SITTING in yet another traffic jam in the Colombian capital, Bogot谩,
it is not hard to see why anyone who can afford it moves out of town. A car
journey across the city can easily become a nerve-racking two-hour ordeal. If
you take one of the 鈥渟uper-executive鈥� video buses you stand a good chance of
seeing the whole film. Although Bogot谩 does not rank as poorly as Mexico
City in the pollution league, fumes from vehicles combined with the altitude of
2600 metres leave visitors and inhabitants gasping for breath. Hills around the
city increase air pollution by acting as a lid on vehicle emissions.
The same hills are also a haven for Bogot谩鈥檚 elite, but these high
altitude grasslands around Bogot谩 are not most people鈥檚 idea of paradise.
The bleak, treeless moors are cold and damp and more often than not covered in
mist. They are part of a habitat called paramo, found only at tropical latitudes
in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. The Spanish conquistadors feared the
paramos, but native Indians considered them sacred. Now scientific analysis has
shown that this ecosystem is a natural resource as precious as the Andean cloud
forest and the Amazon rainforest. And, like these other ecosystems, paramos are
essential to regulate the local environment鈥檚 water system. Without them,
Colombia, the most populous of the northern Andean countries, would lose more
than half of its water supply. But development is fast destroying this unique
habitat.
Orlando Rangel from the Institute of Natural Sciences at the National
University in Bogot谩 is a botanist who has spent 20 years studying
paramos. He says that the Cruz Verde paramo, near Bogot谩, is a perfect
example of what is happening. 鈥淭wenty years ago it was untouched. Today, you go
there and it is full of houses and farms with rubbish dumps in some places. The
lakes have dried up.鈥� Rangel鈥檚 colleague Joaquin Molano is horrified by the
speed of paramo destruction. Three years ago he made a detailed soil and
vegetation survey of the Guerrero paramo, 50 kilometres from Bogot谩. This
year he went back, only to find that the entire area had been taken over by
potato farms. 鈥淚f the natural vegetation goes, water just runs away and the
lakes fill up with sediment,鈥� says Rangel. 鈥淚f we lose the paramos, more and
more water will rush into the rivers. It could be catastrophic.鈥�
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Of the three nations where paramos are found, Colombia, with 15 major ones
and around 500 minor, has by far the largest variety and is most dependent on
them. All paramos have constant, year-round temperatures but rainfall varies
greatly. Paramos in the eastern range of the Andes get as much as 3000
millimetres a year. The most arid, with just 500 millimetres of rain a year, are
found in northern Colombia and across the border in Venezuela. But rain is not
the only way that water enters paramos. Specialised plants, which are adapted to
convert water vapour from clouds into liquid water, are also crucial for water
supply because they recycle water from the air back into the ground. And because
paramos have soils rich in organic matter, their capacity to store water is
high, allowing them to regulate the rate at which water passes back into
rivers.
鈥淧aramos are natural laboratories, collections of very young ecosystems,
which can help us understand a lot about the development of species,鈥� says
Rangel. He estimates that around 2000 of the 3500 paramo plant species are found
in Colombia. Many are indigenous, like the most characteristic plant, the
frailejon (Ezpeletia), which looks like a cactus and grows to one metre
or so in height.
Vanishing species
About half of all paramo plants have evolved from species originating in
either the Arctic (such as Vaccinium, Bartsia, Draba
and Castilleja) or the Antarctic and New Zealand including
Acaena, Azorella and Aerobulus. Others have ancestors in
neighbouring highland ecosystems such as the arid puna, a high-altitude habitat
in Bolivia and Peru. Some, such as Paepalanthus and Sporobolus
, are derived from tropical species which have survived the adaptation to high
altitudes and cold temperatures. 鈥淧aramo vegetation is very resistant and good
at adapting to new conditions,鈥� says Molano.
Despite this, many paramo plants are becoming extinct, unable to survive the
pace and scale of change brought about by humans. Colombian scientists estimate
that just 10 per cent of the country鈥檚 paramos are in pristine condition. Around
80 per cent are damaged, often seriously, and another 10 per cent have been
destroyed altogether. And it is not just plants that have suffered. 鈥淒estruction
of the water sources in the paramo . . . threatens the survival of current and
future generations of Colombians,鈥� according to Abdon Cortes Lombana, an
agronomist from the Jorge Tadeu Lozano University in Bogot谩.
Colombia鈥檚 main rivers, the Magdalena and the Cauca, both have their sources
in paramo regions, and Bogot谩鈥檚 six million inhabitants depend on nearby
paramos for water and power, which comes mainly from hydroelectric sources.
Without paramos to regulate the flow of rainwater into rivers, flooding is an
increasing problem during rainy periods. And power shortages are becoming common
in times of drought, because the vegetation that can capture water from clouds
is being destroyed. In one of the worst hit areas, the state of Boyaca directly
north of Bogot谩, the main river dried up completely for almost six months
in 1992. 鈥淭he unprecedented electricity rationing which happened in 1992 and the
water supply problems that afflict many towns in the Andean zone are alarm
bells,鈥� says Lombana.
Too much red tape
So, what can be done? Colombia already has laws to protect all land above
3500 metres鈥攑aramos lie between 3000 and 3700 metres. But researchers
complain that the country鈥檚 environmental legislation, though good in theory, is
not enforced. An environment ministry was set up in 1993, but environmentalists
criticise it for producing too much red tape. 鈥淭here are a lot of people and
positions and a very large bureaucracy,鈥� says German Andrade, executive director
of the privately funded Fundaci贸n Natura. 鈥淏ut they are not always the
right kind of people,鈥� he adds. 鈥淭hey take the job because it has a good salary
and because of their career, not because they are genuinely interested in the
别苍惫颈谤辞苍尘别苍迟.鈥�
Meanwhile, as Colombians become more affluent, increasing environmental
degradation seems inevitable. Wealthy business people can afford to move out of
the overcrowded cities and new technology is, indirectly, opening up the
countryside to peasant farmers. In the past two decades, Colombia鈥檚 hilltops
have sprouted numerous aerials鈥攆or telecommunications, TV, the air force
and air traffic control. And before aerials can be erected, tracks must be built
to bring in construction materials. 鈥淚 have been to a lot of places and asked
the peasants why they settled where they did and they replied that the track
gave them a chance to come here and set up their farm,鈥� says Molano.
He believes that potato farming has caused much of the damage to paramos, but
Rangel also points an accusing finger at sheep farmers. Fifteen years ago, he
says, there were no sheep on Columbia鈥檚 paramos. Then Colombian and British
scientists bred a new variety able to thrive at altitude and in the cold. Now
thousands of sheep graze on rare plants and cause soil erosion.
Environmental destruction is plain to see, but proving that humans are
affected is not so easy. Researchers believe this is why politicians do not take
conservation seriously. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a long, slow and invisible process,鈥� says
Francisco Gonzalez, an anthropologist from the Institute for Environmental
Studies for Sustainable Development (IDEADE) at Bogot谩鈥檚 Javeriana
University. 鈥淏ut we feel the effects of it every time there is a water shortage
and when the government has to invest more to bring water to the
辫辞辫耻濒补迟颈辞苍.鈥�
There are some national parks in which development is strictly controlled,
but in many cases the areas most in need of protection lie outside their
boundaries, on private land. So organisations such as Fundaci贸n Natura
are trying to extend the influence of parks by enlisting the support of local
people. For example, the Guanenta Fonce River Flora and Fauna sanctuary on the
border of the states of Boyaca and Santander covers just 10 000 hectares, but
the environmentalists hope to extend its influence to a further 50 000 hectares
of surrounding paramo by persuading farmers to preserve part of their land. This
land is then exempt from tax. 鈥淚t is beginning to show some results,鈥� says
Andres Etter of the IDEADE.
Conservationists believe that educating rural people is the key. Etter has
been involved in a project to protect the Chicamocha valley in Boyaca. 鈥淢ajor
emphasis has been given to community work, group involvement and promotion of
the local people鈥檚 initiatives,鈥� he says. This approach is quite unlike the
heavy-handed government schemes that often cause resentment 鈥淚t brings people
together who normally would not come together, such as peasant farmers and large
landowners,鈥� says Etter.
But it is not just the rural population who need education. Gonzalez has been
campaigning to stop people building luxury housing near Bogot谩. But he
became so exasperated with his lack of success that a few years ago he clubbed
together with colleagues to buy some land. With one foot in each camp, they are
now having more success convincing other landowners of the ecological value of
paramos.