Untitled Document

“The enthusiastic celebration of indigenous skills can be the basis of alternative strategies of development.” – W.M. Adams

Celeste Kennel-Shank

Biology Senior Seminar

November 15, 2004

B. Thesis: Land management practices developed by indigenous communities offer the best chance for sustainable development in Latin America today.

A. Colonists in the Páramo region of Venezuela : deforestation for wheat and cattle

The sustainability of land management practices in developing countries is in question currently as a way to address poverty. Yet, this investigation is often done with the assumption that people in developing countries are acting irresponsibly and their behavior must be corrected by more enlightened conservationists from North America , Europe , and northern Asia . An analysis of the history of different land management practices shows that environmental degradation was often the result of colonial disruption of indigenous peoples. In the 1990 book Green Development by W.M. Adams, sustainable development is defined as practices designed to protect the environment and involve communities in making decisions. Land management practices developed by indigenous communities offer the best chance for sustainable development in Latin America today.

A diversity of cultures flourished in the Caribbean , Central and South America , before European conquistadors arrived, changing and using the land and resources to feed communities, build cities, raise temples, and govern empires. Land management practices were developed to be specific to their regions over the course of thousands of years in human communities. Prescribed burns were used in the páramo of Costa Rica to promote desired kinds of vegetation (Horn, 1998). Raised fields created in the swamps of Mexico, Colombia , and Ecuador yielded large harvests (Atkins, Roberts, and Simmons, 1998) (Yapa, 2003). In the Venezuelan Andes people grew maize or tubers, or reserved land to extract useful plants, depending upon the altitude (Pérez, 1998). Each of these practices served as building blocks in constructing civilizations.

Fire is one of the earliest-used and most universal human tools for land management. Fire was used by the hominid Homo erectus as early as 790,000 years ago, according to recent research in Israel (Rincon, 2004). Early Homosapiens, or humans, in eastern Africa used prescribed burning to encourage the re-growth of grasses and trees. Altering landscapes in differing degrees depending upon intensity, “the setting of fires is one of humankind’s most potent tools for effecting landscape and environmental change” (Horn, 1998). Prescribed burning can be used to prevent larger fires by removing smaller fuel, improve grazing areas, and encourage regeneration of trees and shrubs by making seedbeds (Ffolliott et al., 2001). This practice, whether developed indigenously or brought to the western hemisphere with the first peoples to migrate from Siberia , was used by the ancestors of Latin American peoples.

In the area that is now Chirripó National Park in Costa Rica people have used prescribed burns as a land management practice for thousands of years, shaping the landscape to their needs. The park, set on a mountain range, has a páramo, or tropical alpine climate, which includes both treeless areas and montane forests. Fires started by humans since prehistoric times, up to when the glaciers receded 10,000 years ago, have helped to adapt the treeless areas of vegetation, mostly inhabited by bamboo and shrubs (Horn, 1998). Fires were used beneficially to promote the growth of certain kinds of vegetation.

The Aztec, an indigenous people of central Mexico , sustained an estimated population of twenty-five million through a sophisticated yet sustainable system of agriculture. “Chinampas,” or raised fields, turned swamps into fertile gardens, giving plants a readily available water source and human populations a variety of crops. They became significant after 900 A.D., and peaked in use at 1350 A.D. By the 1950s, 120,000 hectares of raised fields raised fields were providing half of the total food needed for the 200,000 population of Tenochtitlan , the Aztec capital. The raised fields were created by shoveling mud from the lake bed, mixing it with organic material such as plants growing in the canal, building a frame with cane stakes to hold the material together, and finally, planting willow trees at the borders to prevent erosion. The fertility of the soil was maintained with canal mud, human-produced organic waste and bat dung. Two maize crops could be grown per year, as well as beans, chili peppers, tomatoes and grain amaranth in between. The crop roots are naturally irrigated in the rainy season, June through October, when the full canals raise the water table. Water is carried to the fields from the canal during the dry season (Atkins, Roberts, and Simmons, 1998). The centuries-long use of chinampas innovatively and productively reaped benefits from local resources.

Raised fields were used in other parts of Latin America by indigenous people in the pre-Colombian period as well. In the Momposina swamp area of Colombia along the lower Rio San Jorge, long canals were used to create raised fields to intensify agriculture for human habitation sites. Ecuadorians as well used raised fields to increase agricultural production and to manage floodwater (Yapa, 2003). The raised fields, an indigenous practice, allowed for agriculture to support populations without depleting natural resources.

In the Andean region of Venezuela , indigenous peoples adapted their agricultural practices for the changes in altitude. They grew manioc and maize below 2400 meters, and moved into the highlands after discovering that tubers could be grown there: potatoes, cuiba, and ulluco (Pérez, 1998). The higher altitude páramo was reserved for hunting and collection of native plants. People used plants for medicine and food, and also extracted lumber from the ecotone, or boundary of two ecosystems, of the páramo and the montane forests. Giant caulescent rosette-plants, unusual plants found in the tropical alpine region, were also used for weaving baskets, and for roofing and insulation in building homes (Pérez, 1998). These practices show a dynamic relationship of humans to the land, meeting the needs of both.

While acknowledging the wealth of indigenous knowledge in Latin America on land management practices, it is also important to consider the process by which those practices were developed. An important element of sustainable development is the participation of local communities and that the work be for their benefit ( Adams, 1990). Aztec hierarchies benefited the powerful elite far more than the lower classes, demanding tribute of workers throughout the region they controlled. Farmers worked for the benefit of rulers (Sluyter, 2002). Indigenous communities in Costa Rica and Venezuela may also have lacked collective decision making in choosing land management practices. While pre-Columbian land management provides models of sustainable ways of using resources, it has been more recently that communities in many areas of Latin America have organized themselves with greater participation of their members, providing better examples of sustainable development.

While the rulers of pre-Columbian civilizations in Latin America often ruthlessly subjugated their people, the effects of their land management practices contrast sharply with the destruction wrought on landscapes and human populations in few centuries of European domination. The arrival in the 1500s of Spanish conquistadors to Latin America , and the Portuguese to Brazil , caused the deaths of millions of indigenous peoples through disease and genocide, wiped out many cultures while reducing others to a few communities (Watts, 1999). Europeans in Latin America , primarily the Spanish and Portuguese exploited the land (Shelter, 2004) without regard for its limitations, resulting in deforestation, destruction, and the impoverishment of indigenous peoples. While there are many examples of damage to landscapes caused by European colonialism, those of wheat cultivation and cattle herding in the Venezuelan Andes and sugar plantations in Brazil highlight the particular effects of growing non-indigenous crops with non-indigenous methods.

While indigenous peoples in the Venezuelan Andes had learned to adapt their agriculture to the highlands by planting tuber crops, after Spanish conquest of the area, they impacted the páramo ecology by introducing wheat and cattle. Wheat, though only a marginal crop, is being grown in the páramo up to 3600 meters. Current human disturbance is causing habitat deterioration for the giant caulescent rosette-plants, an unusual plant found in the páramo. Along with colonization came the accidental introduction of many non-native plant species, while cattle have damaged the growth of some native plants. Pollen studies have shown that land was deforested at the same time that wheat was introduced. Wheat cultivation has also been the cause of soil erosion. Cattle also threaten the rosettes because they eat them as part of their grazing. (Pérez, 1998). In Central America sheep herding by Europeans in the sixteenth century had similar effects, where overgrazing led to a decrease in natural vegetation, soil erosion, and subsequent flooding (Sluyter, 2002). Colonial practice ignored the knowledge of the landscape held by the indigenous peoples, and degraded land as a result.

The history of sugar plantations in Brazil strongly exemplifies the degradation caused by colonial land management practices. Sugar cane, domesticated in New Guinea in the year 8000 before the Common Era, was brought to Latin America with Columbus’ 1493 voyage. The Spanish developed it as a plantation crop, intending first to enslave indigenous peoples, then forcing African slaves to migrate to Central and South America after indigenous populations were nearly wiped out by European-born diseases. In Brazil , by 1570 there were sixty sugar grinding mills in the country (Shetler, 2004).

The agricultural methods used by Spanish colonists on sugar plantations devastated tropical soils and local economies in areas where they were used. The sugar cane was grown on nutrient-poor tropical soils, which were quickly degraded. Monocrop planting heightened the soil degradation and damaged complex ecosystems. Colonists used slash and burn methods, cutting down vegetation to plant, leaching nutrients from soil, then moving on to new areas, leaving the soil to be eroded (Shetler, 2004). The legacy of colonial land practices in Brazil was soil degradation, deforestation and soil erosion.

While colonial practice had many negative effects on Latin American ecosystems, the changes in the landscape were the result of multiple levels of interaction between colonists, indigenous peoples, and the landscape. Colonization, especially with the introduction of livestock, disrupted ecological balance in Mexico , Hispaniola , Venezuela and other areas. However, in Andrew Sluyter’s framework for understanding colonialism the abandonment of land by indigenous peoples allowed for the expansion of ranches and colonial agriculture (2002). Indigenous communities, depopulated by European-born diseases and destruction of crops by livestock, consolidated their settlements and agricultural land, and also become more pastoral. The Spanish exploited the indigenous loss of land to graze expanding herds and feed a burgeoning population (Sluyter 2002). Indigenous people also contributed to the colonization process and the abandonment of sustainable practices, enduring calamities and adapting to new ways imposed upon them. By the time of independence, which for most Latin American countries was in the nineteenth century, Latin American societies were made up of the descendants of Europeans, indigenous peoples, and Africans, with many people having ancestry in more than one group, and depending upon many different kinds of land use, and affecting the environment in both negative and positive ways.

Though current Latin American societies are characterized by great diversity in cultures and land use, indigenous people and rural communities continue to be marginalized in creating development policy. Conservation policies in many nations in Latin America have failed to take into account the interests of small farmers and other who live from natural resources. There are winners and losers in every development program, and in Latin America the indigenous and rural farmers are most often the losers, and the government and multinational corporations the winners. While policy is looked at in terms of costs and benefits, it fails to take into account who bears the costs and who receives the benefits. National or regional interests dominate the interests of those most affected by the development project (Adams, 1990). The people who will be affected by conservation policies are often left out of making decisions to create and implement those policies.

Sustainable development, a model of development that focuses on participation of communities and use of practices that will not be harmful to an environment, connects environmentalism with development concerns. Some activists see sustainable development as requiring the participation of people who will be affected by changes to work together to see that they are carried out in a way that is good for their community (Adams, 1990). In Green Development, W.M. Adams wrote, “The enthusiastic celebration of indigenous skills can be the basis of alternative strategies of development” (1990). Research on land management practices has supported a new view of tropical agriculture that emphasizes indigenous understanding of how to maintain balance in an environment. Studies by agronomists in supported the idea that indigenous farming systems are productive and beneficial in tropical environments (Adams, 1990), while the one crop, or monoculture, plantations used by current large land owners are both environmentally and economically exploitative.

There are many examples of Latin American efforts, locally and nationally, who are overcoming exclusive and harmful conservation policies in the past, relying on indigenous knowledge to rebuild agriculture and natural reserves. An organic farming revolution took place in Cuba forty years after their political revolution when the fall of the Soviet Union cut off their access to the tools of industrial agriculture: chemical fertilizer, tractors, and other machinery (Kibben, 1996). In Mexico , some small farmers are still using the chinampas, or raised fields, of their ancestors (Atkins, Roberts, and Simmons, 1998). El Salvadoran coffee cooperatives are promoting reforestation and biodiversity in their production of shade grown coffee (Kennel-Shank, 2004). In Chirripó National Park in Costa Rica , fire management practices are being reconsidered with evidence of the use of prescribed burns by indigenous people for 10,000 years (Horn, 1998). In many instances rural people are drawing on local traditions to manage land sustainable.

Germán Hernandez, a Cuban plant nutritionist said of organic farming, “It goes back to the experience of my father and grandfathers.” When the Soviet Union collapsed, 1989-1991, Cuba was left without access to industrial agricultural tools. In order to continue to feed the rural population and urban workers, the country has undergone large scale efforts to implement and improve upon organic farming techniques. Biofertilizers, animal manure and compost, are being used instead of chemical fertilizers. Cuba produces tons of compost each year by making mounds of manure, burlap, cardboard, and organic material on top of soil, and adding worms to produce humus for the soil. Natural pesticides are used. One method involves attracting insects with pheromones to infect with a deadly fungus. The way crops are planted also keeps the land healthy. Legumes are sown in some seasons to build nitrogen in the soil. Intercropping is also used to prevent pest outbreaks, planting corns and beans or squash and sesame near each other to reduce the population of any species or family of insect that prefers certain plants to others fungus (Kibben, 1996). Through promoting organic farming, the Cuban government has adopted a policy of sustainable agricultural development fungus.

Raised fields are a form of sustainable development with indigenous origins that have potential for widespread benefit if used in more areas where it is suited. Raised fields are labor-intensive, and in rural areas in Latin America with high unemployment, raised field agriculture would provide both employment and increased food production. Raised fields have survived in Xochimilco, Mexico, near the location of the ancient Aztec capital, and studies done in the 1970s in the Mexican states of Tabasco and Veracruz showed positive results (Atkins, Roberts, and Simmons, 1998). In his research, “comparing prehispanic engineering techniques against the modern practice,” Kashyapa Yapa, a Sri Lankan engineer, has found raised fields as a form of floodwater management still used in Mexico and Ecuador (Yapa, 2003). Research and tradition suggest that rejuvenating the practice of raised fields would benefit agricultural communities.

Cooperatives producing shade grown coffee in El Salvador , in particular the Las Colinas, La Florida , and El Pinal cooperatives provide another example of sustainable land management. The practice of growing coffee on hillsides among other trees is better for the environment because counteracts deforestation, and thus soil erosion. The opportunity to grow other crops like avocado allows cooperatives to gain extra income, promote biodiversity, and provide shade for coffee plants. The collaborative structure of the coffee cooperatives also promotes better decision making and the involvement of whole families (Kennel-Shank, 2004). In both their environmentally sustainable practices and their collective decision making coffee cooperatives in El Salvador meet Adams ’ definition of sustainable development.

Chirripó National Park in Costa Rica is another example of an attempt to reconcile the traditional land management practice of using fire with current management practices used to preserve it as a national park. Fires have been used in both the treeless and montane forest areas of the páramo for over 10,000 years with a variety of effects. While the current management approach in Chirripó National Park sees fires as detrimental, control of fire size and intensity may be a better approach, recognizing the role played by fire in the páramo’s ecology (Horn, 1998). The indigenous origins of the practice, supported by research of the ecological history of the park, provide a compelling argument for continuing to use fire as a land management practice.

While indigenous practices are supported by centuries of evidence of their ability to sustain land, there are also opportunities with new technology. A view of sustainable development that fails to explore new technology is incomplete. For example, remote sensing in the Andes is helping conservationists to monitor environmental change caused by people. A study done in Podocarpus National Park , Ecuador , recorded and analyzed electromagnetic energy in satellite images and photographs taken from airplanes to determine the amount of area lost and the patterns in fragmentation of the forest (Echevarria, 1998). Better information about the changes taking place in the the park can improve planning in the future for the conservation of its resources.

While recent scientific discoveries can contribute positively, at its base sustainable development recognizes that indigenous people are keepers of a wealth of knowledge about the environments in which they have lived for thousands of years. Moving forward with land management in Latin America requires looking back to indigenous practices for managing land that have been threatened by colonialism and current market-based agriculture. Historical and recent examples from throughout Central and South America support the idea that indigenous methods of land management combine environmental protection and community participation in decisions with positive results. Sustainable development provides the best alternative for preserving resources for the future and the correcting environmental destruction in the past and present. The movement in solidarity with indigenous and rural people in Latin America and other parts of the southern hemisphere proclaims, “Another world is possible.”

Adams, W.M. (1990). Green Development:Environment and Sustainability in the Third World . New York : Routledge Press.

Atkins, Peter, Brian Roberts, and Ian Simmons (1998). People, Land, and Time. London : Hodder Headline Group.

Echevarria, Fernando R. (1998). “Monitoring Forests in the Andes Using Remote Sensing: An Example from Southern Ecuador .” In Nature’s Geography, Zimmerer and Young, eds. pp. 100-120. Madison , Wis. : The University of Wisconsin Press.

Ffolloitt, Peter, Luis Bojorquez-Tapia, and Mariano Hernandez- Narváez ( 2001). Natural Resources Management Practices . Ames , Iowa : Iowa State University Press.

Horn, Sally (1998). “Fire Management and Natural Landscapes in the Chirripo National Paramo, Chirripo National Park , Costa Rica .” In Nature’s Geography, Zimmerer and Young, eds. pp. 125-146. Madison , Wis. : The University of Wisconsin Press.

Kennel-Shank, Celeste (2004). Interviews with members of Las Colinas, La Florida , and El Pinal coffee cooperatives, El Salvador .

Kibben, Jamie (Director) and Food First (Producer). (1996). The Greening of Cuba . Oakland , Ca.: Institute for Food and Development Policy.

Pérez, Francisco L. (1998) “Human Impact on the High páramo Landscape of the Venezuelan Andes.” In Nature’s Geography, Zimmerer and Young, eds. pp. 147-183. Madison , Wis. : The University of Wisconsin Press

Rincon, Paul (2004, April 29). “Early human fire mastery revealed.” BBC News Online. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3670017.stm

Shetler, Jan Bender (2004). “Sugar and the Industrial Era.”Environmental History Lecture. Goshen College .

Sluyter, Andrew (2002). Colonialism and Landscape. Lanham , Md. : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Watts , Sheldon (1999). Epidemic and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism. New Haven , Conn. : Yale University Press.

Zimmerer, Karl S. And Kenneth R. Young, eds. (1998). Nature's Geography: New Lessons for Conservation in Developing Countries. Madison , Wis. : The University of Wisconsin Press.

Sustainable Land Management in Latin America