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July 31, 2025
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Producing conservation territories: Transforming páramos in Ecuador

Publicated to: ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING E: NATURE AND SPACE. 8 (5): 1606-1625 - 2025-10-01 8(5), DOI: 10.1177/25148486251353634

Authors:

Manosalvas, R; Hoogesteger, J; Hidalgo-Bastidas, JP; Boelens, R
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Affiliations

German Inst Dev & Sustainabil IDOS, Bonn, Germany - Author
Univ Amsterdam, Ctr Latin Amer Res & Documentat, Amsterdam, Netherlands - Author
Univ Cent Ecuador, Fac Agr Sci, Quito, Ecuador - Author
Univ Politecn Valencia, Ctr Valenciano Estudios Riego, Valencia, Spain - Author
Wageningen Univ, Water Resources Management Grp, Wageningen, Netherlands - Author
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Abstract

During the last decades, Ecuador's p & aacute;ramo wetlands have become increasingly important sites for environmental governance. Historically, these humid, highly biodiverse Andean moorland ecosystems were seen as empty desolate and unproductive spaces, and later, between the 1960s and 1990s, as spaces for expanding the agricultural frontier of rural communities. Since the end of the 1990s, this changed as p & aacute;ramos came to be seen as important spaces for biodiversity and water conservation. Using the Foucauldian notion of governmentality we show, first, that a new "narrative" about these spaces leads to new state and non-state interventions that rearrange the socio-material relations in these ecosystems. Then we analyze how the "conservation narrative" has been translated to projects and programs that advance biodiversity conservation and the water regulating capacity of paramos. By analyzing the most important Ecuadorian paramo conservation initiatives of the last three decades, we show how this takes place through different techniques of government that aim to conduct-the-conduct of rural communities. The latter we argue, is a continuation of a centuries old pattern of governing marginalized rural populations to serve the interests of the ruling elite. Historically, this process created longstanding socio-environmental injustices that current initiatives are failing to address. The latter makes many of the conservation interventions fragile in the long run.
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Keywords

AuthorityClimateEcosystem servicesEnvironmental governanceEnvironmental servicesForest conservationGovernmentalitGovernmentalitiesLocal perceptionsParamo conservationRightSocio-environmental justiceStrugglesWater conservationWater fund payments

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING E: NATURE AND SPACE due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 25/174, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Geography.

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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-02:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 10.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 7 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Ecuador; Germany; Netherlands.

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Hoogesteger, Jaime.

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Awards linked to the item

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) project nr. 01.65.308.00 (Struggling for Water Security) and EP.1512.21.001 (Bio-Just: BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM PROTECTION DRIVEN BY ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE) and the European Research Council (ERC), grant agreement No 101002921 (Riverhood).
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