Glaciers, peatlands, pastures, and fields: Understanding resilient agropastoral systems in the Peruvian Andes

Abstract

Indigenous alpaca breeders and smallholding farmers in the Peruvian Andes have jointly managed high-altitude Distichia muscoides peatlands since precolonial times. Also known as bofedales, these ecosystems are formed through the slow flow of glacial meltwater over gentle peri-glacial slopes. Whilst alpaca breeders benefit from letting bofedal water spread over their pastures, smallholding farmers dig ditches on bofedales to intercept and channel water into their irrigation canals. These conflicting needs are managed through local rules of seasonal turn-taking. Bofedal water is prioritized for lower-altitude agriculture in the dry season and for highland pasture irrigation in the wet season. The resilience of this social-ecological system rests on the remarkable continuity of kin-based and non-kin-based relations between farmers and higher-altitude alpaca breeders, which have enabled continuous vertical hydro-territorial control, despite the colonial practice of indigenous people resettlement. Today, migration, shifting herd sizes, climate change, and associated glacial retreat, are altering bofedal hydrology and challenging this otherwise resilient system. Using archival research, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, field surveys, and remote sensing, our ongoing research seeks to understand: (a) the political-ecological means whereby certain families of farmers and alpaca breeders gained and maintained vertical control over bofedales, pastures, and agricultural fields over generations; (b) how these forms of control and access, including governance institutions, have changed over time; (c) how land-cover patterns have changed; and (d) whether and how the bofedal management system may remain resilient amid current social-ecological stressors. We seek comparable social-ecological systems in Aotearoa New Zealand for interregional comparative case study research.