Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/R017999/1
Towards environmental reconciliation in Paramo land in Boyaca: resolving ecosystem trade-offs in post-conflict spaces
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor TP Dawson, King's College London, Geography
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor MC Eisler, University of Bristol, Clinical Veterinary Science
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor D Moran, University of Edinburgh, The Roslin Institute
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr M P Escobar-Tello, University of Bristol, Clinical Veterinary Science
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr JDA Millington, King's College London, Geography
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr C Escobar-Tello, Loughborough University, Loughborough Design School
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr M Mulligan, King's College London, Geography
- Grant held at:
- King's College London, Geography
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Freshwater
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- Agricultural systems
- Livestock production
- Agriculture, agricultural policy
- Animal production, pastoralism
- Land ownership and tenure
- Rural Livelihoods
- Nat Resources, Env & Rural Dev
- Ecosystem services
- Conservation Ecology
- Remote Sensing & Earth Obs.
- Abstract:
- Land was at the heart of Colombia's long-running armed conflict and is now the pillar on which the success of the peace agreement rests. The war changed the country's social landscapes as much as its natural ones and efforts to address the ecological balance are doomed to fail unless they confront that legacy of conflict. Decades of conflict displaced millions of people from their land and traditional livelihoods, disrupting the social fabric as much as the ecological. The paramo regions in Boyaca illustrate these socio-ecological conflicts. For the last 50 years Boyaca has experienced substantial conflict over resources, manifested through land-grabs, dispossession and displacement of local communities. The situation has deteriorated in the last decade associated with the mining boom that has pushed traditional campesinos into paramo land, further complicated by the fracking concessions currently being awarded in the region. In the wake of the peace agreement Boyaca faces substantial environmental problems, particularly with regards to the paramos, which the local authorities will have to delimit for ecosystem preservation and biodiversity conservation. In doing so, they risk potential new conflicts between contested land usages. Their decision-making needs to balance conservation priorities with concerns for the social and economic future of the displaced traditional campesinos, potato and onion growers, commercial and artesanal miners and small farmers. At the same time, the loss of these livelihoods imposes risks to local and regional food security and rural development programmes. This project integrates a group of multi-disciplinary scholars from environmental and veterinary sciences, cultural and historical geography, anthropology, economics and design, working with an understanding of the social and ecological nature of these challenges. At the heart of the project is our conviction that peace and reconciliation between the different users of paramo land in order to facilitate and legitimise decision-making is not an add-on to conservation efforts but a sine qua non condition to the effective conservation of paramo land.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/R017999/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Directed - International
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Colombian bio
This grant award has a total value of £1,086,972
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DA - Estate Costs | DI - Staff | DA - Other Directly Allocated | DI - T&S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £129,182 | £367,167 | £130,753 | £120,085 | £265,569 | £1,449 | £72,766 |
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