Mountains as archetype frame some metageographies of the vertical dimension.Mountain metaphors,thus,have remained as key guidance in developing not only animistic belief systems and religious cults,but also military s...Mountains as archetype frame some metageographies of the vertical dimension.Mountain metaphors,thus,have remained as key guidance in developing not only animistic belief systems and religious cults,but also military strategies,economic potential,and scientific innovation.This paper seeks to explain the need to integrate western knowledge,where mountains became known via natural history’s mechanistic explanations,with other epistemologies.Mountain scientists therein developed linear approaches that required exploration,experimentation,and pragmatic interpretation of generalizable mountain phenomena.Little is known,however,about other civilizations’more encompassing cognition due to heuristic explanations of mountain myths.Local knowledge holders therein developed approaches that required familiarization,observation,and romantic meditation about situated mountain phenomena.Using a multimethod approach of human geography that includes onomastics,geocritical discourse analysis,political ecology,and critical biogeography,the author posits that there is a paradigmatic shift of geographic fad,when even"nature"is thought of as a"social construct"in the socioecological mountainscapes.Between these tendencies of either Cartesian or Spinozan dogmas about scientific objectives,methods and implications,mountains continue to elicit geographical research.The author thus concludes that integrating narratives of mountain studies with geocritical analyses of political ecology that allow for transgressivity and referentialilty of mountain cognition can be done with transdisciplinary science.Montology,henceforth,couples dialectic thinking with the trifecta of spatiality,complexity and historicity in highlighting mountain microrefugia for biocultural conservation.Use of montological approaches will bring mountain scientists to a new level,where the application of local ecological knowledge and cutting-edge technological instrumentation could render sustainable mountain communities,in dynamic biocultural heritage scenarios.展开更多
Abrupt changes in land use/land cover have often characterized Andean rural landscapes.This is particularly notorious in the Paute River watershed in southern Ecuador.We seek to show how,under tenets of the global eco...Abrupt changes in land use/land cover have often characterized Andean rural landscapes.This is particularly notorious in the Paute River watershed in southern Ecuador.We seek to show how,under tenets of the global economy,rural mountain landscapes suffer constant modifications due to the agricultural practices of dwellers and migrants.Erosion of arable slopes takes center stage in analyzing vulnerability due to the high erodibility factor found in this watershed.By using remote sensing and GIS applications,we analyzed the potential erodibility with intersections of rural development constraining of ecosystem services,including the production of water,food,and cultural values in the Paute River watershed.We found six sources of migratory flows and analyzed topographic and elevation effects in potential erodibility indexes of agroecological options to ameliorate the environmental stress.We identified factors associated with migration trends observed in the area and assessed vulnerability issues of resource management that could prevent deforestation,soil erosion,and acculturation amidst the pressures of development in the region.We conclude that sustainable development options can be implemented with a watershed management approach oriented to diminish emigration.This approach shall be integrative,inclusive,and respectful of the rich biocultural diversity heritage conservation of southern Ecuador.展开更多
基金partially funded by the Belmont Forum’s VULPES project(NSF grant ANR-15-MASC-0003)。
文摘Mountains as archetype frame some metageographies of the vertical dimension.Mountain metaphors,thus,have remained as key guidance in developing not only animistic belief systems and religious cults,but also military strategies,economic potential,and scientific innovation.This paper seeks to explain the need to integrate western knowledge,where mountains became known via natural history’s mechanistic explanations,with other epistemologies.Mountain scientists therein developed linear approaches that required exploration,experimentation,and pragmatic interpretation of generalizable mountain phenomena.Little is known,however,about other civilizations’more encompassing cognition due to heuristic explanations of mountain myths.Local knowledge holders therein developed approaches that required familiarization,observation,and romantic meditation about situated mountain phenomena.Using a multimethod approach of human geography that includes onomastics,geocritical discourse analysis,political ecology,and critical biogeography,the author posits that there is a paradigmatic shift of geographic fad,when even"nature"is thought of as a"social construct"in the socioecological mountainscapes.Between these tendencies of either Cartesian or Spinozan dogmas about scientific objectives,methods and implications,mountains continue to elicit geographical research.The author thus concludes that integrating narratives of mountain studies with geocritical analyses of political ecology that allow for transgressivity and referentialilty of mountain cognition can be done with transdisciplinary science.Montology,henceforth,couples dialectic thinking with the trifecta of spatiality,complexity and historicity in highlighting mountain microrefugia for biocultural conservation.Use of montological approaches will bring mountain scientists to a new level,where the application of local ecological knowledge and cutting-edge technological instrumentation could render sustainable mountain communities,in dynamic biocultural heritage scenarios.
文摘Abrupt changes in land use/land cover have often characterized Andean rural landscapes.This is particularly notorious in the Paute River watershed in southern Ecuador.We seek to show how,under tenets of the global economy,rural mountain landscapes suffer constant modifications due to the agricultural practices of dwellers and migrants.Erosion of arable slopes takes center stage in analyzing vulnerability due to the high erodibility factor found in this watershed.By using remote sensing and GIS applications,we analyzed the potential erodibility with intersections of rural development constraining of ecosystem services,including the production of water,food,and cultural values in the Paute River watershed.We found six sources of migratory flows and analyzed topographic and elevation effects in potential erodibility indexes of agroecological options to ameliorate the environmental stress.We identified factors associated with migration trends observed in the area and assessed vulnerability issues of resource management that could prevent deforestation,soil erosion,and acculturation amidst the pressures of development in the region.We conclude that sustainable development options can be implemented with a watershed management approach oriented to diminish emigration.This approach shall be integrative,inclusive,and respectful of the rich biocultural diversity heritage conservation of southern Ecuador.
