Electronic Appendix
Sustainability Research in Action: From Nature Conservation to Sustainable Regional Development – Experiences from the Bolivian Andes
Stephan Rist+, Sébastien Boillat+, Sarah-lan Stiefel+, Regine Brand+, Dora Ponce++, Elvira Serrano++, Jaime Delgadillo++
+ Researchers of CDE/NCCR North-South, ++ Researchers of AGRUCO/NCCR North-South
A Bolivian-Swiss research partnership contributed to the transformation of a national park that had been imposed on the local population in a top-down manner into a regional project for sustainable development. This project centres around the promotion of bio-cultural diversity. Close collaboration between scientists and society at large led to a better understanding of the underlying problems among all stakeholders involved. This freed up social energies that can now be invested in solving concrete problems rather than in fuelling existing conflicts.
In 1991, by adoption of a new law, the Tunari National Park was extended from 240 km2 to around 3000 km2 – almost twice the size of the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland!
The main reasons for this extension were increasing floods in the urban area of Cochabamba, the urban population’s need for “pristine nature”, and biodiversity conservation. The over 300 indigenous farmer communities affected by the park extension were not consulted – even though they were de facto dispossessed by the new park law, which, for example, forbids them to keep livestock, till the land, and utilise the forest.
However, none of the government agencies in charge of park management in Bolivia dared to inform the local population of the measures foreseen by the law. As a result, the socially and politically highly explosive regulations were never actually implemented. For many years the park remained a mere paper tiger.
The paper tiger became a real problem when the prefecture, supported actively by urban nature conservationists and entrepreneurs holding concessions for water use and fishery in the park area, set about implementing the law. Only now did the farmers find out that according to the park law they had lost their right to existence in material and cultural terms. The over 100,000 indigenous farmers organised themselves into a powerful social movement, demanding abolishment of the park.
The research project
In this typical context for sustainability research, the Agroecology Programme of the University of Cochabamba (AGRUCO) launched a research partnership with support from the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South. An interdisciplinary team of five PhD candidates from Bolivia, Switzerland and Germany as well as several Master’s students set to work.
Taking a transdisciplinary approach, they first needed to bring all involved stakeholders together at a round table and negotiate the research questions with them. Representatives of the farmer communities, nature conservationists, the prefecture, real-estate agents, communal officials and entrepreneurs took part in the round-table discussions. Every participant was given the opportunity to present his or her views on the problems in the park area. It quickly became clear that the most important points of contention revolved around the following questions:
- Is it true that traditional land use reduces biodiversity?
- Is it true that traditional land use is responsible for the increasing floods in urban areas?
- Can the urban population’s need for “nature” be satisfied only by means of a national park?
The researchers and all stakeholders agreed that these disputed issues indeed constituted the relevant research questions. This negotiation of research questions ensured that the results would be of use not only in science itself, but also in the concrete advancement and implementation of more sustainable development on the ground.
Research results
- The diversity of ecosystems in the park area is above all a result of traditional land use. Instead of the naturally occurring 1–2 climax ecosystems, today the area is covered with 8–11 different “man-made” ecosystems (Figure 1). It is thus a “cultural landscape”. As such, it expresses the worldview of the indigenous population and implies a specific view on nature conservation (Figure 2). Certain isolated areas are not under traditional land use – a fact which is linked above all to migration of local farmers to places nearer to the roads, schools or health posts or to the exterior of the park area. This migration is mainly due to the fact that the farmers are unable to achieve high enough prices for their agricultural products to cover production costs, and are therefore forced to increase their income through off-farm activities. In some cases this leads to over-intensification or extensification. Both weaken traditional agriculture. Traditional agriculture, however, provides an opportunity for balancing conservation and use.
- The increasing floods are mainly due to a lack of urban planning and the precarious financial situation of migrants to the city. Given that the land along and downhill from the rivers – which runs the highest risk of being flooded – is cheapest, these are the areas where migrants settle. In the rainy season, when the rivers – naturally – overflow, this causes severe damage which has little to do with traditional land use in the river catchments upstream.
- The majority of the urban population has no proven need for a National Park of this large size. Its need for “nature” relates to green areas inside the city and to the possibility of accessing the periphery of today’s park area on well-kept gravel roads as a nearby recreational destination.
Application and implementation
These scientific insights show that none of the arguments put forward for creation of the National Park are justified.
The research results were discussed in detail with the various stakeholders. It was soon agreed that a solution must be found that will enable the farmers to maintain their traditional agriculture under improved overall conditions. In concrete terms this means ensuring fair prices for their products and for ecosystem services, acknowledging their territorial claims, improving public services, and showing respect for their culture, which forms the basis of their traditional land use.
In order for this to become possible, the National Park must be rezoned to the category “Area of Integrated Development” by modification of the park law. This will create a basis for transforming the National Park into an area for sustainable regional development. The parliamentarians of Cochabamba have already formulated the corresponding amendment to the law and submitted it to the parliament. Since the election of Evo Morales the indigenous population has its own representatives in the parliament and in the government, and confidence among the farming families has grown enough that they are able to believe in this type of structurally-based improvement. The opposition against previous governments has thus been transformed into cooperation, making sustainable regional development an ideal field of cooperation between civil society and the government.
The research results were also successfully published, and the researchers involved are sharing these innovative approaches to development research in courses at the universities of Cochabamba (Bolivia), Bern (Switzerland), and Halle (Germany).
The universities involved have maintained contact with the stakeholders in order to jointly set about implementing the proposed solutions in a next step. However, they are facing the problem that research funding is planned for short terms. A successful research partnership leads to long-term collaboration between the research community and society at large; in the case of Bolivia there are no funds for such long-term collaboration due to a lack of public research funding. Here lies a challenge for international cooperation not to support individual research projects alone, but also to assist partner countries in developing the means and institutions for their own research funding.
Conclusions
It became clear to everyone that nature conservation cannot be implemented against the will of the local farmers, but only in collaboration with them. Targeted support for traditional land-use systems is a key element. By means of a parliamentary initiative the government of Evo Morales intends to create a legal basis for this support: the park is to be transformed into an “Area of Integrated Development”.
Key insights
Nature and biodiversity conservation which is imposed in a top-down manner creates more problems than it can solve. It is therefore not sustainable in the long term.
The reasons for launching nature conservation projects are frequently purely political and have no scientific basis.
Partnership projects in sustainability research can eliminate this serious shortcoming and thereby contribute to practice-oriented new solutions.
Partner Institutions
The main partner in Cochabamba is the Agroecology Programme of the University of Cochabamba (AGRUCO), which has received funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for over 20 years. Within the framework of the NCCR North-South, ecological and sociological research on the Tunari National Park was supported by the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern.
Project leaders
In Bolivia: Dora Ponce (DoraPonce@agruco.org) of AGRUCO (www.agruco.org)
In Switzerland: Stephan Rist (Stephan.Rist@cde.unibe.ch) of CDE (www.cde.unibe.ch)
Figure 1: Number of plant communities – as a proxy for ecosystems – existing in the cultural landscape of the Tunari National Park today (to the right) and number of plant communities that would occur without human presence (to the left).
Figure 2: Different worldviews imply different views on nature conservation.
Photo 1: View of the city of Cochabamba from the National Park.
Photo 2: Arrest of a farmer leader (left) and potato harvest (right) in the Tunari National Park. Nature conservation against the will of indigenous farmers or in collaboration with them?