000 ha (350,000 of montane forest and 160,000 of high montane woodland), plus 150,000 ha of cloud grassland. These are steep slopes where farming barely reached. The Sierra del Aconquija holds more than 500,000 ha of continuous forest and supplies water to over two million people. Threats remain: selective logging, fire and climate change.
Sources: Documento técnico Yungas Tucumanas (2024) ↗ · Brown et al. (2002) ↗
Recent deforestation is in the Chaco
In the five eastern departments (Burruyacú, Cruz Alta, Leales, Simoca and Graneros) more than 94,000 ha of native forest were lost between 1990 and 2025. Between 2015 and 2025, Global Forest Watch recorded 37,000 ha less tree cover in the province; about 94% of the loss since 2001 is due to permanent agriculture. This is Chaco forest, not Yungas, but it shows the current pace.
Sources: Fragmentación del bosque chaqueño en el este de Tucumán (1990–2025) ↗ · Tucumán perdió 37.000 hectáreas de bosque en una década ↗
The wider picture in Argentina
In the Argentine Yungas more than 1.5 million hectares were transformed in two centuries, mostly to cane and citrus, and soy is advancing today. Of the country’s piedmont forest, about 1.5 million ha originally, almost one million were lost according to a 2001 estimate; about 600,000 ha were left, most of them badly degraded. Only about 20% of the Yungas has some conservation category.
Sources: Brown et al. (2002) ↗ · La Nación (2001), Selva pedemontana: cerca del fin ↗
Who protects the Yungas → See the ecoregions →
NoticeThe data come from the technical and press publications cited below and have not been reviewed by specialists. The figures use different years and methods, so they are not directly comparable. If you find newer data, write to us.