Rewriting conservation landscapes: protected areas and glacial retreat in the high Andes

Abstract

Glacial retreat reveals the unsettling effects of anthropogenic climate change, and challenges deeply seated cultural ideas about static landscapes. Glaciers have thus emerged as key signifiers of environmental loss.Because they are the outcomes of Westernized visions of the relationship between nature and culture, protected areas are important sites for understanding how notions of the Anthropocene come to reshape ideas about the future of glaciated landscapes. This article explores one particular conservation initiative, that of the establishment of the tourist and educational facility known as the Route of Climate Change in Peru's Huascarán National Park. It asks how we can understand the production of conservation landscapes in a context where the framing of glaciers as an endangered species denies their fluctuating dynamics and imparts to them a directionality towards irreversible change. Focusing on the contentious production of conservation landscapes through interaction between the park administration and a local community, the article is based on ethnographic fieldwork consisting of semi-structured interviews (48), informal conversations, and participant observation over multiple visits to the area between 2013 and 2015. The study finds that while the production of new conservation narratives certainly resituates the sites in time and place, it also produces uncertain environmental futures that may be molded to secure a rapprochement between park administrations and communities based on mutual alignment of conservation and community practices. It is thus argued that an underlying shift in orientationfrom preserving what is to countering what might otherwise come to beresults in the production of new imaginaries about conservation landscapes that are both a condition and an outcome of protected area management in times of glacial retreat.

High Mountain Areas

“…In some cases, new opportunities are presented such as marketing 'climate change tourism' where visitors are attracted by 'last chance' opportunities to view a glacier; for example, in New Zealand (Stewart et al, 2016), in China (Wang et al, 2010) or through changing landscapes such as new lakes, for instance in Iceland (Þórhallsdóttir and Ólafsson, 2017), or to view the loss of a glacier, for example, in the Bolivian Andes (Kaenzig et al, 2016). The opening of a trekking route promoting this opportunity created tensions between a National Park and a local indigenous community in the Peruvian Andes over the management and allocation of revenue from the route (Rasmussen, 2019). The consequences of ongoing and future glacier retreat are projected to negatively impact trekking and mountaineering in the Himalaya (Watson and King, 2018).…”

The need for stewardship of lands exposed by deglaciation from climate change

“…Globally, the popularity of the glaciers over the last 30 years has been dependent on the availability of easy foot access to the ice, the frequency and intensity of cryosphere hazards and risk, and the ability of commercially guided walking groups to walk on the glaciers (Salim et al, 2019). Glacier recession gives rise to a new kind of tourism and conservation landscape (Lemieux et al, 2018; Rasmussen, 2018; Wang et al, 2010). As controversial as it sounds, glacier retreat offers a niche for a particular kind of nature‐based tourism: last chance tourism (LCT; Salim et al, 2021).…”

“…In the Andes, local activities such as livestock grazing are often in conflict with conservation incentives or tourism development initiatives. For example, national park creation comes after long-established grazing rights and access, and conflicts between local or indigenous communities and national entities make local adaptation challenging (e.g., National Park of Huascar an; Rasmussen, 2018). Thus, collective, equitable, and respectful land tenure allocation is crucial to limit conflict and ensure an equitable future.…”

“…For example, places such as the Glacier Pastoruri in Peru or Chacaltaya in Bolivia have evolved from being sites of major touristic destinations and ski competition to being abandoned ruins of glacier recession, and icons of climate change. In Peru, the national entity of the Huascar an National Park established the Ruta del Cambio Clim atico, an educational tool and conservation initiative to share science-based information and promote awareness about climate change (Kaenzig et al, 2016;Rasmussen, 2018). In the Yulong Snow Mountain in China, recent touristic infrastructures include the glacier museum and telescope (Wang et al, 2010).…”

Planning for Climate Change Impacts on Geoheritage Interests in Protected and Conserved Areas

“…It is also a major concern for tropical mountain glaciers such as those in East Africa and Australasia, representing a significant loss of geoheritage (Bosson et al 2019;Čekada et al 2020;Vidaller et al 2021) and the framing of such glaciers as 'endangered species' (Jackson 2015). There will be challenges for interpretation of these changes and making them meaningful to local residents and visitors (Rasmussen 2018). Although the retreat of glaciers has an important educational role in demonstrating the reality of climate change (Reynard and Coratza 2016;Purdie et al 2020), it is already having an impact on tourism as well as loss of geoheritage, with a 'last chance' opportunity evident in visitor motivation (Lemieux et al 2018;Welling et al 2020;Salim et al 2021a;Marr et al 2022).…”