Change and Continuity in a Pastoralist Community in the High Peruvian Andes (original) (raw)
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Adaptation Strategies of Andean Pastoralist Households to Both Climate and Non-Climate Changes
Pastoralist households in the Andes have always had to cope with climate uncertainty. Recently, however, due to a combination of a weak asset base, large inequalities in land and livestock access, and the prevalence of multiple non-climate-related stressors, they are being pushed beyond their range of adaptability. However, the complex, forward-looking and site-specific features of these adaptation strategies remain insufficiently addressed. This article identifies the diverse adaptation trajectories pursued by pastoralist households in the Central Andes. Accumulation of livestock and adherence to the traditional economy are the strategies most often followed by wealthier households, while less well-off households seek further integration into the market economy and asset diversification. Measures aimed at promoting textile manufacturing, favouring the preservation of certain grassland areas, and reducing land fragmentation, seem particularly appropriate for enhancing the livelihoods of Andean pastoralist households.
Environmental Change and the Agro-Pastoralist Livelihood in the Andes of Peru
2014
Many people have provided their guidance and support along the long and winding road that has led to this dissertation. First I would like to thank my PhD committee and specifically my cochairs Paul Barten and John Finn for having faith in this interdisciplinary project and in my abilities to see it through. I would also like to thank each committee member individually since such an interdisciplinary topic required more participation than usual from every member at one time or another. Furthermore, R. Brooke Thomas shared his enthusiasm, knowledge, and past faux pas of the Andean region with me. In doing so, he helped shape this research and ensured that I was properly prepared to take on the challenge of field work in a remote region at an elevation above 4,000 meters. Brooke's sincere support of me and this dissertation is so very valued. John (Jack) Finn has taught me much about statistics, GIS, and remote sensing. But more importantly, he has taught me much about statistics, GIS, and remote sensing in an atmosphere of patience, encouragement, and understanding. I will miss sitting at the table, eating chocolate, and erupting in laughter over various topics of conversation with both Jack and Maili Page. Over the years Maili's friendship and reality checks have been invaluable. Sarah Raposa, my wonderful friend since our undergraduate days as aspiring geologists, continually offered her support throughout my PhD years. Our various short, but laughter filled vacations always provided the re-energizing motivation that was needed to get me to the finish line. Suzanne Holt has been there for me and for our family on numerous occasions. If it were not for her help with logistics of child care then this dissertation would not have been possible. Thank you Suze! There are several people in Peru who unselfishly provided their time, energy, and effort to help me achieve my research goals. The fieldwork component of this research was possible and successful because of their support. Uriel Alex Montúfar Condorena and Sra. Luz Marina vi Antezana Velasquez dedicate so much of themselves to assist others that they have my utmost respect. I thank them for their help on many levels. Victor Hugo Gutierrez Morales and Jimmy Boza Monge helped with transportation and equipment installation. I thank all of the members of the herding community who were so gracias as to allow me and three other foreigners into their lives for a short time and share their thoughts and knowledge with us. I also thank the Cala/Caceres family for opening their home to me during each of my visits. It has been a pleasure getting to know them. Henry Lyle III, Alyse Wheelock, and Anna Culver made one of the research trips so enjoyable that I can't image Nuñoa without them and their music. I would also like to thank Professor Tom Leatherman for all of his guidance and for the times we've spent "talking Nuñoa" over coffee. Finally, I would like to express my love and gratitude to my family not just for their support during the dissertation years but for their love through all of the years.
INRM. University of Missouri and Centro …, 2001
Production strategies pursued by households and individuals in a rural community of the Bolivian Altiplano are shaped by access to resources, social networks, non market institutions, monetary resources, and the ability to develop non farm/rural-urban linkages. Household livelihood strategies change through time due to many factors, markets, new technologies, and climate perturbations being major ones. A framework that combines household economics, political economy, and sociology, is developed to identify changes in land use patterns and croplivestock activities resulting from several "exogenous" conditions that include climate perturbations such as drought and El Niño events; market incentives for dairy peri urban markets; and increased commercialization of potato production. Changing household strategies of 1993, 1995 and 1999 are analyzed with this framework. In times of climatic stress, such as the low rainfall of 1995, household economic portfolios increase activities less vulnerable to climate, as well as ex-post coping mechanisms, depending on the ability to develop multi-local strategies. Both the ability and type of shift are conditioned by access to resources, social capital, life cycle, and networks off the farm. Changes in consumption, income and diversity are measures that capture impact of shocks and ability to adapt to the perturbations. The flexibility and access to networks and non market institutions are key to coping with perturbations and adapting to change.
Herding at the Edges: Climate Change and Animal Restlessness in the Peruvian Andes
Ethnos, 2022
This article examines the impacts of climate change on high-elevation Andean communities through the lens of human-animal relations. Andean herders and their animals coproduce hierarchical, cooperative, and antagonistic forms of social interaction, mediated through human-animal communication. The breakdown of communicative practice alerts herders to broader socioecological changes under persistent drought conditions. I illustrate this dynamic by following the chain of disruption: first as it emerges in daily herding encounters, and then as it ripples outward to impact community-level discussions on the future of pastoralism in the Andean highlands. I draw from the Quechua herding lexicon to show how microinteractional practices between humans and animals reflect the limits of hierarchical sociality in Andean ontologies and provide insight into the localised processes of socioecological fragmentation initiated by climatic changes. I suggest that the Quechua concept of restlessness (k’ita) provides a provocative analytic for evaluating the impacts of global climate change.
Livelihood and environmental changes assessment in the Peruvian Andes, San Isidro Chicón - Peru
The Peruvian Andean population highly depends on the rainwater, and in the dry season almost solely on melting water from the glaciers, which assures them a continuous flow allowing them to produce food almost the whole year round. However, climate change is a big threat to the glaciers and with this to the peoples’ livelihoods, since climate change is already negatively affecting the water supply. A participatory livelihood assessment workshop and household interviews were held in the San Isidro de Chicón community to figure out what changes related to the crops they plant, water supply and environmental conditions occurred and why, in comparison with the previous generation. As a result, 95% of the interviewed people work in agricultural production and consume the products they grow. The majority of the people sell their products on the market, being agriculture one of the main income sources for the study area. 66.7% of the people have income sources which depend on the environment. The agrarian reform in 1969 played a key role in the livelihood development. Since then, other dynamics took place due to economic need and some alterations in the environment. Because of this, the people adapted and started planting less time demanding crops, changing slowly in that way the use of the land. Yet, as the results show, the awareness about environmental changes is not spread among the majority of the people. Still, they realize the glacier is melting faster and faster in the last decades. 79% of the people are aware of the importance of the glacier in their daily lives, and the lack of water availability is a problem they are starting to perceive, mainly during the dry season.
Antiquity, 2011
The author shows how pollen and oribatid mites recovered from the small lake of Marcacocha provide a detailed proxy record of agro-pastoralism over the last 4200 years in the central Andes. The introduction of highland maize and weeding practices 2700 years ago corresponds with major settlement development, as well as evidence for large herds of llamas not only facilitating trade but supplying abundant fertilizer and fuel in the form of excrement. Prolonged droughts and pre-Colombian epidemics probably influenced many of the social changes observed.
Iberoamericana, 2017
Previous studies have shown that climatic changes in the Peruvian Andes pose a threat to lowland communities, mainly through changes in hydrology. This study uses a case study approach and a mixed qualitative-quantitative method to examine the vulnerability of small-scale farmers in the Quillcay River basin to variations in precipitation and enhanced glacier retreat. The findings of the study show partly contradicting results. On one hand, interpretation of semi-structured interviews suggests a strong relation between climate proxies and increased vulnerability of the smallholders. On the other hand, in the quantitative analysis enhanced glacier retreat seemed to have augmented vulnerability solely to some extent whereas precipitation did not show significant impact. The assessment of the socioeconomic dimension revealed that larger market forces, weak political entitlement and lack of social and economic capital fundamentally increased smallholders' vulnerability. It is, therefore, suggested that a complex cluster of economic, political and social factors are the root causes of small-scale farmers' vulnerability in the case study region whereas climate-related changes merely act as multiplying factors.
1998
Current models of rangeland system dynamics were evaluated in Cosapa, a pastoral community on the Bolivian altiplano. Two specific models were tested: the "equilibrium" model, which assumes biotic interactions dominate rangeland dynamics and lead to system stability , and the "nonequilibrium" model, in which stochastic, abiotic factors control systems such that equilibrium is never attained. A livestock development project (called "Project Alpaca ") working in the community was then assessed in terms of how its assumptions of system dynamics compared with empirical findings. The goal of Project Alpaca was to increase incomes for camelid (i.e., llama and alpaca) herders on the Bolivian altiplano by improving the processing, production, and marketing of alpaca wool. Project implementation was carried out by an indigenous herders' association, with funds provided for construction of a modern alpaca wool processing plant and technical interventions at t...
Perceptions of and adaptation to climate change in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru
Climate change and glacial disasters directly affect the Andean periglacial populations in the environmental, social, economic and cultural spheres. Regional atmospheric warming is causing an increasing retreat of glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. The melting of these glaciers causes, among other consequences, the formation of new glacial lagoons and an increase in volume of the pre-existing lagoons; both phenomena increase the possibility of glacial disasters. Thus, this paper reports an investigation of perceptions and adaptations to climatic change and glacial disasters in the Cordillera Blanca, Department of Ancash, Peru, through the ethnographic method with the campesino communities of Vicos and Humacchuco; this method included observations and semi-structured interviews with managers and campesinos. The measures adopted by the managers are, predominantly, engineering to reduce disasters, such as increasing of dike sizes and lagoon drainages. The retreat of the glaciers, as noted by the campesino communities themselves, is the main perception of the impacts of climate change. We suggest that the choice of safe places to live in campesino communities is the main strategy of adaptation and is related to an ancestral ethnoknowledge. The reterritorialization of sites susceptible to glacial disasters is not only due to the need to have a place (to plant, to live), but is also due to the topophilic feelings formed by the affective link between a person and a place. There is a central and structural issue that adds to these problems: the development model prevailing in Peruvian postcolonial society tends to complicate possible strategies for adapting to climate change in the Andes.