Keywords:     Food security, seasonal flooding, Amazon, natural resources management

Country:        Ucayali Region, Eastern Peru

Theme:          Rural Poverty and Food Security
 
By Tamsyn P. Murray¹ and José Sanchez Choy^1
 
1 Centro Internacional de Agriculture Tropical (CIAT) Eco-Regional Centre, Km. 4.2 Federico Basadre A.P. 558, Pucallpa Peru. 61 64 57 2245 (tel ) 61 64 57 7573 (fax) Email: [email protected]
 
 
 
Tamsyn P. Murray and José Sanchez Choy

Centro Internacional de Agriculture Tropical (CIAT) Eco-Regional Centre, Km. 4.2 Federico Basadre A.P. 558, Pucallpa Peru. 61 64 57 2245 (tel ) 61 64 57 7573 (fax) Email: [email protected]
 

Abstract

In the Amazon lowlands, the annual flooding of large areas of the floodplain challenges almost every aspect of human settlement.  Seasonal food insecurity occurs as the rivers rise, crops are drowned, fish disperse into the flooded forests and food procurement becomes more difficult. Understanding how the local adaptive strategies of these frontier communities are synchronized with the rhythms of the rivers provides insight into the determinants of food security. This study aims to improve the nutrition of Amazonian communities through the development of an ecosystem approach to food security that provides insight into the causal linkages between natural resource use, biodiversity and nutrition. Capturing the complexity of these interrelationships demands multiple scales of investigation, a plurality of methods, and active local participation. In this study, landscape spatial mapping of resource use demonstrated the diversity of the ecological resources upon which communities depend. Household surveys detailed consumption and production patterns. Anthropometric measurements, parasite loading, and anaemia levels were used as indicators of nutritional status.  This was complemented by an ethnographic and participatory assessment of nutrition. Insights include the link between flooding, migration of people and food security, and the importance of diversity to food security, both in terms of the diversity of resource strategies and ecological resources. If researchers and communities could better understand these ecological rhythms and their impact on food security, interventions could focus on ways to take advantage of the annual floods rather than being drowned economically by them.
 
Keywords:     Food security, ecosystem approach, seasonal flooding, Amazon, natural resources management
 
 

 Flooding and Food Security

In the Amazon lowlands, the annual flooding and extensive inundation of large areas of the floodplain challenges almost every aspect of human settlement.  As the rivers rise, crops are drowned, transport is restricted to watercraft, fish disperse into the flooded forests and food procurement becomes more difficult.  This combination of factors creates problems of seasonal food insecurity for many rural frontier families.   In response to the risks imposed by the rivers, both native and colonist peoples have developed diverse resource use strategies to cope with both the predictable annual rise in the rivers and lakes and the greater, though more infrequent floods, that usually occur every seven to ten and 20-25 years.  On such occasions land is often lost as rivers change course and whole communities are forced to relocate.  Understanding how the local adaptive strategies of these frontier communities relate to, and are synchronized with, the rhythms of the rivers and the ever changing ecology configuration of the floodplain, provides insight into the determinants of food security and nutritional status.

Research on food security and risk has tended to focus on the more catastrophic effect of sudden floods that consume arable land and leave families without a source of food.  However the impact of seasonal food insecurity may ultimately have a greater impact on nutritional status, particularly of young children, than these sporadic more destructive floods. This study focuses on the impact of these annual fluctuations in food availability on dietary quality. In the Amazon basin the hydrological cycle and the resulting from 8-12 metre change in river levels dictate migratory patterns of fish and wild animals, agricultural production cycles, and the seasonal availability of forest foods.  During the times of low water, the commercially-important seed and fruit eating fish inhabitat the river channels and lakes, fasting, yet avoiding predators.  Once rivers rise, these fish disperse into the flooded forest seeking food and the protective cover of the trees. This general pattern of fish migration results in periods of abundance, in the dry months, followed by scarcity, when the rains comes and fish are difficult to catch and expensive to purchase.  As fish is the primary source of animal protein, their presence or absence plays a key role in the dietary quality of local communities across the seasons.

Animals exhibit similar migratory patterns.  During the rainy season, they move into the floodplain to feed on the abundant supply of fruits, seeds and nuts available in the forests.  This is a good time for hunting as the animals tend to concentrate on the higher ‘restingas’ or levees.  Wild animals provide an alternate protein source when fish are less available.  However, selective logging and slash-and-burn agriculture pose a serious threat to their habitat and ultimately to the food security of local communities.

During the rainy season, trees are laden with fruits, seeds and nuts.  However flooding and lack of local knowledge of such wild foods restricts their important in local diets.  The agricultural production cycles similarly follow the rise and fall of the rivers.  During the dry season, as the river recedes, fertile alluvial banks are available for annual cropping, in particular rice, maize and plantain.  Natural levees arc across the floodplain; the remnants of ancient river channels that have changed course.  These areas provide valuable agricultural land that is inundated only during the larger, less frequent floods.

Disease and sanitary conditions are also affected by flooding. Rising water changes animal and insect habitats, affecting vector incidence, disease outbreak, and periodicity.  At certain times of the year the increased prevalence of intestinal parasites exacerbates the poor nutritional status of already undernourished children.  The combination of these factors creates a situation of annual, yet predictable food insecurity.  If researchers and communities could better understand these ecological rhythms and their impact on nutrition and food security, development interventions could focus on ways to take advantage of the annual floods rather than being drowned economically by them (Goulding et al. 1996). The flooded forest, floating meadows and floodplain lakes team with animal and plant diversity.  There is no reason why their sustainable management should not be able to provide a plentiful and nutritious diet all year round.
 
 

The Research Setting

The research site comprises the frontier region of Ucayali, the Eastern-most province of the Peruvian Amazon. Populated by 370,000 people, the Ucayali region spans 100,000 square kilometres. This area and the surrounding upper rainforests are of great biological significance, containing 23% and 44% of known tropical plant and bird diversity in the Neotropics (IUCN, 1996). Despite the natural diversity and fertility of this region, rural communities face a range of nutritional and health problems. According to the regional Ministry of Health, chronic malnutrition affects over 50% of rural children below age five; anemia and vitamin A deficiencies are widespread; and cases of malaria, dengue fever, and persistent diarrhea continue to rise (INEI, 1997). Moreover, access to health care is restricted because most medical professionals are based in the urban areas, and inadequate infrastructure and flooding isolate frontier communities. As a result, the population’s nutritional status and health is largely dependent on each family’s ability to ensure sufficient nutrient intake through different food production activities, their hygiene practices, and their knowledge of local forest resources.

As most rural communities are remote and often isolated from the urban centres for several months of the year, government services are not readily available.  Despite the food aid programs, supply is inconsistent, foods are imported and unfamiliar, and therefore rarely consumed in the form most bioavailable.  In the case of powdered milk, poor water quality and lack of adequate treatment cause gastro-intestinal problems in school-age children.

In the native communities there exist various social mechanisms and safety nets that provide for families in need.  Women without husbands or families who have recently arrived from another village, receive food from the community for periods of up to two years.  However in the colonist communities, comprised of mostly recent settlers who have often come from many diverse areas of Peru, lack of social cohesion and trust prohibits these forms of community food aid.

Within these frontier populations, the relationship between household production, income level and food security is complex and poorly understood. Resource use in the surrounding ecosystems results in diverse seasonal combinations of farming, fishing, logging, and hunting and gathering activities. Differences exist in terms of the combinations of resource use activities both on and off the farm, the diversity of such resources uses, and the proportion of income generating versus subsistence activities.  Such differences are closely linked to the farm’s location with respect to rivers, roads, markets and available natural resources.  How such different resource strategies affect the food security of the household, is not yet known.   For example, do households who engage in a more diverse subsistence-oriented resource strategy (combining farming, fishing, hunting, logging, and gathering) possess greater food security than those who are more commercially-oriented and specialize in a handful of agricultural crops?  Subsistence activities directly affect nutrition and food security of the household, however increases in income generation are not necessarily equated with improved nutritional levels.

Although the perception a decade ago was that the most effective means of reducing malnutrition was the general process of development, with its concomitant increase in income (World Bank, 1980), the consensus view now is that calorie consumption is much less responsive to income increases than was originally thought (Behrman and Deolalikar, 1987; Behrman, 1995).  Increases in production and income that result from improved technologies and agricultural intensification may, but do not necessarily, lead to changes in food security and nutritional status (von Braun et al., 1994). In fact several recent studies have shown decreased nutrition levels associated with cash-cropping even though income levels rose (Kinsey, 1998; Nowak, 1998; Akanji, 1998).  Knowing whether nutrition and earning levels are related has important implications for agricultural and technology development for this frontier region.
 
 

The Research Context

This research project is funded by IDRC’s (International Development and Research Centre) Program Initiative, Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health.  Its goal is to improve human health by supporting trans-disciplinary research on the structure and function of stressed ecosystems on which people depend for their livelihoods and to apply this knowledge to the development of appropriate and effective interventions and policies.  This study aims to improve the nutrition of rural Amazonian communities through the development of an ecosystem approach to food security that provides insight into the causal linkages between natural resource use, biodiversity and nutrition.

In the past two decades, the international research agenda in the Peruvian Amazon has evolved from a single commodity focus (pastures, plantain and rice) to more integrated natural resources management.  Currently three CGIAR Centres (the International Centre for Agroforestry Research (ICRAF) and the Centre for Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)) are jointly evaluating the different land use options that promote economic development while reducing deforestation and land degradation. This current study provides important methods and data to broaden this evaluation to include nutrition and food security issues and, ultimately at the policy level, to synchronize health and agricultural goals.

This research builds on an earlier CIAT project that, used systems theories to develop AMESH (Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health), an holistic approach to guide research on tropical ecosystems (Murray et al., 1999). Using the AMESH approach, the researchers generated new insights concerning the complex issues and problems confronting the Ucayali region. They demonstrated that land use was not confined strictly to agriculture, but rather that families engage in a complex and diverse combination of resource activities.  This more expanded notion of local livelihood strategies has important implications for research on food security.
 
 

The Ecosystem Approach to Food Security: Concepts and Methods

An ecosystem approach provides an inter-disciplinary, holistic view of the socio-economic and ecological factors affecting food security.  Research focuses on the relationships between the structure and function of ecosystems and land use strategies, between natural resource use and nutritional status and between anthropogenic environmental changes and food security.  Capturing the complexity of these causal linkages and feedbacks demands multiple scales of investigation, a plurality of methods, and active local participation - the three key attributes of an ecosystem approach (Murray & Sanchez, 1999).

The research was conducted in eight different communities spread across the region of Ucayali. From a methodology perspective, it was important to include sites that would differentiate those factors affecting food security. To capture the region’s heterogeneity, the following criteria guided the community selection process; i) ecosystem type (floodplain versus upland forests), ii) ethnicity (native versus colonist), iii) access to markets and involvement in market economy, iv) time of settlement (early versus old frontier) and v) dominant land use strategy (slash and burn agriculture, fishing, cattle ranching and oil palm plantations).  As shown in Table 1, there are five colonist and three native communities, five on the floodplain, three in the upland forests.  Communities vary in age from five to eighty years.  Their dominant land use strategy, access to markets and involvement in the market economy ranges from primarily subsistence livelihoods that combine fishing, farming, hunting and logging to monoculture, commerical production of cattle ranchers and oil palm growers subsidized by the United Nations and national governments.

Within each community between 35 and 50 families were involved in the study, with a total of 345 families. Although average precipitation in Ucayali ranges between 2000-3000mm, there is a marked rainy season.  Rains start in September/October, and continue until March/April.  In order to capture the effects of these seasonal fluctuations on production, diet and disease, three time periods were selected at which time the key study variables were measured repeatedly.  These time periods were; i) the dry season (June-August 1999), ii) the start of the rains (October-December 1999) and iii) the height of the wet season (February-April 2000). With these three sets of data, the cycles in production, food availability, disease and nutrient intake are being analyzed.  This identifies not only the critical periods when food is scarce and disease more prevalent, but also the interaction between such cycles.  Efforts can therefore be focused on these key periods when food security and nutrition problems are most severe and intervention will have the greatest impact.
 
Research Methods and Field Tests

To begin, the causal linkages between the multiple resource use systems of the different communities and nutrition, were investigated.  First, this involved characterization and assessment of the livelihood systems of floodplain and upland communities with respect to: i) diversity of food and income sources; ii) agricultural diversity and biodiversity of wild foods gathered from surrounding forests; and iii) the contribution of different land uses (fishing, farming, hunting and gathering, logging) to dietary quality and food security. Second, the assessment of the level of household food security and the nutritional status of individual men, women and children, with emphasis on seasonal changes in nutrient intake and deficiencies of micronutrients (iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin A, B, and C).  Third, the characterization of the patterns of maternal and infant mortality, general morbidity and disease periodicity of men, women and children.  Fourth, testing the quality of water used for drinking and bathing.  Coliform counts, pH and turbidity were used as indicators of water quality. And fifth, determining the prevalence and incidence of parasitic infections in children and haemoglobin levels in women and children. Stool samples were analyzed in the field with a microscope and WHO’s HemoCue Colour Scale was used for testing haemoglobin levels.  Table 2 identifies all study variables, and their frequency and period of recall.

From the above data the significant correlates of food security and nutritional status and the causal linkages between natural resource use, nutrition and food security are being determined through multivariate analyses and modeling.  The following hypotheses are being evaluated: i) a more productive ecosystem results in greater food security and higher nutritional status; ii) greater diversity of food sources, from the farm and surrounding forests, results in greater food security and higher nutritional status; iii) food security and nutritional status will vary between native and colonist communities due to differences in culture and local knowledge of biodiversity and ecological resources; iv) the shift from more subsistence-oriented to commercial production systems does not necessarily result in an increase in food security and nutritional status; v) the shift to commercial production affects the role of women in the household, their time allocation and involvement in production and nutrition decisions; and vi) food security and nutritional status will vary throughout the year due to seasonal differences in nutrient intake and water quality

The Ethnographic and Participatory Health Assessment

In the periods between the household surveys, measures of individual and community health were developed through participatory action research.  These measures enabled the communities to be directly involved in the study and to better understand the factors affecting their food security and nutritional status.  During this more extended period spent in the communities, an ethnographic study was carried out at each site, exploring how local beliefs, knowledge and decision-making processes affect the production and selection of foods.  In addition, a participatory assessment of health and nutrition helped to identify the community’s priorities and through this develop local definitions and indicators of food security and health.  Several methods were drawn from Participatory Action Research (PAR), Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Rapid Assessment Procedures (RAP).  The participatory nature of these data collection techniques promoted dialogue among community members, and started the process of building an environment in which the community could entertain organized and coordinated action.  Table 3 outlines in more detail the methods used.
 

Spatial Mapping of Resource Use

At the landscape level, it became evident that the area from which the community draws both food and non-food resources is large and diverse.  On a number of occasions throughout the year, people travel large distances to exploit fish and forest resources available only at certain times.  GPS (Geographic Positioning System) coordinates were taken in the areas where people hunted, logged, fished and gathered wild plants, fruits and seeds.  Spatially mapping this area provided insight into the diversity of ecosystems/biota/biotypes upon which people depend as well as the capacity of the forest in supporting the local population.  The variation in the range of ecological resources surrounding each community highlighted their relative importance for the nutrition and food security of the community.

As the research team is currently completing the last round of field surveys, quantitative analysis of the data is not yet available.  (Note: this data will be available at the time of the conference).  However, below are outlined the key methodological aspects of an ecosystem approach, their implications for our understanding of the complexity of food security issues, and initial insights into the most appropriate interventions needed in this dynamic ecosystem.
 
 

The Guiding Principles of an Ecosystem Approach
 

1. Multiple Scales in Time and Space

Ecosystems exist within nested hierarchies or holarchies (Allen & Hoekstra, 1992; Checkland & Scholes, 1990). They are comprised of smaller systems while at the same time being part of a larger whole.  A household is therefore part of a community, while similarly being made up of different individuals. The different layers (household, community, region and nation) evolve within a variety of ecological and socio-economic contexts and constraints (Allen et al., 1982; 1993; Conway, 1987). Complexity emerges when the speed of change of a variable at one scale affects variables at other scales.  Therefore the essential properties of the parts of a system can only be understood from the organization of the whole (Bertalanffy, 1968; Capra, 1996) and the interaction of variables across different scales.

Food security is affected by the interaction of variables that range from the family to the national and even international level.  For example, gender dynamics and intra-household food allocation influence whether food security at the family level necessarily equates to food security for individual members.  Social capital in the form of community supports and safety nets are key factors that may provide food security for food insecure families.  The family’s radius of activities highlights the dependence on food and income sources that are far removed from their farm and even their surrounding area.  This is evident in the behaviour of individual family members who leave for extended periods to take advantage of specific fish migrations, labour shortages in nearby areas or more accessible forest resources to supplement their income and food needs.  Research should therefore focus on multiple units of analysis and on the nature of the relationships between them.  Without a detailed investigation of these cross-scale interactions, some of the key causes of and interventions for food insecurity may be overlooked.

Multiple scales extend beyond the spatial element.  The constantly changing landscape of the Amazon floodplain means that each study variable has a time dimension.  The temporal scales are essential in understanding ecosystem dynamics and its relationship to food security.  In the study, three time periods were selected to reflect seasonal changes, emphasizing the patterns of change of these different variables over the year and the interactions among such changes.

2. Interdiscplinarity and Methodological Pluralism

No complex socio-ecological system can be captured using a single model.  They can be understood only from multiple, non-equivalent perspectives, as no single perception is able to provide a comprehensive or adequate view of reality (Checkland, 1981; Puccia & Levins, 1985; Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1994).  Research on ecosystems therefore necessitates a variety of forms of inquiry, multiple sources of evidence and dialogue with persons representing different worldviews (Checkland & Scholes, 1990; Holling, 1995a; Waltner-Toews & Wall, 1997).  This reflects the multiple system goals and trade-offs that need to be negotiated among stakeholders (Pretty, 1998; Woodhill & Roling, 1998).

The ecosystem approach explicitly calls for a plurality of methods, drawing from several disciplines including both the “hard” and “soft” sciences.  In the current study, they ranged from GIS (Geographic Information Systems) analysis and landscape epidemiology, to precise food recall techniques and participatory nutritional ethnography.  Each method was selected based on how useful, appropriate and effective it was at answering a particular question. Upon implementation, the method was evaluated in terms of the accuracy and reliability of the information it provided.  This iterative process of methodological evaluation and modification was critical to the design of the study and the success of the results.

In the selection of different methods, it is useful to consider the more subtle distinction between data and process approaches.  As opposed to the familiar quantitative versus qualitative or social versus natural science distinction, data approaches focus of information extraction and process approaches demonstrate how the action of collecting information may initiate or change social processes within the community. Ideally, data and process approaches should be used simultaneously. Recognizing that data and process approaches tap different information sources and produce different outputs, the critical issue is how to combine them as complementary methods. That is, the challenge comes in not only collecting reliable and accurate data, but rather in seeing how the actual process of gathering information initiates other processes and changes existing processes within the community itself.

Considering a plurality of methodologies, the sequence in which different methods are implemented affects one’s ability to compensate for weaknesses in individual techniques and to build on knowledge systematically.  Different methods can be used to verify and crosscheck information. The more qualitative participatory methods in the study provided insight into those issues that the community perceived as important.  The extensive survey then helped determine the extent to which these food security problems affect the whole community and which groups were most at risk. Moreover, once the community was involved in focus groups and felt that their needs were driving the project, they were more responsive and interested in the survey.  They were better able to appreciate its value and therefore were more motivated to provide accurate answers.
 
 3. Local Participation: Action Research

Participatory action research (PAR) is not just research that we hope will be followed by action, it is action which is researched, changed and re-researched within the research process by the participants.  Change does not happen at “the end” – it happens throughout (Wadsworth, 1998).

Sustainable natural resource use is not a simple model or package to be imposed; it is more accurately described as a “process for learning” (Pretty, 1998). The shift to greater ecosystem sustainability and health involves not only the identification of appropriate resource uses, but learning those practices, facilitating that learning and creating institutional and policy frameworks that support such facilitation (Woodhill & Roling, 1998). This requires legitimate involvement of the local community, be they government agencies, women’s groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), or the community members themselves.

Active local participation is fundamental to the ecosystem approach.  Without community involvement researchers cannot address the different conflicting goals whose interaction and trade-off affect overall sustainability and health of the ecosystem.  In the study, a larger research team was created comprised of representatives from relevant organizations.  In this larger group, project objectives were refined and methods developed.  More importantly, five of the twelve researchers involved in the field work were leaders or professionals from local governmental and non-governmental organizations.  This ensured that knowledge in the methods as well as research findings fed back into local institutions and enhanced a sense of local ownership of the data and their implications.

The action component of PAR is equally important in the ecosystem approach. At the outset it was assumed that the process from analysis to action would be completed through once.  First, with the participation of the local community the problem(s) would be diagnosed, then fieldwork implemented, community plans generated from the ‘answers’, new actions put into practice and lastly the results evaluated. In reality, there was not one path from participation to research to action; instead, countless smaller cycles of participatory reflection on action, learning about action and new informed action, all of which fed back on one another. After ten months in the field several small-scale plans have been developed, simple actions carried out, and these experiences used to focus and refine the understanding of what is really happening and what is really important to the community.

Application of this adaptive and iterative research cycle led to the discovery that there were in reality several cycles existing simultaneously, however moving at different speeds.  It was evident that the more complex research questions required a longer cycle, where rigour in methods and analysis demanded years of work.  For example, seasonality of nutritional status and disease periodicity required at least a year of research and similar data from communities located in different ecosystems.  However other questions that require smaller time intervals between analysis and action, were critical in involving the community early on in the study.  Water quality, parasite loading and anaemia tests provided a good starting point, as these tests were conducted in the field and findings were readily available.  The community was quickly able to grasp the significance of the results and incorporate them into their understanding of larger health issues. This early emphasis on action promoted greater interest and local ownership of the information, findings, and solutions.  Ultimately, researchers are agents of change, recognizing and acknowledging their role as catalysts in the community.

Lastly, participatory research must address the fact that communities are rarely homogenous in their composition and concerns.  Differences in interests and conflicts within the community shed light on power relations and structures.  Although gender is the obvious starting point, particularly with respect to health, it is not the only difference, nor is it always the main difference that affects people’s decisions and options.  Qualifying the category of women into smaller groups of older, poorer, or minority, shows that in some settings, their identification as women may be less important than their relative wealth, level of education, or age (Cornwall, 1999).  Differences between men and women are not fixed, often they emerge and become significant in different ways and in different contexts.
 
 

The Implications of an Ecosystem Approach for Food Security Interventions

As one month remains after a year of field research, the data are currently being analyzed.  The following insights and initial conclusions are therefore based on a rudimentary assessment of the data, more informal assessments in the field and some additional information from the regional agricultural census.  However, by the time of the conference, the analysis shall be complete and included in the paper and presentation.

This discussion is focused on the two dominant insights that have thus far emerged from the research.  They include; first, the complex relationship between flooding, migration of people and food security.  And second, the importance of diversity to food security, both in terms of the wild animals and plants and the diversity of resource strategies employed by local communities.

The internal migration and movement of people across the landscape provides ample evidence of the need for resource activities to follow the cycles in natural resource availability.  Despite issues of access, the rural population is constantly moving, synchronized to the rising and falling of rivers and lakes and the migratory paths of fish and animals.  This continuous flow of people and resources sustains their livelihoods, as rarely can the area immediately surrounding them provide adequately for their needs.

There would appear to be two different types of migration or movement of people out of the community.  First, hunters and fishers, predominantly men, leave for up to five days to explore more distant areas for animals and fish.  In the study, this movement of people was captured by spatially mapping the extent or radius of activities exercised by the inhabitants.  These activities do not interfere much with the household activities and the harvest is eaten or sold within the community.  The second type of migration involves a more substantial move, for a more extended period of time.  In this case people may engage in a number of different activities in other parts of the region.

These cycles of migration became most apparent when the research team, returning to the same communities, same families, same informants, encountered empty houses or a different group of individuals within the family.  On the second round of surveys, at the start of the rains, between two and fifteen percent of the inhabitants were not in the community.  This varied considerably among communities and was clearly linked to resource use.  In those communities along the rivers the average percentage of families absent was 10%.  Here resource strategies are more pluri-active and diverse.  Along the roads, where resource activities are more agriculturally-based, only one of the three communities had one percent of the families absent.  In the remaining two communities all families were present.  However in the third round of surveys, at a time when the river levels were at their highest, the percentage of absent families ranged from nine to seventy percent.  Once again the riverine communities exhibited greater movements.  This is not surprising, as during the height of the floods, activities in the riverine villages are minimal and extended school holidays permit entire families to leave.

A cursory analysis of the agricultural census corroborates the study findings.  As shown in Figure 1, the percentage of farmers that are absent from the farm varies significantly across the year (INEI, 1994).  On average farmers are gone from the farms when river levels are at their highest, whereas during the drier months they are engaged in agricultural activities on their farms.  There is however some variation across the different provinces of Ucayali.  This is due primarily to differences in access and the type of resource use strategies employed.  For example, the majority of the residents of Coronel Portillo live along the rivers and are therefore affected directly by the annual floods.  A larger proportion of people leave the farm during the rainy season whereas less are away when fishing and agricultural activities are underway, in the dry season.  Padre Abad, in contrast, consists of communities based mostly along the road to Lima and the smaller secondary and tertiary roads that lead off it.  Here people tend to start to leave in the dry season and the numbers peak in October.  In these upland communities farming is more important during the rains, therefore from October to April and when the weather is dry they often travel to the floodplain to work on the farms there.  This exchange of labour across the different ecosystems plays a key function in an area where labour scarcity is a major constraint.

In Figure 2 the analysis of the differing lengths of time people are away from the farm indicates that the majority of people leave for four weeks or more.  One notes that the trips that extend beyond four weeks exhibit a seasonal pattern, whereas the shorter trips occur with similar frequency throughout the year.  This indicates that when people leave they most often leave for an extended period and travel great distances to fish, extract timber or work as agricultural labourers on other people’s farms. These activities are synchronized to the rhythm of the rivers as there is a definite seasonal cycle to the availability of resources.  This supplementary food or income makes an important contribution to the food security of the household.  Shorter trips may be more closely linked to access to markets, need for health and educational services and other factors that are independent of the annual flooding.

The second insight from the application of the ecosystem approach asserts that food security and good nutrition is dependent on a diversity of ecological resources.  In order for families to ensure a stable and sufficient supply of food or nutrients over the year, they must engage in a diversity of resource activities.  For example, agricultural production is confined to specific periods, so is fishing, hunting and logging.  Therefore most families will farm, fish, hunt, and extract timber at different times throughout the year.

This extensive and diverse resource use system that dominates the region has important implications for land use options that attempt to intensify and concentrate resource use. Research and development activities confined to the farm or even the community, fail to capture the complete picture of the livelihood strategies in Ucayali and the link between activities at different scales.  In addition, the dependence of people on a diverse range of ecological resources means that natural resources management should be designed and applied at a landscape level.  As fish and animal populations migrate from the uplands to the floodplain, the area upon which they depend for food and breeding may be extensive.  If their preservation is considered key to the livelihoods of local communities, some form of regional level management is needed.  Community-based management may offer a legal and institutional framework through which an area, absent of government and private land ownership, can find a mechanism to monitor and control resource use.  The diversity of resource users and their great differences in power, demand a means of addressing conflicts over common-pool resources and the need for collaborative arrangements.   This will be one of the greatest challenges facing researchers, governments and residents of the Amazon.
 
 

Tabla1  Description of Project Sites
Tabla2  Data Collection for the Household Surveys and Field Tests
Tabla3  Data Collection for Spatial Mapping and Ethnographic and Participatory Health Assessment
Figura1 Percentage of producers absent from the farm each month by province
Figura2 Number of producers absent from the farm for differnt lengths of time during the year
 

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