Listening to the campesinos: sustaining rural livelihoods in the tropical Andes

Abstract

Rural sustainability has to be rooted in locality- and community-specific concepts, strategies, and methodologies. In the Andean realm, a patient, empathic and unbiased “listening to the campesinos” is the key to a protection of environmental integrity and of natural resources, and to a preservation of the cultural heritage of local communities. But the voices of different age and gender groups, of ind'genas and mestizos, and of different ethnic and social communities may offer a broad spectrum, and a harmonization of the perceived needs, priorities and development paths may be a difficult challenge. The long tradition of farming families to secure their livelihoods by attenuating natural and human risks is based on a vast body of endogenous knowledge, experiences, and environmentally and culturally rooted concepts. For many centuries, the tropical Andes offered to the campesinos a rich and diversified environment. But its topography, ecology and a host of hazards made the rural communities vulnerable and forced them to design various strategies of resilience, mitigation and adaptation. Locally based sustainability is not static, unchangeable and impervious to external economic, social and political influences and impacts. Local communities have responded in different ways to the new opportunities and threats of exogenous forces and actors. In view of these external influences, endogenous approaches to rural sustainability should be based on a mobilization of local natural and human resources. This does not mean that external partners have to be excluded, but the prerequisite for a successful and sustained partnership must respect the environmental and cultural integrity of the region and the buen vivir and autonomy of local communities.