Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU Sustaining Agropastoralism on the Bolivian Altiplano: The Case of San José Llanga 2001 Chapter 02: National, Regional and Local Context Christian Jetté United Nations Development Program, La Paz Humberto Alzérreca Angelo Small Ruminant Collaborative Research Support Program D. Layne Coppock Utah State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/sustaining_agropastoralism Recommended Citation Jetté, Christian; Alzérreca Angelo, Humberto; and Coppock, D. Layne, "Chapter 02: National, Regional and Local Context" (2001). Sustaining Agropastoralism on the Bolivian Altiplano: The Case of San José Llanga. 9. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/sustaining_agropastoralism/9 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sustaining Agropastoralism on the Bolivian Altiplano: The Case of San José Llanga by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. National, regional and local context Chapter 2 National, regional and local context Contexto nacional, regional y local by Christian Jetté, Humberto Alzérreca and D. Layne Coppock Summary (e.g., Criollo Spanish) and racially mixed (e.g., Mestizo) cultures have been ethnic minorities, they As a prelude to reviewing site-specific studies have variously dominated the national economy undertaken by IBTA and the SR-CRSP, this chap- and political system since colonial times. Recently ter provides a broad overview of secondary infor- the Bolivian government has encouraged rural Bo- mation pertaining to the diverse physical and so- livians to relocate from the Andean zone to the cial geography of Bolivia. Bolivia contains eco- tropical lowlands, but 70% of the national popu- systems ranging from the tropical Amazon Basin lation still resides in urban or rural locales of the to cold, arid Andean mountain ranges, and thus Andean highlands. has a great diversity of climatic regimes, natural The ultimate source of much of the ecologi- resources and agroecosystems. Bolivia also has cal diversity in Bolivia is the Cordilleras of the a diverse cultural heritage involving interactions Andes, which is a massive, parallel chain of moun- among many indigenous and colonial powers. tains in the western quarter of the country. The Today, Bolivia is making strides towards democ- steep slopes of the Cordilleras contain a great racy, social equity and economic stability. With a diversity of ecosystems including the Yungas and review of environment and social history as cor- High Valleys, which offer favourable climates for nerstones, this chapter gradually sharpens the production of a wide variety of agricultural com- focus from a national to a regional (Andean) and modities. The Cordilleras also bound a central local (San José Llanga) scale of resolution. San plateau called the Altiplano. At an average eleva- José Llanga (SJL) is an Aymara Indian commu- tion of 3800 m and about 800 km in length and nity which has existed on the semi-arid Altiplano an average of 130 km in width, the Altiplano has of the Andes for at least 500 years. This chapter climates which vary from sub-humid to hyper-arid. therefore helps set the larger environmental, so- Prior to Spanish contact the Aymara Indians and cial and political context within which our project other indigenous peoples commonly used a ver- operated. tically integrated system of resource use. This Bolivia is South America’s poorest nation with system incorporated grazing by camelids [i.e., a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of USD 710 per llama (Llama glama), alpaca (L. pacos), vicuña person per year. About 17% of GDP is provided (Vicugna vicugna) and probably guanaco (L. from use of natural resources. Although during most guanicoe)] and production of frost-resistant crops of Bolivia’s history the majority of people have re- [i.e., potato (Solanum spp), quinoa (Chenopodium sided in the rural, high-elevation Andean zone (27% quinoa) and cañawa (C. palidicaule)] on the Altipl- of the national land area), the current population ano along with production of maize (Zea mays) of 6.9 million is about evenly divided between ur- and coca leaf (Erythroxylum coca) in the High ban and rural dwellers. Rural populations in the Valleys and Yungas, respectively. Among the Andes are now either exhibiting slow rates of Aymara such regional agroecological networks growth or are shrinking due to high emigration to of kinship-based communities were referred to urban areas. Urban populations are growing by 4% as ayllus. Camelid pastoralism, with crop cultiva- per annum, with a doubling time of 16 years. This tion as an ancillary subsistence activity, is thought rural/urban dichotomy has materialised in the past to have occurred on the Altiplano for about 7000 40 years. As one case-in-point, El Alto, a suburb years BP. of La Paz, grew from 50 000 residents in 1976 to Aymara kingdoms dominated what is now the over 400 000 residents by 1992. The national popu- Bolivian Andean region until the second half of lation is numerically dominated by indigenous the fifteenth century, and comprised a total popu- Andean peoples such as the Aymara and lation of perhaps one to two million people. At this Quechua-speaking Indians. Although European time the Aymara were conquered by the Quechua- Sustaining Agropastoralism on the Bolivian Altiplano: The Case of San José Llanga 17 Jetté et al speaking Inca who expanded south from what is The llama, once relied upon for production of now Peru. A highly developed Aymara-Quechua meat, fibre and as a means of portage, has been society emerged as a result, but this was short- replaced by sheep, equines and mechanised lived. Spanish conquistadors arrived by the mid- transport. While the new policies of the MNR in- 1500s and gradually destroyed the traditional creased investment in Bolivian agriculture, this Andean ways of life. The Spanish used indigenous tended to emphasise export crops in the tropical peoples as slave labour in Andean silver mines lowlands. Traditional staples of the Andean high- and broke-up the ayllus by establishing the haci- lands tended to be ignored. Andean campesinos enda system in the Yungas, High Valleys and on were also encouraged to migrate to new settle- the best lands of the Altiplano. The Spanish also ments in the tropical lowlands. Campesinos of- introduced cattle, sheep, equines and various cul- ten settled, however, in the humid Yungas where tivated crops (i.e., barley, wheat, oats, clovers) they began growing coca leaf in response to high and the iron plough to the region, but these were international demand by the late 1970s. mostly confined to haciendas in the more produc- Recession and hyperinflation characterised tive environments. Indigenous populations plum- the Bolivian economy of the early 1980s; this was meted during the first century of the Spanish Con- spurred by low prices for key Bolivian exports, quest as a result of exotic diseases, warfare and fiscal mismanagement and natural disasters like substandard working conditions. Some free com- flooding in the lowlands and drought in the high- munities of Aymara, however, persisted on the less- lands. Since the mid-1980s the top priorities of productive lands on the Altiplano. By 1824 about Bolivian governments have been to facilitate eco- one-third of lands formerly under indigenous ten- nomic stability by exerting tighter control on gov- ure were controlled by the haciendas. ernment finance, abolishing public sector inter- Despite achieving national independence in ventions, and opening the country to more for- 1825, and the subsequent social and political eign trade and investment. Large amounts of for- upheavals, the hacienda system and other forms eign aid have also played a key role; in 1992 for- of institutionalised discrimination against indig- eign aid was around USD 100 per capita. De- enous Andean peoples by social elites persisted spite making substantial strides towards multi- in Bolivia in various forms until the early 1950s party democracy and economic stability since the when the Movimiento Nationalista Revolucionario mid-1980s, however, the negative decline for ag- (MNR) seized power. The MNR set a new agenda riculture in general, and highland agriculture in to empower the indigenous peasantry (or particular, has continued. The downward trends campesinos) in Bolivia. One aspect of change was are related to a combination of factors including the Land Reform Act of 1953 in which land owner- poor performance of tropical agriculture despite ship in the Andean zone was returned to indig- increased inputs, inadequate marketing channels enous peoples and the hacienda system was dis- and marketing policies, depression of food prices mantled. This also served to eliminate the tradi- due to large quantities of food aid, importation of tional rural elite (Mestiza) class and freed-up and cheap food, pervasive technical constraints in diversified regional marketing channels for agri- Andean agriculture posed by the harsh climate, culture. The new agenda also included expansion and depletion of much of the rural Andean labour of access to primary education in rural areas and force due to urban migration. The Bolivian gov- increased investment in agricultural research and ernment has taken further steps to try to remedy extension. One outcome of these policies was a the decline of agriculture and promote sustain- gradual increase in the availability