| Popis: |
The Andes are a mosaic of productive and unproductive agricultural lands, forest plantations, native forests, moors, slopes, valleys, wetlands, lakes, rivers and streams. Andean farmers depend on these landscapes for a wide variety of services: water, soils, pastures, food, timber, medicines, sports, cultural well-being and spiritual balance. Decades of misuse have seriously affected the ability of many of these landscapes to continue to provide these services, putting peasant families at risk. Rural and environmental development programs carried out by national and international institutions, NGOs and some private companies in the last four decades have helped to reduce the risks of hundreds of thousands of Andean farmers through the promotion and implementation of community and/or family plans of self-improvement environmental management. Motivated by these successes, many local organizations (development corporations, municipalities, NGOs and campesino committees) created their own environmental development programs. However, these programs today face many obstacles, including paternalism, mistrust, community weakening, unproductive and ecologically hostile agricultural and forestry practices, unfair trade procedures, ineffective peasant extension and training programs, gender inequality, harmful infrastructure and mining projects, internal institutional strife, crime and violence. This document is intended for students, young professionals and other future development agents. It teaches them how to overcome these obstacles, concluding that the best way to promote the sustainable management of natural resources in the Andes is through the well-informed and trained leadership of communities of farming families living in the Andean highlands. The best way to promote sustainable management of natural resources in the Andes is by having informed local leadership of the rural communities and farm families that inhabit these highlands. Armed with passionate and innovative staff, national, international and NGO development programs have, over the last four decades,helped many hundreds of thousands of Andean farm families improve their livelihoods while simultaneously protecting the environment. These programs have enhanced ownership and problem solving capabilities of rural communities and farming families through the application of participatory planning and evaluationmethodologies aimed at generating equal benefits for both female and male farmers. This approach has proven to be very effective way for improving the livelihoods of rural inhabitants particularly when used to promote a combination of environmentally friendly agriculture, forestry and integrated watershed practices, enhancedthrough the implementation of landscape conservation schemes and non-wood forest enterprises. Initially, these programs worked with national, public forestry and environmental institutions to establish pilot projects in the field. Then, seeking to expand on their early successes, these programs also worked with localinstitutions such as regional development corporations, municipalities, NGOs and rural community development committees. As a result, many these local institutions now conduct environmental programs of their own. In addition to the activities mentioned these programs now assist rural communities and farming families to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change through the recuperation and sustainable management of important natural ecosystems such as native forests, high grass lands and wetlands. Local organizations face many deterrents in the application of their environmental programs. Most rural communities and farm families are wary of assistance programs, ingrained perhaps as a result of paternalistic development programs of the past that, in many cases, attacked their cultural beliefs and rights to selfdetermination. Low farm income due to unproductive agriculture and forestry practices and unfair marketing procedures is another problem faced by Andean famers on a daily basis. Institutional infighting, gender inequality, corruption and violence also complicate life in the Andes. This paper is directed at students, young professionals and all other aspiring development workers and explains what they can do to help local institutions overcome these aforementioned deterrents and conduct high-impact participatory environmental development programs. |
