Presentation made by Christian Devenish, CONDESAN --7 Countries, Common language (but many indigenous languages), democracies (at least 20 years in all countries). Armed conflict (internal - Peru, Colombia. War Ecuador-Peru) --Andes mountains occupy 33% of total country areas, but hold 45% of total country populations. Northern Andes - very populated. Big cities, lots of people. 8 Cities > 1,000,000 inhabitants . Great variety and complexity (diversity, society, etc, languages, etc etc) Variation between % of country occupied by mountains, and % of country population in mountains. e.g. in Colombia, most people live in the mountains, but mountains only occupy 25% of country. Ecuador 50% - 50%, AR very small % live in mountains, but mountains occupy >20%. --Both some of the poorest and wealthiest regions in the Andes, depending on country. -- Climate change impacts on individual species. Change in range size for birds (non-shaded bars) and vascular plants (shaded bars) for A. Unlimited dispersal and B. No dispersal, for the SRES-A2 emission scenario and both periods (2020s and 2050s) (outliers have been removed from the plot for easier visualization) - 11,012 species (1,555 birds and 9,457 plants) -- Impacts of climate change

1. The Andean tropical mountains
and the Climate Change
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 16 June 2012

2. Regional context

3. Climate change context
Climate in the Andes
• Complex climate system with extreme natural gradients in temperature
and precipitation
• Dominated by climate systems over Pacific Ocean, Amazon and Caribbean
• Altitudinal gradients (temperature)
• N-S and E-W gradients (precipitation)
• Seasonality more pronounced in south
• Lack of information on current climate conditions
Future predictions
• Overall, temperature increase rainfall, seasonality uncertain
Regions where >80% of models coincide in direction of change of precipitation
Buytaert &
Julián
Ramírez-Villegas
in press

4. Impacts of climate change
• Biomes – vertical shifts (higher biomes only loose, lower ones loose and
gain) Región A2.1039
Pérdida
Estable
300
Ganancia
200
Area Km )
2
(
100
0
Tovar et al. in press PNAS GCr Par PnH PnX BMs BMsd Arb PrP

5. Impacts of climate change
• Water availability (how much and when)
 Local variation – changes in water availability due to changes in rainfall seasonality
and regulatory capacity of ecosystems and glaciers
 Influence of glaciers:
- In the north, paramos most important factor for water regulation throughout year
- Glaciers (and puna) more important in the Central Andes for maintaining water
production during the dry seasons, e.g. maintaining grazing systems
 Climate change effects exacerbated (or surpassed?) by land use change, poor
governance, inadequate policies, insufficient infrastructure, inefficient use and
recycling of water
Relative change (%)
in water
availability for
combined impacts
(temp + rainfall)
under climate
change (Buytaert et
al 2010)

6. Other drivers of change
• Often difficult to
distinguish between
effects of different
drivers (e.g. changes
in land use and
climate change in
terms of water
regulation)
 Combined effects
 Integral, flexible
policies
Photo: J. Voss

7. Other drivers of change in the Andes
 Population growth
 Especially in urban areas Andean countries
 % in urban areas in Andean urban area pop. by altitude
countries
 2010: 69% to 91% >= 3500
 1990: 55% to 87% 2500 - 3499
▪ Mountain cities - higher 1500 - 2499
population density 500 - 1499
▪ Lowland population (e.g. Lima)
0 - 499
on Pacific coast depend on
Andes for water 0.0E+00 2.0E+07 4.0E+07 6.0E+07 8.0E+07
▪ Concentration of demand for
CIESIN, 2011
water in high Andean cities
(e.g. Bogota, Quito, La Paz)

8. Other drivers of change in the Andes
 Change in land cover and use
▪ Agricultural expansion (e.g. 350000000 18
influenced by bilateral trade
16
agreements) 300000000
Production (tonnes) / Area harvested (ha)
14
▪ Upward shift in agriculture 250000000
(due to more suitable areas at 12
higher altitudes) 200000000 10 Production
Area harvested
▪ Increase in agricultural area 150000000 8 Fertilizer use
Agro-chemical
and harvest (agro-chemicals, 6 use
100000000
lowland especially, but water 4
from Andes) 50000000
2
▪ Land degradation – loss of
0 0
capacity for water regulation
1990
1994
1998
2002
2006

9. Other drivers of change in the Andes
 Change in land cover
and use
 Mining (expansion, continued
reliance of economic systems on
extractive industries)
 Deforestation, ecosystem
degradation
 South America: largest net loss of
forest 1990-2010 (FAO 2010)
 Decrease from 38% to 35% of forested
area lost 1990 - 2010
Cuesta et al 2009

10. Key policy actions
• Protect mountain ecosystems to safeguard water supplies
e.g. Paramos, puna, legal protection, mining no-go zones, basin-wide
responsibility for strengthening upstream-down-stream partnerships
• Climate change adaptation addressed specifically for mountains
regional, national and local policies with flexible approaches (adaptive
management) given uncertainty, further develop water management
policies
• Innovate agricultural production in mountain areas
recuperate knowledge (especially of native products), work towards
food security, protection of biodiversity with responsible agriculture,
market access
• Transform current mining methods with responsible mining codes
policy formulation, push for more efficient use of mining products

11. Key policy actions
• Effective communication mechanisms within government
i.e. between government departments (with overlapping jurisdictions);
between government levels (local and national)
• Use regional cooperation mechanisms to share and replicate
experiences
e.g. where decentralization and increased citizens’ participation has
been beneficial to sustainable mountain development
• Improve coordination/communication to ensure knowledge generated
is applied to SMD
e.g. between state universities in mountain areas, research NGOs,
government bodies
• Implement decision support systems at local and regional levels
e.g. for water management and climate change adaptation

12. Thank you C
condesan@condesan.org r
http://www.condesan.org e
a
t