- In the central highlands of Ecuador, land managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities is associated with improved outcomes for drought adaptation and páramo conservation, according to a new study.
- The study finds that páramo areas managed by communities in this region are better protected than those under the care of the state.
- Due to the advance of the agricultural frontier in the highlands, approximately 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of páramo are lost every day, which threatens the water supply of the entire region.
- Community-led land management that incorporates inclusive participation, traditional knowledge and the cultural values of those who inhabit the areas, coined by reseachers as “social technology,” can aid in the conservation of the páramo.
A recent study found that high-altitude ecosystems in the Andes, known as the páramo, managed by eight communities in Ecuador have led to a reduction in soil and vegetation decline, due to the incorporation of a concept called “social technology.”
According to the paper, published in Mountain Research and Development, community-led conservation initiatives were more effective in curbing páramo loss than state-protected areas, demonstrating the importance of social technology for drought adaptation and páramo conservation.
Social technology, understood in the Latin American context as tecnología social, is the application of social, political, scientific and digital resources to redefine the arrangements among social groups and processes in everyday life, particularly for production and consumption. It involves the inclusive participation of the entire community in this design and implementation of project proposals and recognizes the importance of local knowledge, dynamics and capacities.
“Communities [in these reserves] concerned about the lack of water have realized that they need to take action and have therefore consolidated a set of actions that address three key issues; land use, livestock management and community governance,” María Cristina Torres, lead author of the study and professor at Ecuador’s National Polytechnic School, told Mongabay. “This is called social technology because the actions have been adopted by an empowered community, open to cooperation and agreements, and aware of the importance of protecting the páramo.”
The páramos are high-altitude ecosystems found between 3,200 meters and 5,000 meters (10,500 feet and 16,400 feet) in the northern Andes. Although they occupy just 5% of Ecuador’s territory, páramos play a critical role in water production, as they are responsible for generating most of the water used for agricultural purposes and human consumption in cities.
Anthropogenic changes to land in the central inter-Andean region of Ecuador have led to widespread páramo loss and droughts across the region, the study noted. Practices such as the expansion of agriculture, cattle ranching and timber production have resulted in severe degradation, resulting in decreased water flows and significant periods of drought. Due to the advance of the agricultural frontier in the highlands, approximately 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of páramo are lost every day, which threatens the water supply of the entire region.
The authors analyzed páramo loss over three selected periods: 1986-2000, 2000-08 and 2013-21. They found that the greatest changes were in the north-central zone, where páramo had been converted into cropland. In the south, the greatest conversion was from páramo to forest, as numerous pine plantations had been created for timber production.
From the first to the second period, they observed a loss of 17.2% of páramo, which corresponds with 114.7 square kilometers (44.28 square miles), while from the second to the third period, the loss decreased to 3.3%. According to the study, this decrease occurred after the 2005 and 2008 droughts in the region, when communities ran out of water. In response to this crisis, the community decided to remove sheep from the highest parts of the páramo and declared certain community areas as water reserves.
During this same period, páramo loss in government-protected areas, such as in the Chimborazo Flora and Fauna Production Reserve, remained the same.
A recent study tried to compare the effectiveness of state-protected areas with community-managed areas around the world and found a mixed bag. However, one Indigenous leader said that state-owned protected areas tend to perform worse than Indigenous lands when there’s a lack of law enforcement and good governance, as well as corruption and conflict of interest in the state agencies.
“The protected areas are not functioning as planned because these areas were originally inhabited by communities and were not approached [by the government] to use social technology, which would allow them to understand and act in favor of the ecosystem,” Torres told Mongabay. These communities have no livelihood alternatives and have not been resettled.
“Unfortunately, the environmental management of these protected areas by the authorities have not been the most adequate, and therefore the protection laws are not respected by communities,” she said.
The improvements observed in community-managed areas in the central highlands of Ecuador are due to the implementation of social technology, such as the delimitation of conservation zones within communal areas, community-led restoration activities, a change in the dynamics of livestock ownership and the creation of socioeconomic alternatives for farmers, the study said.
Although several organizations and government initiatives have provided technical support and resources, “nothing is imposed, and decisions are made by consensus,” the authors wrote.
Social technology involves the participation of the entire community in the design and decision-making process and recognizes traditional knowledge. However, the authors were careful to note that certain visions were not always shared by all communities in the study area and some continued to expand the agricultural frontier. In some areas of the ecosystem, there was a lack of understanding about the importance of the paramo, which could lead to bad management — such as the planting of pines, which is inappropriate for this ecosystem as it dries out the soil, or burning páramo vegetation to plant grass and introduce more livestock.
Esteban Suárez, director of the Biosphere Institute at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, who was not involved in this study, told Mongabay that “whenever marginalized communities are involved, you cannot even think about conservation if you do not offer them viable alternatives.”
According to Suárez, it’s important to be cautious about the conservation measures being implemented to ensure they are effective, as in some areas of the páramo in Ecuador and Colombia, for example, people have developed tree planting initiatives, which could have “very important consequences for ecosystem function, some of which we don’t really understand,” given that páramos have never consisted of continuous forest.
“My concern here is that we need better information about the impacts of these initiatives and more interaction between academia and the people who are doing the work in the field.”
Banner image: Communities concerned about the lack of water realized that they needed to prevent further damage to the páramo and have consolidated a set of community-led initiatives. Image by María Cristina Torres.
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Citations:
Torres, M. C., Naranho, E., Fierro, V., & Carchipulla-Morales, D. (2023). Social Technology for the Protection of the Páramo in the Central Andes of Ecuador. Mountain Research and Development, 43(4) D1-D11. doi: https://doi.org/10.1659/mrd.2022.00022
Brück, S. A., Torres, B. D. M., & de Lourdes Teixeira de Moraes Polizeli, M. (2023). The Ecuadorian paramo in danger: What we know and what might be learned from northern wetlands. Global Ecology and Conservation, 47, e02639. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2023.e02639
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