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The San Rafael waterfall at the terminus of the Quijos river. (a) The left image is torical flow and scenic beauty of the tallest waterfall in Ecuador. (b) The right image sh change in the current flow that responded to natural causes of erosion; however, there a reflecting intensive manipulation of the riverine areas for the Coca-Codo Sinclair hydroelect aproject nearby. Source (a): Photo from Neotropical Montology Collaboratory, 16 Decemb Source (b): Photo from Jack Rodríguez, 12 August 2021.
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Forest transformation modified the Quijos’ ancient mountainscapes in three ways: scientific approximation, entrepreneurial investing, and community engagement. We concentrate the study in the Cumandá Protected Forest reserve as exemplar in the Quijos valley. Our objective is to understand forest transition trends and prospects of sustainability by...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... an instant, more than 20 years of activism and resistance by local NGOs against the construction of a huge hydroelectric power plant (project Coca-Codo Sinclair) was swiftly muted due to a natural course change, because of the water channel implosion on the sidewall of the San Rafael waterfall. It was an iconic image; a favorite to depict in many publications as the paramount of tropical nature, which now no longer exists ( Figure 2). As the waterfall disappeared, the riparian forests along the river channel also disappeared by receding erosion. ...
Context 2
... an instant, more than 20 years of activism and res by local NGOs against the construction of a huge hydroelectric power plant (projec Codo Sinclair) was swiftly muted due to a natural course change, because of the channel implosion on the sidewall of the San Rafael waterfall. It was an iconic im favorite to depict in many publications as the paramount of tropical nature, whic no longer exists (Figure 2). As the waterfall disappeared, the riparian forests alo river channel also disappeared by receding erosion. ...
Context 3
... tradition and local surveys allowed us to grapple with the impressive change exerted by colonization and to assess the forest transformation from current activities, making it clear that we needed to separate two types of factors: natural occurrences and human-induced changes. For instance, the earthquake of 1987 that altered the hydrography of the valley, or the disappearance of the most recognizable waterfall in Ecuador, "la cascada de San Rafael" in 2020; we observe the fate of these water features slowly, but because of a geological phenomenon, the speed of change was dramatic in February (Figure 2). Closer to the town of Baeza, in the mid-Quijos River, we can appreciate the change brought forth by humans and the need to send the water for one river channel, creating an artificial island now connected with the adjacent field on the Quijos riparian zone (Figure 3). ...
Citations
... Records from the upper Amazon are still being studied but show the same preponderance of human impacts along rivers with fertile alluvial terraces with soils showing continuity of occupation and trade in the lowlands and in the montane sites, stretching from Venezuela to Northern Argentina. In the case of Ecuador, for instance, the Quijos River basin has shown ancient agriculture and settlement in areas now covered with mature montane forests [39]. Orellana's famous first expedition traversing Amazonia in 1542 chronicled a transition from a scarcely populated landscape and few resources to steal in what is today Ecuador and Peru, to the presence of extensive settlements and cities in what would now be Brazil, when Europeans arrived in this territory. ...
This paper offers paradigmatic insights from an international workshop on Ecological Legacies: Bridge Between Science and Community, in Ecuador, in the summer of 2023. The conference brought together foreign and local scholars, tour operators, village community, and Indigenous leaders in the upper Amazonia region of Ecuador with the goal of developing a vision for a sustainable and regenerative future of the upper Amazon. The conference offered three epistemological contributions to the existing literature in the emergent field of Montology, including addressing issues of (a) understanding the existing linguistic hegemony in describing tropical environments, (b) the redress of mistaken notions on pristine jungle environments, and (c) the inclusion of traditional knowledge and transdisciplinary approaches to understand the junglescape from different perspectives and scientific traditions. Methodologically, the conference bridged the fields of palaeo-ecological and ethnobotanical knowledge (as part of a wider conversation between science and local communities). Results show that local knowledge should be incorporated into the study of the jun-glescape and its conservation, with decolonial approaches for tourism, sharing language, methodology , tradition, and dissemination of the forest's attributes. Our research helped co-create and formulate the "Coca Declaration" calling for a philosophical turn in research, bridging science and ethnotourism in ways that are local, emancipatory, and transdisciplinary. We conclude that facilitating new vocabulary by decolonial heightening of Indigenous perspectives of the junglescape helps to incorporate the notion of different Amazons, including the mountainscape of the Andean-Amazonian flanks. We also conclude that we can no consider Ecuador the country of "pure nature" since we helped demystify pristine nature for foreign tourists and highlighted local views with ancestral practices. Finally, we conclude that ethnotourism is a viable alternative to manage heritagization of the junglescape as a hybrid territory with the ecological legacies of the past and present inhabitants of upper Amazonia.
... En este sentido, la gestión turística debe adoptar enfoques como el de patrimonio biocultural protegido o paisaje de producción socio-ecológica, los cuales han demostrado aliviar la situación de pobreza de las comunidades rurales y mantener un equilibrio en la explotación de los recursos del territorio. De lo contrario, se podría estar fomentando un turismo que introduce prácticas ajenas a las comunidades y que no se corresponden a sus tradiciones (Sarmiento et al., 2022). Se hace necesario entonces implementar la actividad turística como un factor de intervención para un cambio social en vez de dar protagonismo al aspecto comercial en sí; por lo que se debe tener en cuenta la complejidad del contexto cultural, económico, político y ambiental de las comunidades. ...
En el contexto turístico actual se han incrementado los impactos negativos de la actividad sobre los destinos, específicamente en su patrimonio biocultural. Desde la academia existen escasas investigaciones sobre este constructo en el turismo, por lo que el objetivo del presente artículo fue analizar cómo se ha abordado el patrimonio biocultural en el contexto del turismo a través de una revisión sistemática de literatura. Para este propósito se realizó un análisis bibliométrico de las investigaciones sobre el tema en el periodo 2000-2023 en las bases de datos de Web of Science y Scopus, siguiendo la metodología PRISMA. Posteriormente, se realizó un análisis de contenido que arrojó dos categorías con relación al objeto de estudio: conservación y desarrollo sustentable a partir del patrimonio biocultural, y paisajes y patrimonio biocultural. Los resultados muestran un crecimiento irregular en el número de estudios sobre el concepto patrimonio biocultural, siendo estos escasos particularmente en la literatura relacionada con turismo; donde más que emplearse el término literal de patrimonio biocultural se adopta el significado o un enfoque biocultural en las investigaciones.
... La falta de estudios en este campo de investigación limita a las autoridades tomar medidas adecuadas para mitigar los problemas ambientales asociados a estos procesos ambientales. Problemas como los ocurrido en el Río Coca por su proceso de erosión constante, que ha generado la destrucción de poblados, vías y la modificación considerable del paisaje (Sarmiento et al., 2021), es un ejemplo de las tantas catástrofes ambientales registradas en Ecuador y que pudieron evitarse contando con un estudio adecuado. ...
Estimación de volúmenes de sedimentos por erosión hídrica empleando el modelo RUSLE en cuencas de la provincia de Manabí, Ecuador Resumen: La producción de sedimentos por erosión hídrica es un tema de gran interés debido a que su desconocimiento puede representar graves peligros para las comunidades e infraestructuras cercanas. En los últimos años se han desarrollado varios métodos para cuantificar los sedimentos, pero su complejidad, precisión y exactitud varía dependiendo del enfoque empleado. Sin embargo, muchos de estos modelos requieren de la utilización de extensas series temporales de precipitaciones, pero, en Ecuador, las estaciones meteorológicas presentan una preocupante carencia de datos y su distribución espacial no es homogénea, lo que genera una incorrecta estimación de las lluvias en el territorio analizado. Para resolver este problema, es posible utilizar metodologías que empleen información ráster satelital. El objetivo de la presente investigación fue estimar los volúmenes de sedimentos en las cuencas hidrográficas de la provincia de Manabí, mediante la implementación del modelo RUSLE, a través de un procedimiento empírico que requiere de la utilización de la densidad aparente del suelo en sus tres texturas principales (arena, arcilla y limo). La metodología consideró la delimitación de las cuencas analizadas, la evaluación de datos ráster satelitales para determinar los seis parámetros del modelo RUSLE entre el año 2001 y 2020 y la estimación de la densidad aparente mediante un método innovador. La delimitación de las cuencas fue obtenida de fuentes regionales; la información satelital fue obtenida desde fuentes web oficiales; los valores típicos de la densidad aparente fueron obtenidos de fuentes a escala mundial; y la validación de los datos de densidad aparente se realizó mediante un muestreo en sitio. Los resultados permitieron identificar tasas de erosión del suelo que varían entre 0,10 ton ha-1 y 3252,22 ton ha-1 , lo que generó una estimación de sedimentos entre 0,06 m 3 año-1 y 692,43 m 3 año-1 a nivel de píxel. La densidad aparente promedio fue de 1,49 ton m-3 , lo que demuestra un elevado contenido de arena en las cuencas manabitas. La validación de datos reveló una excelente compatibilidad entre la metodología propuesta y el análisis convencional en sitio, que se ve reflejada en una diferencia promedio inferior al 3%. La información obtenida permitirá a las entidades gubernamentales competentes, establecer programas de mitigación para hacer frente a la pérdida del suelo por erosión hídrica y al control de la producción de sedimentos. Palabras clave: erosión del suelo, RUSLE, volúmenes de sedimentos, teledetección, Manabí. Abstract: Sediment production due to rainfall erosion is a topic of great interest because its lack of knowledge can represent serious dangers for nearby communities and infrastructures. Several methods have been developed in To cite this article: Casanova-Ruiz, G., Delgado, D., Panchana, R. 2024. Estimation of sediment volumes due to rainfall erosion using RUSLE model in basins of the province of Manabí, Ecuador. Revista de Teledetección, 63, 1-21. https://doi.
... Turismo Forest transformation in the wake of colonization: The quijos andean amazonian flank, past and present (Sarmiento et al., 2021) T1 A continuación, se presenta el análisis de contenido de los artículos asignados como categoría "minería" y subcategoría "metálica", sujeto principal de estudio. ...
La actividad minera en el Ecuador tiene una presencia milenaria, con un amplio potencial de desarrollo. Debido a ello, se convierte en una permanente necesidad el estudio de la sostenibilidad de la industria. Mediante la presente investigación se pretende identificar una aproximación al estado del arte de la actividad en el país. Para ello se utilizaron metodologías cualitativas enmarcadas en el análisis documental. Bajo esta premisa se emplearon, tanto codificación, como revisión de literatura y análisis de contenido. Dentro de los primeros resultados, a partir de la búsqueda realizada en la base de datos Scopus, se identificaron artículos relacionados con: agricultura, agua, big data, minería, salud y turismo. Al revisar a profundidad los artículos relacionados con la sostenibilidad de la minería metálica en el Ecuador, se pudo evidenciar que existe producción científica relacionada con el tema. Las posiciones varían de acuerdo con la visión de cada uno de los investigadores. Las posiciones pasan desde favorables, hasta contrarias. Se proponen alternativas de sustitución, así como también de integración. Inclusive concluyen como traiciones a proyectos políticos. Pero, en realidad se evidencia que la sostenibilidad es inherente al sector económico. Palabras clave: Minería, Ecuador, Economía, Patrimonio, Sostenibilidad. AbstractMining activity in Ecuador has a millenary presence, showcasing significant development potential. Consequently, the exploration of the industry’s sustainability has become an ongoing necessity. The aim of this research is to delineate the current state of the mining activity in the country. To achieve this, qualitative methodologies within the framework of documentary analysis theory were employed. Under this premise, codification, literature review, and content analysis were utilized. Among the initial findings from the Scopus database search, articles related to agriculture, water, big data, mining, health, and tourism were identified. A comprehensive review of articles pertaining to the sustainability of metallic mining in Ecuador revealed a notable body of scientific production on the subject. The perspectives on sustainability varied based on the stance of individual researchers, ranging from favorable to contrary. Various alternatives, including substitutions and integrations, were proposed, with some even characterizing certain approaches as betrayals to political projects. Nevertheless, it is evident that sustainability is an inherent aspect of the economic sector. Keywords: Mining, Ecuador, Economics, Heritage, Sustainablility.
... The Andean region of Ecuador is home to the indigenous Kichwa agricultural system, the Andean Chakra, characterised by the integration and interconnectedness of climate, ecosystems, agricultural practices and biodiversity at altitudes between 2,500 and 3,400 metres in the Cotacachi mountainous landscape. As found by F.O. Sarmiento et al. (2022), Ecuador has a sustainable land use pattern in which productive areas within the farm are managed by families according to an organic and biodiverse approach, valuing the skills of previous generations. The Ecuador Volunteer Foundation (EVF) is a system of effective programmes across Ecuador that supports the local population and natural resources. ...
The current state of volunteering is determined by political, legal, economic, environmental, and socio-cultural issues, which are reflected in the development of cultural heritage trends at the national and global levels. The development of cultural discipline is a vital component of social progress in the formation of the heritage of rural communities, as it eliminates the need for hierarchy and bureaucracy, promotes activation of thinking, leads to sustainable development, and increases people’s well-being. The purpose of this study was to assess the world practices of functioning volunteering in agrarian countries for the prospective restoration and preservation of the cultural heritage of rural communities in Ukraine. The study used general scientific and specific methods, including systematic, index, historical, logical, grouping, abstraction, and generalisation. The results show that volunteer work in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and Africa has a significant impact on the future development of natural and agricultural heritage and the formation of cultural values. The complex nature and diversity of problems in the agricultural sector of modern countries cannot be overcome without the involvement of volunteers, so this movement is a powerful social force that, by the number and nature of its activities, along with intergovernmental and supranational associations, outlines the current directions and strategies for the future of humanity. The data generated during this study will help in the implementation of successful agricultural management accompanied by the creation of a heritage of rural communities through the active support of volunteers, especially for agrarian countries with a transition economy
... In China, policies encouraging farmers to maximize labor productivity in land use resulted in more select land use, and consequently in reclamation and resurgence of ecological services elsewhere [34]. In Ecuador, the "Plan Bosque" compensated landowners not to deforest the remnant forest patches of the basin, contributing to forest protection [35]. Other examples of policies or programs include the U.S. Conservation Reserve program [27], payments for forest ecosystem services, and forest protection in Vietnam [36], public financial support for commercial forest management in Chile [37], Law 071 of the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia [38], and Brazil's Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon [39]. ...
Forest transition theory, as introduced by Alexander Mather, depicts forest recovery patterns often occurring in the wake of agricultural intensification and farmland abandonment. Since the forest transition theory was introduced, multiple pathways have been described in the scholarly literature to explain forest transition phases via varied socio-economic forces. This analysis of a set of 78 country-specific case studies published from 2019 to 2022 confirms social inequity in documented forest transitions; forest transition case studies from 2019 to 2022 were concentrated in highly developed countries. This review also substantiates the impact of agricultural land use changes in recent forest transitions. Four out of five case studies assessing pathways identified an economic development pathway for forest transitions. The effect of state interventions such as introducing incentives for reforestation in forest transitions reviewed was mixed; while almost one-third of forest transitions were attributed to state policies or laws, negative biodiversity impacts from forest plantations were documented. With respect to social justice, nearly a third of case studies included interviews with villagers or similar methodologies to capture social perceptions of forest transitions. Based on this review, governance and social equity forest transition benefits are critical issues for forest transition research. https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(23)07637-5
... Far from emphasizing ecosystem services and biodiversity, montology is claimed an environmental education toolkit for the cognition of benefits of mountains to people (Sarmiento et al., 2022b). With 4D dimensions, mountains are also anchored in the emotional geographies of biocultural heritage of ancestral lineage, and in the trope of sustainable, regenerative development (Zhong, 2000;Bernstein, 2015). ...
La utilización de los estudios de montaña requiere de narrativas integradoras para la geoalfabetización sobre paisajes socioecológicos productivos y motiva más investigaciones transdisciplinares en el campo de la montología. Concebimos este artículo como la confluencia de la experiencia individual y el razonamiento colectivo hacia la formación de grupos de investigación sinérgicos que se ocupan de la ciencia de montaña convergente, para hacer avanzar la montología a un nuevo nivel, mediante el cual el pensamiento innovador sobre la ciencia de la sustentabilidad y el desarrollo regenerativo incorpora propuestas alternativas para el mantenimiento, la mejora, o regeneración de las condiciones de vida de los paisajes de montaña. Buscamos utilizar este marco contemporáneo de sustentabilidad y restauración ecológica como el ímpetu para comprender mejor las relaciones de la naturaleza y la cultura, desde una perspectiva transdisciplinar, en montañas habitadas que operan en cuatro dimensiones (largo, ancho, alto y tiempo). El artículo está orientado a potenciar la transversalidad de temáticas en torno a las montañas como sistemas socioecológicos productivos, en una nueva disciplina académica institucionalizada y convergente. Concluimos con un llamado a un desarrollo regenerativo, sustentable y consiliente en las montañas del mundo.
... These SEPLS are now showing the intrinsic relationship of natureculture, whether in the Araucanian slopes (Ibarra et al. 2020), the Mesoamerican mountains (Kremsa and Zigrai 2021), the Japanese satoyamas (Brown et al. 2022), the urban-rural fringe of central-(Haller 2019) and southern -Peru (Branca 2019), and Ecuador (Kingman and Bretón 2017), the páramo mountainscapes(Sarmiento 2012) or the Chocoan or Amazonian junglescapes(Sarmiento et al. 2022). ...
There is consensus to advance science with unorthodox narratives generated with new discoveries, different perspectives, or challenging innovation altogether. However, it is also consensual that these mountain narratives, like the waves in fluid water or air, move along the time scales with different dynamics and distinctive rhythms, generating a symphony of knowledge, which can only be integrated with the crosscutting ability of montology as a convergent science (Sarmiento 2020). Indeed, applied montology is the appropriate avenue for developing an environmental awareness of the whole mountainscape. With the wise trend of consilience (Wilson 1998) and the untested hype of noetic science (Nickell 2010), we contribute this chapter with the objective of increasing our epistemology of mountains to include them as socioecological landscapes and not as mere ecosystems.
... Every time a new book came to instruct me on mountains, the same script jumped from is pages, reiterating dogmas and hegemonic interpretations about mountainscapes. With over two decades teaching a course on mountain geography and supporting the echoing claim for a better understanding of mountains as culture-nature hybrids, the time to push further the montological approach came to fruition, both as recent review articles (Sarmiento, 2020;Sarmiento et al., 2017Sarmiento et al., , 2019Sarmiento et al., , 2022 and scholarly books (Sarmiento & Hitchner, 2017;Sarmiento & Frolich, 2020;. The momentum generated at the Mountain Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and strong engagement with the newly conformed Commission of Mountain Studies of the International Geographical Union (IGU) have made possible the production of this book. ...
The decolonial turn of scholarly activities experienced recently in the Global South requires re-writing of concepts and ideas that were considered dogmatic in western science, but that changed now due to novel insights provided by indigenous and traditional ecological knowledges. So, as in many geographic inquiries, the search for transgressive disciplines with convergent, integrative approaches favors the consilience with which we now know about mountainscapes.The writing of a textbook on mountain geographies, thus, is never a new work. It always develops from earlier versions of ideas and concepts that are now illuminated with different lights. This is the reason why palimpsestic terms of socioecological implications include layering, superimposition, suppression, and oppression. The dynamic work of theorists of mountain science is presented as a primer of mountain geographies because of the need to incorporate the nuanced layers of new discoveries that need to be superimposed, by necessity, on the current state of knowledge. Similarly, this change in conceptual and practical epistemes, demands the suppression of dominant paradigms, such as those developed with colonial and postcolonial tenets, allowing for debunked themes to subside under the new and popular schemes that shape the understanding of mountains without the hegemony of power relations, avoiding oppression of alternative viewscapes.The chapter separates mountain ontology into different dimensions, starting with the pioneering dimension, followed by the human, physical, spiritual, biogeographic, and conservationist dimensions. In the end, epistemological dimensions grapple with transgressive and transdisciplinary montology
... In Ecuador, deforestation and forest degradation has dated back to pre-Hispanic colonization, within public protected areas and in private ownership, with some private owners interested in conserving the forests and establishing corridors to connect the forest patches for bird watching and ecotourism purposes. The objectives of the study were (1) to examine the regeneration status of cloud forest remnants, considering previous human disturbance events, (2) to explore traditional ecological knowledge relevant for future restoration purposes and (3) to evaluate the potential integration of TEK and science-based approaches. The study specifically aimed at answering the following research questions: To what extent does past human disturbance influence the regeneration of cloud forest species? ...
The importance of forests for biodiversity conservation has been well recognized by the global community; as a result, conservation efforts have increased over the past two decades. In Ecuador, the lack of integrated information for defining and assessing the status of local ecosystems is a major challenge for designing conservation and restoration plans. Thus, the objectives of this study were (1) to examine the regeneration status of cloud forest remnants, some of which had experienced past human disturbance events, (2) to explore a local rural community’s traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) relevant for restoration and (3) to investigate the integration between TEK and ecological science-based approaches. A survey of regeneration status was conducted in four remnants of cloud forests (n = 16) in Cosanga, Napo Province, in the Andes of northeastern Ecuador. The species of young trees (0.5–5 m height) were identified over 0.16 ha. In-depth interviews of individuals from local communities (n = 48) were conducted to identify socio-ecologically important native species. The results showed significant differences (p < 0.001) in species richness and the stem density of seedlings and saplings in gaps. The stem density of Chusquea sp., a bamboo species, explained 63% of the variation in species richness and 48% of the variation in the abundance of seedlings and saplings between plots. Informants cited 32 socio-ecologically important species, of which 26 species were cited as sources of food and habitats for wildlife. The ranking of species based on a relative importance index and a cultural value index—taking into account both the spread of knowledge among local informants and the multiplicity of uses—revealed that Hyeromina duquei, Citharexylum montanum, Eugenia crassimarginata and Sapium contortum were traditionally the most valuable species for both humans and wildlife. Informants also recommended 27 species for future planting, of which 19 species were amongst the rarest species in the regeneration survey. In conclusion, the results demonstrate a synergy between TEK and ecological science-based approaches (regeneration survey) to natural ecosystem research. Thus, traditional ecological knowledge can provide insights into ecosystem–plant–animal interaction, and to identify native species useful for both humans and wildlife for forest restoration projects to reconnect isolated cloud forest fragments.
