Changing Fortunes: Biodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian AndesUniversity of California Press, 2023 M04 28 - 309 pages Two of the world's most pressing needs—biodiversity conservation and agricultural development in the Third World—are addressed in Karl S. Zimmerer's multidisciplinary investigation in geography. Zimmerer challenges current opinion by showing that the world-renowned diversity of crops grown in the Andes may not be as hopelessly endangered as is widely believed. He uses the lengthy history of small-scale farming by Indians in Peru, including contemporary practices and attitudes, to shed light on prospects for the future. During prolonged fieldwork among Peru's Quechua peasants and villagers in the mountains near Cuzco, Zimmerer found convincing evidence that much of the region's biodiversity is being skillfully conserved on a de facto basis, as has been true during centuries of tumultuous agrarian transitions. Diversity occurs unevenly, however, because of the inability of poorer Quechua farmers to plant the same variety as their well-off neighbors and because land use pressures differ in different locations. Social, political, and economic upheavals have accentuated the unevenness, and Zimmerer's geographical findings are all the more important as a result. Diversity is indeed at serious risk, but not necessarily for the same reasons that have been cited by others. The originality of this study is in its correlation of ecological conservation, ethnic expression, and economic development. |
Contents
xi | |
3 | |
8 | |
13 | |
24 | |
Sparse Biodiversity in Imperial Agriculture 14001533 | 32 |
Rich Biodiversity in Commoner Subsistence | 38 |
Coca and Crops in Paucartambo 15331776 | 42 |
Ridding the OddRipeners in the Northern Valley Cloud Forest | 149 |
The Demise of Maize Quinoa and the Colquepata Wetlands | 159 |
Innovative Intercropping in the Southern Valley | 170 |
Perceptions of Quechua Peasants | 179 |
Diversitys Sum Geography EcologyEconomy and Culture | 184 |
Willful Words | 186 |
Cultural and Moral Aesthetics | 193 |
Ecological and Culinary Utilities | 204 |
Haciendas and Communities 17761969 | 53 |
Biodiversity and LongTerm History | 63 |
Transitions in Farm Nature and Society 19691990 | 66 |
Diversification and the Postreform Political Economy | 75 |
Biodiversitys Fate | 82 |
Socioeconomic Differences and Dietary Change | 88 |
Ethnicity Power and Biodiversity | 95 |
Biodiversity and Recent History | 103 |
Innovation and the Spaces of Biodiversity | 105 |
Farming the Landscape | 115 |
Reinventing Flexibility | 124 |
Routes of Commerce | 135 |
Farm Space as Key to Conservation | 143 |
Loss and Conservation of the Diverse Crops | 146 |
The Cusps of Recent Cultural Change | 211 |
The Vicissitudes of Biodiversitys Fortune | 216 |
The Future of Sustainable Development and In Situ Conservation | 224 |
Appendixes | 231 |
I | 232 |
II | 234 |
IV | 238 |
VII | 242 |
X | 245 |
Notes | 249 |
Bibliography | 271 |
Index | 297 |
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Common terms and phrases
agriculture agroecological agroecology Andean ayllu barley big seed biodiversity biological bogs boiling potatoes Bolivia broad beans Brush cartambo Challabamba chawcha chuño cloud forest coca colonial Colquepata commerce conservation cultivar cultural Cusco Cuzco diverse crops diverse plants diversity's Early Planting ecological economic elevations environmental families farm space farmers in Paucartambo farmland Faustino feet fertility fit livelihood floury potatoes Gade genetic erosion geographical growers Guillet haciendas harvest high-yielding Hill farming Huaqanqa Inca Indian indigenous intercropped Janvry k'ellu labor labor-time Land Reform landraces landscape Líbano Lima maize Mayer meters Mollomarca northern valley off-season Oxen Area papa parcels Paucar Paucartambo farmers Peasant Communities Peru Peruvian postreform potato landraces production spaces Quechua cultivators Quechua farmers Quechua in Paucartambo Quechua peasants Quencomayo quinoa Reform of 1969 Río role Sauer sectoral fallow seed maize slopes social soil southern subsistence tambo tarwi tubers ulluco Umamarca use-category Valley fields varieties villagers Zimmerer 1991c