Slide background Páramo de Güargüa – An Andean Neotropical Mountain Grassland

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"The Frailejón (Espeletia schultzii) is well known for contributing to the world in water sustainability by capturing water vapor from passing clouds in its spongy trunk and releasing it through the roots into the soil, thus helping to create vast high-altitude subterranean water deposits and lakes that will eventually form rivers.”

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El Páramo de Güargüa – An Andean Neotropical Mountain Grassland

SAVE THE GUARGUA PÁRAMO

Project by María Mercedes Moreno

THE PÁRAMOS –

Páramos are particularly valuable ecosystems which can only be found in the tropics along the Equator, above the continuous forest line yet below the permanent snowline This neotropical mountain biome is covered with rosette plants, grasses, shrubs and straw, none higher than 8 meter tall. Páramos are located form 2,700 to 4,700 meters above sea level (masl) and, as they are so high in altitude, they also receive the highest solar radiation in the world with low night temperatures and frost.

The soil in these non-forest ecosystems is dark and deep and paramo vegetation acts much like water cushions storing immense amounts per their dry weight. One square meter of paramo land produces a litre of water per day; even more than glaciers.

The most common species in the páramo is the "frailejón" (Espeletia schultzii). It is is a genus of perennial subshrubs, in the sunflower family. The frialejon, native mainly to Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, is currently endangered due to destruction of the páramo for agricultural purposes, especially potato crops and pasturelands since, once the potato harvested, peasants turn the paramo lands into feed for cattle; thus impeding even its passive recovery, which takes considerable time. “The Espeletia is well known for contributing to the world in water sustainability by capturing water vapor from passing clouds in its spongy trunk and releasing it through the roots into the soil, thus helping to create vast high-altitude subterranean water deposits and lakes that will eventually form rivers.” [Wikipedia]

These high neotropical mountain complexes are the world's fastest evolving and coolest biodiversity hotspots and, therefore, represent the ideal model system for studying diversification processes. [Madriñán et al, 2013] Colombia holds 60% of the world’s páramos; 36 in all (approximately 2’906.137 hectares), they supply over 70% of the country’s water.

The páramo and its waters are also being endangered, among other, by the increasing growth of the retamo espinoso (Ulex europaeus), a shrub native to Europe which is too often used for hedging, boundary definition. The gorse (retamo), apart from being a fire hazard, is invasive and outcompetes native, endemic species in lands which are the habitat, among many other, of endangered animals such as Andean condors and spectacled bears.

Paramos are specially vulnerable to climate change but can be, in themselves, an answer to climate change. Among other, by protecting the substantial carbon-storage services they provide; insofar as terrestrial ecosystems, which store more carbon than the atmosphere, are vital to influencing carbon dioxide-driven climate change.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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Variations

Bernardo Pérez Salazar “Variations on the thoughts of a shaman about nature and human purpose "A shaman speaks his mind before officials who threaten to eradicate illegal coca crops in Colombia. Sustainability has to do with values, which cannot be dealt with as scientific or legalistic “truths”. It is a matter of learning how to manage our needs and aspirations in order to expand the possibilities of human development. […] What to do with nature is something to be contested in the public’s mind. Even in the face of depletion of the goods and services that flow from present stocks of natural assets, technology implicitly supports the belief that it brings safe and sustainable satisfaction of needs and aspirations. Yet a world of unlimited possibilities is a tricky appeal. It may lead us to reduce —not increase— the asset base which future generations will inherit. […]The trap lies in the idea of “optimal substitutability”. It increases the value of the capital stock available for income generation and is considered at present as an optimal path for accumulating assets. Yet it is possible that in the future, people may find other human potentials to be developed, not necessarily based on more abundant and perfected goods. If so, optimal substitution may no longer be an optimal accumulation path for coming geneeations. Technology in the future may allow people to reverse depletion. But it will be at a cost to those generations upon whom today’s values and parameters are being imposed.  MamaCoca [2003]

Mamacoca es ...

MamaCoca is a Colombian environmental and human rights social organization active since 1998 and legally consolidated in France in 2003 under Loi 1901. MamaCoca, apart from being part of the International Drug-Policy Reform Movement, is also part of the wide “biodiverse” Colombian Environmental Movement which has been historically and actively committed to defending a silent devastated victim of Colombia’s Drug War: the Nation's’ natural resources. The information posted by MamaCoca seeks to feed the "drug" debate from a documented and pluralist perspective. Through our advocacy and information we hope to contribute to fueling research and informing the design and implementation of public policies geared at conciliating environmental resiliency and sustainability with legal measures aimed at reducing coca growers and drug users' vulnerabilities.

MamaCoca is a statement

MamaCoca est une association de protection et de défense de l'environnement et des Droits de l’Homme, active depuis 1998 et fondée en France en 2003 sous la loi 1901.

Bases de Datos

  • Legislación Normatividad Ambiente Estupefaciente
  • Prohibición Recorrido histórico de la Prohibición por Colombia
  • Fumigaciones Cronología documentada de las aspersiones 1978 – 2017
  • Consumo La guerra por adicción
  • Cultivos El narcotráfico y la coca
  • Imaginario La Representación social de las droga
  • Debate Reformas a las políticas de plantas y drogas
  • Medioambiente Ambiéntate - Consumo y cultivos responsables con el medioambiente

©1998 MamaCoca
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