An ecosystem approach to restoration and sustainable management of dry forest in southern Peru

Abstract

The dry forest of the Peruvian south coast has undergone an almost total process of deforestation. Populations here have increased exponentially through immigration supplying labour to urban coastal development, and demonstrably unsustainable agro-industrial expansion for export markets. Society has become dislocated from local traditions of environmental and resource management whilst still retaining a wealth of Andean agricultural expertise. Indigenous communities still hold on to vestiges of traditional knowledge. Relicts of natural vegetation, traditional agriculture and agrobiodiversity continue to sustain ecosystem services. Moreover, offer livelihood options and resources for restoration. These aspects reflect a long cultural trajectory, including famous extinct cultures such as Nasca, that evolved within an ever-changing riparian and agricultural landscape influenced by external forces and which incorporated important processes of plant domestication and adaptation to climatic oscillation.