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Partners from nearly a dozen organizations, working as part of the CONDESAN research and development consortium, spent much of 2003 planning the first phase of a new, comprehensive effort to safeguard the biodiversity of the unique Andean ecosystem known as the paramo

The Andean Paramo Project, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), will provide US$600,000 for what scientists say will ultimately be a US$15 million, five-year initiative to reverse the loss of biodiversity in one of the world’s most exotic ecosystems.

The paramo is a high-altitude Andean ecosystem that stretches more than 2,000 kilometers from western Venezuela to northeastern Peru. Sometimes described as a grassland archipelago, it is home to nearly 5,000 plant species including 40 percent of the world’s wild potato species. The paramo is best known, however, for its signature plant, a giant-stem rosette (Espeletia spp.) that can withstand the extreme cold, drought, and ultra-high levels of irradiance found at high altitudes.

The paramo is also believed to be the ideal habitat for the highest growing tree genus on the planet (Polylepis) and the last remaining habitat for endangered wildlife such as the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) and the spectacled bear (Tremarctus ornatus). Both of these creatures, which are dwindling in number, are unique to the paramo, the only natural ecosystem where they roam freely.

The paramo is similar in many respects to the peatlands of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. “Over the centuries, decomposing vegetation has created a boggy layer of soil that is often more than a meter deep. The soil acts like a sponge, soaks up heavy rainfall, and gradually releases it over time,” says Hector Cisneros, Coordinator of CONDESAN (Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion).

The biodiversity of the paramo is threatened, Cisneros cautions, by a variety of factors, including livestock farming and global warming, and because local institutions lack the resources and trained personnel to preserve local flora and fauna. They also face a major public awareness challenge.

“The research community needs to do a better job of quantifying and communicating to the public the environmental goods and services that the paramo provides. In addition, we need to develop policies and economic incentives that support conservation, rather than hinder it,” he says.

An important step in that direction, Cisneros adds, will be to stop underestimating the value of traditional knowledge and practices of the local inhabitants, which are based on a comprehensive view of conservation. “What we need to do instead,” he says, “is to start supporting them.”

The Andean Paramo Project

Researchers and local communities are working together through the Andean Paramo Project to ensure the conservation of this unique ecosystem and the biodiversity found there.

To that end, cooperating researchers plan to launch the Andean Paramo Project early in 2004. Participating agencies will include Venezuela’s Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Ecológicas (ICAE) of the Universidad de los Andes, the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute of Colombia, EcoCiencia of Ecuador, the Mountain Institute (TMI) of Peru, the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and the University of Wisconsin in the United States. Coordinating services will be provided by CONDESAN, operating from CIP headquarters in Lima and the Center’s liaison office in Quito.

During the design phase, project scientists—in an effort to identify alternatives that might promote biodiversity conservation—will analyze the economic, social, and environmental policies that have an impact on the paramo ecosystem.

“One of our key goals is to develop a vision for the future, starting by characterizing the situation on the ground,” says CIP biologist Robert Hofstede. “To that end, we will be selecting pilot sites to analyze the effects of land use change on biodiversity conservation and the maintenance of environmental services. The goal is to develop integrated land management plans,” he says.

Project scientists will also seek the participation of local people, many of whom are already motivated to take part. Hofstede notes that in northern Ecuador, where farmers have worked with CONDESAN for over a decade, local communities have taken it upon themselves to act as indigenous park guards for the Paramo El Angel Ecological Reserve. Likewise, in northern Peru, local people are working with CONDESAN to preserve biodiversity threatened by mining operations.

“Ultimately what we hope to have in place are the indicators and protocols needed to establish an international monitoring network that will provide accurate assessments of the health of the paramo,” says Hofstede.

He notes that the project will involve a broad range of actors at national and international levels, including advanced research institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and many community-based organizations.

“Our aim is to help implement the vision of the delegates to the Paramo World Congress held in Paipa, Colombia in 2002. The vision calls for a paramo without borders and sharing of responsibility for its well-being,” Hofstede adds.

Challenges ahead

Officials associated with the project are optimistic that it has a good chance of meeting those goals.

“It’s likely that we’ll look back at 2003 as the year when researchers began to get a handle on the problems of mountain people and the highland environments in which they live,” says CIP Director General Hubert Zandstra.

Even with international support and sufficient financing, however, the challenge of reversing years of neglect and mismanagement is considerable. The paramo ecoregion is a magnet for farming because of its fertile soils and the absence of pests and diseases. Large numbers of farmers, Cisneros says, are plowing up virgin areas to grow potatoes and horticultural crops for the urban market.

There is also considerable pressure on the region’s last remaining native forests, as people use the land for livestock and timber production. By some estimates only 2 percent of the original high-altitude Polylepis spp. forests of the Andes remain, and even those are endangered. Efforts have been made in the past to reforest degraded areas with non-native species such as pine, affecting the paramo’s biodiversity, as well as its hydrologic cycles. This has placed large areas at risk.

Ironically, one of the greatest threats to the region’s well-being originates in urban areas. For the people who live in many of the region’s growing urban centers, the paramo is the sole source of drinking water and hydroelectric power.

“It’s in everyone’s interest that the paramo be protected,” Zandstra says. Thanks to the support we’ve receiving from the GEF, the process of reversing years of neglect can now begin.

User-friendly models are helping communities in the altiplano to make better-informed decisions about the use of their natural resources.

Natural resources management research readied for scaling up CIP natural resource management work is currently being readied for major scaling up, an effort expected to benefit hundreds of mountain communities in the altiplano, or highland plains, of Bolivia and Peru. Starting in 2004, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) will begin investing CAD$19.9 million (US$15 million) in a five-year effort to build upon work conducted under the PISA farming systems project (Proyecto de Investigacion de Sistemas Agropecuarios Andinos). The PISA initiative, which has helped farmers avoid risks and improve their quality of life, was inaugurated in 1985 with support from CIDA and was incorporated into CIP’s research portfolio in 1993. “The problems of the altiplano are well-known,” says CIP computer-modeler Roberto Quiroz. Limited market access, lack of technology, population growth, and deterioration of the region’s soil and water resources are the principal culprits. Quiroz, one of nine scientists originally assigned to the PISA project, was named leader of CIP’s new Natural Resources Management Division in 2003. The altiplano region, he notes, is subject to extreme climatic conditions and drastic variability. Average rainfall ranges from 400-600 mm with drought periods that can last up to five months. In 2002—an El Niño year—thousands of local residents were affected by unusual weather, including storms that killed tens of thousands of heads of livestock. In contrast, 2003 was a drought year. The PISA project, which concentrated on communities in the area surrounding Lake Titicaca, started as a typical farming systems project and gradually evolved to include community systems and watersheds. “When we began our work in the mid-80s,” Quiroz says, “there was little data available about mountain watersheds, forcing us to develop remote sensing techniques and computer models to generate climate data, and understand the dynamics of local cropping patterns and soils.” From there, crop, livestock and erosion models were adapted to diverse agro-ecological zones to screen for “best-bet” options. The result was the development of a series of geo-spatial tools that produce easy-to-understand watershed and community maps. The maps take data from the different models and highlight it so that communities can understand tradeoffs between productivity increases and environmental health. “Farmers tested all of the technological options to come out of the process and selected the ones they wanted to use,” Quiroz adds. “For example, by using the models we predicted accurately that farmers who irrigated their potatoes could plant early and escape drought.” Similar strategies were developed for alpaca and dairy farmers using improved fallows and legumes that nourish the soil and cut hillside erosion. “The scaling up process, which will begin this year, validates the work started by the PISA project,” says Hugo Li Pun, CIP’s Deputy Director General for Corporate Development. Li Pun, a former official with Canada’s International Development Research Centre, had early ties to the project. The research was continued by CIP and CIRNMA, a nongovernmental organization that provides technical assistance and credit to farmers in the Lake Titicaca area. The expansion of the work was made possible by support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the European Commission, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS), and Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), among others. For more information about CIRNMA read CIP Collaborator Wins Development Award.

CIP collaborator wins development award The Centro de Investigación de Recursos Naturales y Medio Ambiente (CIRNMA), an important CIP partner, was recently named one of the World Bank’s 2003 Development Marketplace winners. CIRNMA was selected from 2,700 applicants for its innovative work with oca, a little-known Andean tuber crop. “The oca project is helping to raise the income of rural families in and around the city of Puno, near Lake Titicaca,” says CIRNMA Executive Director Roberto E. Valdivia. “Our goal is to target Puno’s indigenous Aymara-speaking people and train them to produce a variety of oca jams and preserves that will meet today’s exacting market standards.” This will not only promote rural micro-enterprise; it will also encourage local households to conserve biodiversity as a source of extra income. “Traditionally, wealth and biodiversity went hand-in-hand in the high Andes,” says Carlos Leon-Velarde of CIP’s Natural Resources Management Division, “but these days, the picture is quite different.” Loss of biodiversity is particularly acute in the Lake Titicaca region, where it is coupled with one of Peru’s highest poverty rates and infant mortality 30 percent above the national average. “Population growth, food demand, increasing use of pesticides, inadequate use of fertilizers, soil erosion, and improper disposal of garbage all contribute to the problem,” adds Leon-Velarde. “Recycling of organic waste for food production, another traditional strategy, recently has fallen out of favor. It needs to be reintroduced to new generations of farmers, both male and female,” he says. CIRNMA’s oca project will help reduce environmental pollution by producing at least 40 metric tons of organic fertilizer from recycled manure and crop residues. The 2003 Development Marketplace identified 183 finalists and 47 winners from 27 developing countries. The award to CIRNMA, which carries with it a cash prize of nearly US$115,000, was one of just four presented to an agriculture-related project.