Emerging interests in high mountain areas and peasant life: Tensions and contradictions of the delimitation of paramos in Colombia

Abstract

The environmental policies implemented in zones inhabited by peasants have created tensions in their relation with the State, which far from being resolved, have extended to new territories. Evidence of this is the delimitation of paramos, which involves new areas such as conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. The policy for the delimitation of paramos evinces and, at the same time, fosters interests in high mountain areas. These interests have been acquiring importance on the climate change agenda and, therefore, it is relevant to understand the formulations identified in the narratives of this policy. On the basis of the review of documents supporting the policy and peasant declarations, as well as of the global environmental agenda that frames the policy for the delimitation of paramos, the article identifies some of the practices and narratives that have been adopted and appear as an assemblage that features an unprecedented relation among peasant life, the high mountain areas, and the State. The article concludes that the measure aimed at delimiting paramos employs the same practices used by previous conservationist policies regarding peasant populations: keeping them confined and denying their status as territorial community. These elements disseminate and strengthen the notion that the presence of peasants is incompatible with the conservation of ecosystems, with serious consequences for their being recognized as political subjects.