Family and community adaptations to climate change: The case of the Andean Quelcaya pastoralist community

Submitted by admin on Thu, 11/08/2011 - 23:03.
Andean Quelcaya community in Carabaya Province, Puno
Climate change is transforming the high Andean pastoral ecosystem in an unprecedented way. The mutual interdependence of nature and society is producing changes in the high Andean area that is mainly inhabited by pastoral societies. Ecological displacement, changes in water regimes and other, unstudied ecological processes, are some of the environmental manifestations of this transformation. Pastoral society, for its part, has redesigned their communal institutions, patterns of livestock movement and societal resources to adapt. Climate change in these higher areas is characterized by an increase in wetlands and grasslands, reduced ice and snow cover and species and ecosystem displacement. The project will investigate changes in the rules of access and control of pastures as the community’s institutions respond to climate changes. Households would also then respond through variations in the herd’s mobility patterns, leading to changes in coverage and land use. Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales (CEPES) initiates this project, which seeks to understand the interaction and feedback between nature and society. They will investigate the social relations of production and land use decisions of the Quelccaya community and the families within.