Panarchy to explore land use: a historical case study from the Peruvian Amazon

Abstract

The overexploitation of natural resources is an important driver of the global environmental crisis. The scientific community engages in an ongoing debate about the most suitable frameworks for analyzing trends in land use. In this paper, we use the conceptual lens of the adaptive cycle and panarchy to explore complex social–ecological dynamics in the Peruvian Amazon. Through an extensive literature review and interviews with key informants, we provide a historical analysis of extractive activities over the last two centuries in the department of Madre de Dios, Peru. We identify periods of growth, conservation, and sometimes release and reorganization for each resource and for the overall social–ecological system. We identify a general trend toward more diversification in extractive activities over time and inter-scale linkages between adaptive cycles of different time and space scales. Based on these results, we explore future development, hypothesize a possible domination of the agricultural sector, and suggest that land-use policies and management interventions should draw from past lessons to design adaptive land planning. Finally, we present new evidence highlighting the relevance of panarchy for understanding historical changes in complex social–ecological systems and demonstrate its utility in exploring both past land use and future development.