Traditional knowledge and adaptive measures against climate change in high mountain ecosystems

  • 2014
02/06/14 By Walter Chamochumbi *

The effects and impacts of climate change are already evident in different regions of the world. In fact, high mountain ecosystems, such as the Andes Mountains, glacier retreat and extreme climatic variability (torrential rains, droughts, hailstorms, frosts, etc.) are affecting the livelihoods and development of rural communities. poorer and vulnerable living from agricultural activity.

As long as climate denial and the inertia of those responsible for this crisis persist, the future is uncertain and high risk especially for these populations. Hence the importance of conducting research on traditional knowledge and adaptive measures, such as those that centuries ago developed Andean agrocentric cultures against adverse environmental factors. Society-nature: rationality and environmental problems The Cordillera de los Andes is one of the most extensive and representative geographical regions of Peru and South America. Its biogeographic configuration is extremely complex and heterogeneous, as well as geomorphology, climates and ecosystems of the hydrographic basins of its western and eastern slopes. It is also an important seat of multiple native cultures, which under adverse climatic and topographic conditions, developed valuable knowledge and adaptive technologies in the management of diverse ecosystems for food production and the satisfaction of their basic needs.

In the high Andean areas, the adaptive process of different human groups is the result of their multiple interactions as a society-nature. Thus, its study involves considering two key dimensions: i) The environmental, to characterize the social processes of occupation-adaptation and the relations of predominance and political-administrative control over the territory and its repercussions on the environment; and ii) The cultural one, because when analyzing the environmental implications derived from the relations of society-nature interaction on the occupied territory, there are certain cultural contexts in which specific impacts are manifested (1). The forms of life or positive manifestations tested by different cultures and societies in certain territories and ecosystems, are explained according to the concept of environmental rationality, because it alludes to a body of values ​​or principles oriented towards the search for a positive environmental purpose. To that extent, also the mismatches or mismatches in the adaptive process are the result of multiple conditioning factors typical of the society-nature interaction system. What - as an antithesis - leads us through the threshold of irrationality, configuring the concept of environmental problems: that is, when the conditioning factors of the society-nature interaction system configure a set of imbalance elements, known as rationality defects ( irrationality).

The previous concept, however, does not contradict the scope of the Andean holistic worldview. On the contrary, the environmental implications derived from the society-nature relationship must be understood in the context of certain cultures, territories and environmental environments. Therefore, the cultural framework will imply understanding a specific form of rationality or a type of behavior that society will manifest on the occupied space-territory, assuming reasonably that it provides its livelihoods.

Multiple relationships of human societies with the environment

In this regard, we highlight the contribution of Julián Steward (1955) (2), who integrated the analysis of the population-environment components. Its most important and original contribution is the theory of multilinear evolutionism, according to which human societies contemplate multiple and variable trajectories in their processes of change and adaptation. Steward studies the discontinuity of the evolutionary process, while: "sometimes it leads to greater energy control and greater social complexity and other times to simpler social and economic forms" (3).

On the other hand, Salhins and Service (4) achieve an interesting advance in the study of the evolutionary process of the communities, proposing to integrate two main phases: i) “… evolution creates diversity due to the adaptation mechanism, which constantly forges new forms in function of microenvironmental changes. And ii) “… organisms inevitably evolve from simple to more complex forms, from organisms with less energy control to those with greater control” (5). In fact, the evolution of the populations follows - in general - an ascending process in time but with different directions and discontinuities. Based on this idea, we view multilinear evolution from a dialectical perspective, representing it as a figure of helical form and function: sinuous and contradictory but progressive. The original populations follow different evolutionary paths conditioned by various factors (objective and subjective, endogenous and exogenous) related to the occupied territories and their environmental environments, in whose particular processes and over time, their strategies adaptive tend to diversify and complex, except in extreme cases that due to other factors, their strategies have been simplified (even collapsed).

Currently, following research on systems theory and from the original use of the ecosystem concept, it is widely accepted that the study of the society-nature relationship cannot be approached as two separate components, but rather more well interrelated, because they constitute the compositional parts of a systemic whole (6). Thus, both components are interrelated in a whole representing a complex of relations of mutual causality. So they can be measured with some basic indicators, such as, for example, the quality of life to refer to the profile of a society, and the environmental quality to refer to the status quo of nature.

The previous explanation is based on the Godel's undecidability theorem (7), which states that each model is explained within a broader and more general model, proposing that the environmental problems of society current must be analyzed within a reference system in whose center the company is located; and that this - in turn - is framed in a much wider context of problems and metaproblems. Thus, today it is inconsistent to make a description and complete analysis of the ecosystem without more reference than the ecosystem itself, because this is -per se- insufficient to explain the different levels and ways of relating a society and its problem of access to natural resources, its economic growth and quality of life, and its environmental repercussions. Consequently, environmental problems such as global warming and climate change should be studied as complex phenomena on a global-local scale, as open systems, based on multiple interactions as a society-nature, and according to In the complex underlying relationships of mutual causality: flows of energy exchanges of systems and subsystems that configure and characterize techno-productive, socio-economic, political and organizational changes, as well as of sustainability in the different societies and cultures in certain spaces.

Harmonies and disharmonies in the artificialization of ecosystems The pre-Hispanic native peoples established relationships of interaction with nature, based on the development of valuable experiences and knowledge about it: their ability to observe and learn in thousands of years, through multiple test trials -error (8), involved a continuous process of artificialization (anthropization) of the occupied space-territory.

Numerous investigations confirm that during the multiprocesses of territorial and environmental occupation-adaptation, the original societies - due to the need for survival - developed detailed knowledge of the structure, composition and functioning of ecosystems and altitudinal floors: their complex biodiversity, their microclimates and the components physical spatial distribution (vertical-altitudinal and horizontal-longitudinal). Thus, they progressively tested the necessary modifications that would ensure their survival. This is the case of agrocentric cultures in high Andean areas, who knew the microclimatic behavior, modified ecosystems, domesticated plants and animals and managed biodiversity until they became complex agroecosystems.

Over time, due to the effect of conventional agrarian modernization and industrialization, the traditional systems of knowledge and practices of native peoples on the physical environment and bioclimatic indicators, their folkloric biological taxonomy, their production practices and their nature are at risk experimental. Hence, in the face of the environmental crisis and the phenomenon of climate change, local knowledge and practices have acquired such dimension and importance that they are serving as the basis for the development of new scientific knowledge and adaptive measures (9). Pre-Hispanic societies built resilient life systems adapted to different media, achieving a high degree of knowledge regarding climate variability and adverse factors (10). In high mountain ecosystems, the original populations evolved according to their capacity for adaptation or maladjustment, under dissimilar conditions in the management of the supply of available resources and according to the types of socio-economic and rationality organizations used in the management of ecosystems. They are therefore processes subject to the development of certain capacities of social resilience (strong or weak) of different societies and cultures to overcome difficulties and to adapt to the territorial and microenvironmental environment or otherwise fail and maladapt (11).

The degree of local energy management and control in the adaptive process of the original populations is key. It depends on the tensions, forms of interaction and the levels of exchange of energy flows: increase of the “outputs” and reduction of the “inputs”. Consequently, in the face of climate variability and other adverse factors, reducing the degree of uncertainty in the management of microenvironmental factors and maximizing local energy efficiency and resilience, through the intensive use of innocuous knowledge and technologies, organization by the hand of work, etc., will allow a greater degree of subsistence and autonomy of local populations in the management of their natural resources.

Unlike studying the environmental implications of the adaptive mechanisms tested at the individual level, it is at the collective level that the predominant form of relationship between societies and cultures with their territorial and environmental environment is best configured and expressed. The sense of identity and territorial belonging of the original populations are expressed more clearly when they refer to the collective, because they express their worldview and existence as such (their imaginary). These forms of collective territorial identity allowed the construction of a respectful relationship with nature and a line of continuity and generational identity around it.

Currently various factors such as the population density and lifestyles of countries that increase the pressure of use on natural resources and the environment (ecological footprint), the expansion of the free market economy and extractive projects of natural resources, the crisis systemic and centralist and exclusionary development policies of countries, processes of polluting industrialization and transfer and technological dependence of agri-food north-south, economic and commercial interference of transnational corporations and hegemonic countries on natural resources and livelihoods of the original peoples, the erosion of traditional knowledge, etc., are determining factors of the phenomenon of global climate change, and that in fact are impacted on the problem of food insecurity and poverty of rural populations in high mountain ecosystems. It is therefore imperative to conduct research on adaptive measures that collect and enhance traditional knowledge and strengthen local resilience.

Notes:

(*) Mag. Ing. Agronomist, Consultant in Environmental Management and Development.

1 “Indigenous communities and their evolution in the process of territorial adaptation, resilience and endogenous development: theories and notes of the Latin American context”, essay by Walter Chamochumbi, Lima. 2006

2 Julián Steward, 1955, pp. 14-15, cited in Emilio F. Morán (1996), "The human ecology of the peoples of the Amazon", (1982b, p.43), p. 44-45).

3 Cited by Emilio Morán (1996), Ibid., P. Four. Five.

4 “Evolution and culture”, 1960, in Morán (1996), Ibid., Based on works by Julián Steward and Leslie White.

5 Op cit de Salhins and Service pp. 12-13, in Emilio Morán (1996), Ibid., P. 49.

6 “society and nature can be considered as two independent systems that oppose or interact and complement each other, which forms the basis of the dualistic approach to the problem. The other option considers society-nature as a single indivisible unit that is integrated as a whole, which is the basis of the monistic approach of the system ”Op cit de Juan Gastó (1994), p. 131… ”Agroecosystem Approach”, in Module I “Agroecology: Historical and Theoretical Bases”, Course on Agroecology, CLADES-CIED, Lima, pp. 123-135.

7 Cited by Juan Gastó. Ibid.

8 Nicolo Gligo and Jorge Morello (1980)… “Notes on the ecological history of Latin America”, published in International Studies, 13, No. 49, Santiago, Chile, January-March 1980, pp. 112-148.

9 Miguel Altieri (1994)… ”Why study Traditional Agriculture”, in Module I “Agroecology: Historical and Theoretical Bases”, Course on Agroecology, CLADES-CIED, Lima, pp. 71-81.

10 See GTZ / FUNDECO / IE Consortium (2001)… ”Protection, recovery and dissemination of traditional knowledge and practices”, Preliminary document for country review, CAN, Regional Biodiversity Strategy, La Paz - Bolivia, 97 p.

11 The anthropization of ecosystems does not occur under homogeneous or relaxed conditions. On the contrary, it mostly occurs under conditions of high echogeographic heterogeneity and constant tension in the management of micro-environmental factors.

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