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Chapter 8 - Human occupation of the Central Selva of Peru

Geography of human settlements
History of the Central Selva
The Central Selva since 1940
Problems confronting settlements in the humid tropics
Bibliography

Geography of human settlements

All 1,285,215 square kilometers of Peruvian territory lie within tropical latitudes of 0° and 18° South. Several geographic factors create extremely diversified natural ecosystems: a cold current along the coast causes the temperatures to be lower than expected; the Andean cordillera, snow covered year-round, creates east-west differences; while the narrowing of the Andes, and the diminishment of rainfall creates north-south differences. Four distinct zones are created: coast, mountains (sierra), high forest (Selva Alta), and low forest (Selva Baja) to which distinct demographic, economic, and socio-cultural characteristics correspond.

The coast - only 12 percent of the country - supports 50 percent of the country's population, many of whom have migrated there from the mountains (Table 8-1). These migrants have been attracted by fertile irrigated land in the coastal zone (around 750,000 hectares), which supports a highly productive agriculture and no less than 65 percent of the country's industry. As a consequence, dynamic cities have developed, the most significant being the Lima-Callao metropolitan area which contains 45 percent of the country's urban, and 27 percent of its total population.

Table 8-1
DISTRIBUTION OF THE PERUVIAN POPULATION BY REGION, INTERCENSAL GROWTH, AND DENSITYa

Regions

1940

1961

1972

1981

Growth Rate (%)

Density (Hab/Km2)

N

%

N

%

N

%

N

%

1940-61

1961-72

1972-81

1940

1961

1972

1981

Coast

1,759

28

3,860

39

6,243

46

8,513

50

3.8

4.5

3.5

10

24

39

53

(Lima-C.)

645

10

1,846

19

3,303

24

4,601

27

5.1

5.5

3.7

168

480

858

1,195

Rest

1,114

18

2,014

20

2,940

22

3,912

23

2.8

3.5

3.2

7

13

19

25

Mountains

4,034

65

5,182

52

5,953

44

6,704

39

1.2

1.2

1.3

10

13

15

17

Forest

415

7

865

9

1,342

10

1,814

11

3.6

4.1

3.4

1

1

2

2

Country

6,208

100

9,907

100

13,538

100

17,031

100

2.2

2.9

2.6

5

8

11

13

a. In thousands of inhabitants.
Source: INE, Peru, 1981.

The mountains, covering 28 percent of the territory, have high-relief topography with deep narrow valleys and steep slopes. Four thousand meters above sea level, mesas or "punas" of gentle topography provide approximately 14 million hectares of natural grassland for sheep and South American camelids. In contrast, cultivated areas (approximately 1,800,000 hectares), are largely found on steep slopes, and are suitable for annual dry farming (only 21% of the land is irrigated). The sparse industry found in the departmental and provincial cities of the mountain region provides limited employment opportunities. It has not attracted public investments because of limited markets, inadequate infrastructure (roads, electricity, and water), and high production costs. Moreover, since the 1969 agrarian reform, most of the land has been occupied by agricultural societies and agrarian cooperatives made up of relatively few people. The majority of the people - peasant or indigenous communities and unaffiliated members of dispersed settlements - control limited and scattered land parcels that scarcely allow the ever-growing families to survive.

Consequently, Andean populations, particularly after World War II, migrated either to coastal valleys and cities, or to the Selva Alta. This partially explains why the mountains, which supported 65 percent of the country's population in 1940, have steadily lost population (Table 8-1). By 1981, in fact, the region contained only 39 percent of the country's people and a growth rate below the national average.

Forests cover 78 million hectares, or 60 percent of the national territory - 13 percent in Selva Alta and 87 percent in Selva Baja. Fifty-four percent of these forests are exploitable, 32 percent are protected, 8 percent are suitable for livestock production, 3 percent are suitable for intensive and permanent agriculture, and the remaining 3 percent are covered by rivers, lagoons, roads, towns, and cities. Population in the forest region has increased since the 1940s, from 7 percent to 11 percent of the national total. Most of the 1,800,000 people of the region are concentrated along the larger rivers, which provide the most useful lands. The riverine people - 220,000 inhabitants - belong to more than 1,300 native communities and 56 ethnolinguistic groups.

Rapid occupation of forest lands began in the last century, when modern industry and an expanding world market enabled the people to profitably exploit the products found in these forests. Between 1862 and 1918, great quantities of rubber were extracted, until competition from Asiatic rubber plantations stopped the growth of South American plantations. Wood extraction and export began in 1918, skin, hide, and exotic animal export began in 1928, barbasco export began in 1931, and chicle and petroleum export began in 1938. All of these activities define an export economy fundamentally tied to foreign markets.

The area of this study lies within the high forest (Chanchamayo, Satipo, and Oxapampa provinces). Within this region live no less than 230 native communities belonging to the Campa (191 communities), Amuesha (28 communities), and Campa Ashaninga (4 communities) ethnolinguistic groups. These communities contain approximately 38,000 inhabitants, atiny percentage of the 1,394,869 tribal people living in the forests of South America and Panama (Mayer and Masferrer, 1979).

History of the Central Selva

Evidence derived from archaeological sources, the archives of religious missions, and the anecdotes of travelers and scientific expeditions permit a precise picture of the occupation of this part of the country and contribute to a better understanding of the present situation of human use and settlement.

Pre-Hispanic Period

When the Spaniards arrived in the Central Selva, the watersheds of the Chanchamayo, Perene, Pichis, Bajo Urubamba, and Alto Ucayali rivers, and the Satipo and Gran Pajonal regions, were occupied by the Campas, while the Palcazu and Alto Pachitea watersheds were occupied by the Amueshas (Map 8-1). Both ethnic groups belong to the Arahuac linguistic family; their ancestors settled in the region around 1800 B.C. (Lathrap, 1970).

Comprised of scattered tribes of few people, neither group advanced higher than 1,500 meters above sea level, the critical cultivation altitude for manioc, their basic foodstuff which accounted for 70 percent of their agriculture (Denevan, 1979). Shifting agriculture, hunting, and fishing were the mainstays of their subsistence. Besides manioc, they grew corn, pituca, sweet potatoes, beans, dale-dale, peanuts, arracacha, gourds, sachap-apa, peppers, and pineapples. They also raised coca, small portions of which were used for medicinal and magical-religious purposes, and cotton, used for garments, ornaments, weapons, and baskets. Since Campas in the Gran Pajonal region today cultivate no fewer than 49 species for food, medicine, magical-religious ceremonies, and for other uses; they undoubtedly cultivated these and perhaps many others in the past as well.

Their basic planting technique is still in use today: cutting and burning to prepare the terrain, reproducing in large measure the vertical structure of moist tropical forests. They felled large trees with stone axes until the arrival of the Spaniards, and planted seeds or sprouts with a hoe, now replaced in part by the machete and bar. These crude methods of farming suggest that hunting, fishing, and gathering provided more food than agriculture.

In the past purmas (land lying fallow covered by secondary forest) were allowed a rest period of about 10 years before being recultivated. Even today, notwithstanding a scarcity of available land, natives use fields for a maximum of three years (Varese, 1968) before leaving them fallow.

Around 1000-1400 A.D. populations belonging to the taruma (Tarma) and the Huanca (Mantaro Valley) ethnic groups expanded (Parsons and Natos, 1978), and for the first time penetrated the Chanchamayo and Satipo valleys. The remains of platforms and terraces of obvious Andean workmanship are testimony to these immigrations and coincide with the Andean ideal of dominion over a maximum variety of biotypes (Murra, 1970). Although there seem to have been no further penetrations, it is possible that continual contact through trade existed between the mountain people and the Campas and Amueshas.

Colonial Period

After the native people had completed the occupation of the coast and mountains, Francisco de Orellana discovered the Amazon river in 1542 and so began the "Amazon cycle" of historic and economic development and, with it, the area's occupation by missionaries, adventurers, and soldiers. During the first half of the 17th century, Franciscan monks, following the same penetration routes as the Incas, began to establish settlements in the Central Selva, to convert the Indians to Christianity. In 1635 they founded the Cerro de la Sal Mission, which today is Villa Rica, and the mission of San Juan Buenaventura de Quimiri near present-day La Merced. By 1667, 38 missions contained approximately 8,500 people, mostly Campas. The Convent of Santa Rosa de Ocopa (Mantaro Valley) founded in 1725, helped them to reach thousands more.

The missionaries also established a series of towns that served as administrative and religious sites (although not without constant native resistance and revolt). Several ranches grew sugar cane and coca, tobacco and cacao, and all the "occupiers" maintained an active commerce with Tarma, Cerro de Pasco, neighboring towns, and the coast. The natives, for their part, gathered and exchanged wildplant products, such as vanilla, achiote, and cascarilla that were in great demand in colonial cities and in Europe. They also established artisan centers, the most significant near present-day San Ramon where they produced machetes, axes, nails, and hammers at a foundry. Toward the end of 1740, according to the missionaries' chronicles, 45 towns existed in the Chanchamayo, Perene, and Gran Pajonal regions (Basurto and Trapnell, 1980).

MAP 8-1 - PERU - DISTRIBUTION OF NATIVE COMMUNITIES IN THE PERUVIAN SELVA

This rapid development was interrupted in 1742 by a militaristic movement led by Santos Atahualpa, who sought to reestablish the Inca empire. The movement attempted to incorporate Campas, Amueshas, Piros, Mocholos, Simirinches, and Shipibo-Conibas, and because it tried to drive out all the Spaniards and mountain people, the area remained closed to colonization for almost a century (Chirif and Mora, 1977). Although the natives returned in some ways to their pre-colonization state, their patterns of life had been profoundly altered by new crops (sugar cane, rice, coffee, plantain, and citrus fruits); new domesticated animals (cattle, swine and poultry); new tools and new manners of commerce.

After the departure of Santos Atahualpa around 1757 the Franciscans restored their missions. In 1779 the military forts of Palca and Huasahuasi were founded, and a trail was constructed to Chanchamayo (although it was abandoned five years later because of the lack of support from the colonial administration). In 1788 neighbors from the town of Acombamba (Tarma) returned to their corn and coca fields near the Tulumayo river and people from Tambillo (Ayacucho) recovered their old fields at Monobamba, near the same river (Recharte, 1981).

During the rest of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th immigration into the region was small because of the absence of adequate support from the colonial administration, and the wars for independence and ensuing conflicts between caudillos in the first years of the republic. In 1824 ecclesiastic officials decided to abandon their missions in the region (Ortiz, 1969).

Republican Period

The early days of the second half of the 19th Century marked the beginning of full and permanent occupation of the Central Selva. Influenced by economic changes in the other two regions of the country, a policy that encouraged road construction in, and colonization of, the area; and the War of the Pacific, the Campas and Amueshas (who had lived in the area for 3,500 years) were forced into a marginal existence.

Large estates were established in the mountains for sheep-raising and farming to satisfy the needs of coastal cities and to provide more agricultural goods for export (CIDA, 1966). Appropriation of commercial lands also encouraged occupation of the area, because it produced labor surplus that could be directed toward work on the new ranches in the Central Selva. Legislation in 1845 declared tribal organizations to be the owners of the lands they occupied, and colonists to be the owners of the land where they lived. This policy would later create deep conflicts between these two groups.

The fort of San Ramon was established in 1847 at the confluence of the Palca and Tulumayo rivers; under its protection, both mestizos and natives from Tarma began farms and ranches. Large property extension claims were made for commercial purposes, while smaller farms were planted in corn, manioc, and coca to meet traditional consumption needs.

The establishment of Fort Quimiri (La Merced) in 1869 permitted further immigration into the Chanchamayo Valley, which around 1874 began to include Italians, Germans, French, and, after the War of the Pacific, significant numbers of Chinese (Stewart, 1951). Only a small percentage of this contingent worked as agricultural laborers; the majority went into business in the growing settlements of San Ramon and La Merced. The Franciscans, meanwhile, opened new areas to Andean peasant immigration; they established the Asunción de Quillazu Mission (Oxapampa) in 1881, and in 1886 the missions of San Luis de Shuaro and San José de Sogorno, both in Chanchamayo (Ortiz, 1967).

By 1890, 65 important farms existed in the valley cultivating coffee and sugar cane for the production of spirits. Numerous smaller farms growing the same crops were cultivated principally by seasonally-migrating Andean people, in keeping with the model, probably Pan-Andean, of exploiting the maximum number of ecosystems to support the economy of their societies (Murra, 1970). But labor scarcity was the chief obstacle to expanded production on these farms and led to the dependence upon four systems of labor provision. The few larger farms contracted Chinese workers, but the majority used the enganche, melbra, and contrata systems to obtain labor.

The enganche system consisted of sending money to peasants in the mountains for travel costs and as prepayment for a set number of work days, a figure which increased dramatically as the workers incurred "debts" for food, medicine, clothes, and tools. This way the farmers assured that the workers would stay on the job while their services were required. A variation of the enganche system featured paying the workers before they returned to their home towns for work they would promise to do the next season.

The mejora system consisted of the farmer entrusting between 1-10 hectares of land to peasants. These peasants (the mejoreros) would then clear the forest, prepare the land, plant coffee plants, and cultivate them until crop production began. At this point, the crop was delivered to the owner, and the peasant received his promised wages. The peasant used his own tools and had the right to plant food crops for his family, either on separate land parcels or among the coffee plants, but he could not establish permanent plantings. This system led to a subsidiary type of system, the maquipuras, in which the peasant doled out the land entrusted to him to his relatives and friends, paying them less than the landowner was paying him.

The contrata system contracted workers to clear, prune, and harvest on coffee plantations. For an agreed-upon sum of money, the contracted individual worked with his family and, if necessary, additional salaried workers. Thousands of temporary migrant peasants would descend from the mountains with their families to harvest crops.

Until 1919, when the Tarma-San Ramon-La Merced road was completed, coffee and sugar cane were the only profitable crops, because products were transported by pack animals. Small quantities of fine woods, principally cedar and mahogany, were also transported in this way, but later, fruit production and selective large scale forest exploitation began, rapidly and profoundly altering the valley.

The road policy of the late 1800s (which continues today) encouraged the penetration of the forest's interior. It eventually led the Amazonian Hydrographic Commission to find a route for a road connecting the coast with a navigable river, thus making possible a link with Iquitos. Construction of the Pichis road began in 1860 and after only five months a 155 kilometer horse path connected San Luis de Shuaro with present-day Puerto Bermudez. Navigation began in 1892 between Puerto Bermudez and Iquitos.

Government policy in the 19th Century encouraged settlement of the forest by Europeans. To this end, between 1832 and 1898, the Government approved a series of legal devices and regulations that granted and distributed land and led to the occupation and colonization of Pozuzo, Oxapampa, Villa Rica, and Palcazu.

The first group of 297 Germans and Austrians arrived in Callao in 1857 destined for the Mayro, a tributary of the Palcazu river. These colonists founded the town of Pozuzo in 1859; it had delineated streets, a church, and wooden houses constructed in the styles of their Tirolean homelands. They planted coffee for export and crops for domestic use, and raised cattle to make cheese and butter for the mining centers in the mountains. Their contact with the exterior was sporadic and they came to rely on the natural ecosystems of the forest, while retaining their European cultural values. Not until 1974 did the construction of a road break up their isolation and dependence on local natural resources.

In 1868 and 1895 other German colonists joined the original group and available land became scarce. Spurred by the need to be closer to their markets, some colonists founded Oxapampa in 1890 and Villa Rica in 1920, after receiving a land concession of three thousand hectares in the Etay Valley. Oxapampa began to trade with La Merced in 1944 and Villa Rica in 1953, bringing about a growth in the lumber industry, an increase in commercial coffee and fruit plantations, and a decrease in livestock enterprise.

The natives of the Perene and Ene rivers began to lose their land in 1889 when Congress passed a law giving Amazonian lands to agricultural, livestock, and rubber operations. With the income generated by these enterprises, Congress hoped partially to settle debts contracted in the War of the Pacific. Two million hectares of land were turned over to foreign creditors. The land could not be divided into lots larger than a half-million hectares, and the grantees had to begin to colonize within three years and conclude no later than nine years afterward. For each year of delay beyond the deadlines, they would lose a third of the land they had received. The colonists had to be of "European race" and were exempt from taxation (Manrique, 1972).

The creditors, mostly English, ceded their ownership rights to the Peruvian Corporation, which received the first half-million hectares along the Perene and Ene rivers in 1981, although many lots were not delivered because of contract violations. In 1903 the corporation sold significant portions of the concessions, contravening the prohibitions of the 1889 Law. Other parcels were planted in coffee by mejoreros. In the meantime the corporation received a series of other economic benefits: payment for lands invaded between 1956 and 1958, money from users of the road the corporation had constructed, and money from transferring lands to other corporations. These lands were originally occupied by numerous Campa and Amuesha families, which lost their freedom of movement and which became obligated to lend their labor to agriculture, rubber harvest, and domestic work. In short, the Corporation used various mechanisms to maintain possession of the land, control production, and obtain labor.

The Palcazu watershed, the last frontier for the Amueshas, was explored at the end of the 19th Century by foreign rubber companies as far as Iquitos that obtained concessions for exploitation. The descendants of the original European settlers in the Pozuzo region also arrived to gather and sell rubber, depending on the Amuesha for labor and on the rubber companies for marketing. When the rubber boom ended in 1918, these families remained in the valley.

The European immigrants and their descendants monopolized the economic activity in the valley until 1960; cattle-ranching, lumber, leather and other industries were all under their control (Smith, 1981). They permitted the Amueshas to carry out subsistence farming on the colonized lands. In 1960 petroleum prospecting began, leading to a large number of land claims and more immigration. When the promise of oil wealth was not realized, the majority of such claimants abandoned the area, and in 1969, after the concessions on lands that had remained idle were annulled, the Amueshas began to solicit the recognition that they owned the lands they were occupying. This petition crystallized in the passage of the Forest Agrarian Promotion and Native Communities Law in 1974.

Back in Satipo, in the Campas territory, the Franciscans reestablished the Panzoa and Samamoro missions and others. By the end of the 19th Century, small fields of corn, coca, and manioc were being cultivated by a few people on the high portion of the Mantaro Valley, but the completion of the Comas road in 1917 led to a more extensive colonization. Another road to Concepción which was built in 1940 greatly increased the ability of people to travel throughout the country, but an earthquake destroyed a large part of this road in 1947. Many colonists emigrated during the next three years until the road reopened. Then an occupation more rapid than the one before began, giving rise to the rapid growth of Satipo, Pichanaqui, and Mazamari. Since 1975 the new road to La Merced has enabled the region to become even more dynamic.

The Central Selva since 1940

Population Process

The population of the Central Selva has increased from around 23,000 inhabitants in 1940 to approximately 213,000 in 1981. Most of this growth was the result of migrations, the now easy accessibility of the region, and its proximity to important extraregional markets. Also important has been the continued availability of land for agriculture and livestock in areas such as Satipo, which remains open to colonization along other access routes.

This accessibility since the 1920s explains its rapid growth in comparison with the other two Central Selva provinces (Table 8-2).

Table 8-3 presents sociodemographic indicators for the country and its natural regions. In every case the forest exhibits notable differences from the other two regions: higher mortality and birth rates; a life expectancy higher than the national average; a large number of children under 14; a surprisingly low illiteracy rate; and a high percentage of people involved with agriculture, livestock management, hunting, and forestry.

The Settlement Process Today

Three steps may be distinguished in the settlement process followed by Central Selva colonists. First, a family, because of its experiences as enganchados, mejoreros, and contratistas, or as voluntary laborers harvesting coffee, decides to obtain a parcel of land in the Central Selva, either purchasing it, or receiving it as a gift. Although they own the land, during the first few years they do not stay there permanently. Generally they divide their time between valley and mountains in two to three months periods. The women remain in the highlands and care for the property, crops, domestic animals, and small children; and the men do the sowing and harvesting in the Selva. This movement between the mountains and the forest, suggests the operation of two contiguous economic systems - the one providing subsistence, the other providing products for the market - which lasts from three to five years, the time required for the coffee plants to begin producing.

Table 8-2
POPULATION OF THE CENTRAL SELVA IN COMPARISON WITH THE HIGH SELVA AND THE PERUVIAN SELVA

Dpt. Province

1940

1961

1972

1981

Rate of Growth

40-61
(%)

61-72
(%)

72-81
(%)

Junin


Satipo

2,490

14,360

37,660

64,595

8.7

9.2

6.1


Chanchamayo

14,145

34,576

61,482

98,508

4.3

5.4

5.3


Oxapampa

5,881

25,783

39,794

49,857

7.3

4.0

2.5

Total

22,516

74,719

138,936

212,960

6.7

6.2

4.6

- Central Selva in relation to the High Selva (%)

14

18

19

20

-

-

-

- Central Selva in relation to the total Selva (%)

5

8

10

11

-

-

-

- High Selva

164,444

411,497

725,417

1,059,686

4.1

5.0

4.2

- Low Selva

264,153

488,289

677,987

852,709

2.8

3.0

2.5

Total

428,597

899,786

1,403,404

1,912,395

3.6

4.1

3.4

Source: INE, Peru, 1981.

Table 8-3
SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC INDICATORS FOR THE COUNTRY AND FOR GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Indicators

Coast

Mountains

Forest

Country

1. Natural population growth rate (1972-81).(%)

3.5

1.3

3.4

2.6

2. Fertility rate (1970-75). (%)

4.2

7.0

7.3

5.6

3. Mortality rate (1970-75). (%)

8.9

17.1

13,3

13.0

4. Infant mortality rate (1970-75), (%)

62.9

156.2

127.7

114.0

5. Life expectancy at birth (years) (1970-75),

62.0

50.2

53.8

55.2

6. Percentage of illiterates in population 15 years old or older (1972).

13.5

44.3

24.8

27.6

7. Age Structure (1980). (%)






- 0 to 14 years

40.5

44.6

48,6

42.8


- 15 to 64 years

54.4

51.3

49.4

53.8


- 64 or more years

3.1

4.1

2.0

3.4

8. Percentage of PEA in agriculture (1981)

16.8

63.9

59.6

38,4

Source: INE, 1981; Aramburu et al, 1982.

After the coffee harvest begins, while fruit trees and other crops are being planted, the entire family moves to the forest to provide more labor for the harvest and to guard the land against possible invasion by others looking for land relatively close to roads. This move does not really empty the land where the colonist originally lived, since control is maintained to provide security in case of mishaps on the colonized land, and because he is spiritually attached to the land of his ancestors.

The presence of the entire family in the new settlement permits the amount of cultivated land to be expanded. If more workers are needed, other families lend the labor - ayne - which will eventually be reciprocated. If the work is too much for both family and friends, additional workers are hired, which renews the cycle by attracting new potential colonizers into the area. The 1972 Agriculture and Livestock Census of the three provinces in this Central Selva sector found that of a total of 14,258 agricultural and livestock units, 49 percent used only family workers, 44 percent used part-time salaried workers, and the remaining 7 percent used full-time paid workers.

Relocation is the third step in this pattern of land use. Some colonists, having exhausted the fertility of the soils, search for new lands in more remote areas and begin the process anew. Their land is sold or simply abandoned and occupied by other less experienced colonists. Others, before this inevitable step, find more profitable part-time or permanent employment elsewhere. Some move to the cities and work in the commerce, goods, or service sectors; significant numbers return to their places of origin.

Land Tenure

As in the past, land continues to be the focus of some basic problems in the Central Selva. Access to sufficient expanses of land is limited. The best lands, such as those with alluvial soils, have been occupied for a long time by the first colonists who established modest farms. As a result of the agrarian reform of 1969, however, some farms have been converted to cooperatives while others have been subdivided for sale to peasants.

Because many people divide their land to pass on to their children, most of the farms are quite small. As Table 8-4 illustrates, in 1972,23 percent of the 14,258 agricultural and livestock units were less than five hectares in size, and 14 percent were only 5-10 hectares. Twenty percent of the units were between 10-20 hectares large; these farms, however, were actually less impressive than their size would indicate, because, typically, not all of the land on these parcels was exploitable.

In the mountains three to five-hectare parcels of poor land can maintain a family and produce surplus crops. But this is not true in the Central Selva, where much of the soil lies on steep slopes, is susceptible to erosion and leaching, and requires years of lying fallow to recover its productivity. Wide dispersion of the agricultural parcels also significantly prevents better land use, since 27 percent of the 14,258 units are comprised of two and three parcels and 4 percent contain between four and nine parcels (much of it is on steep slopes). Nor do native communities, contrary to popular belief, accumulate large amounts of land. For example, each of 13 Amuesha communities in Palcazu incorporates an average 2,971 hectares; in Chanchamayo, each of seven Campa communities has only an average 868 hectares; and each of seven Campa communities in Oxapampa has an average 2,695 hectares (Chirif and Mora,1977).

Table 8-4
SIZE OF AGRICULTURE AND LIVESTOCK UNITS IN THE CENTRAL SELVA: 1972

Unit Size

Hectares

Land Area

N

%

N

%

Less than 1.00

1,008

7

295

-

1.00-1.99

553

4

4,735

1

2.00 - 2.99

538

4



3.00 - 3.99

534

4



4.00 - 4.99

605

4



5.00 - 9.99

2,041

14

50,911

11

10.00 -19.99

2,796

20



20.00 - 49.99

4,178

29

183,345

41

50.00 - 99.99

1,108

8



100.00 -199.99

644

5

125,512

27

200.00 - 499.99

184

1



500.00 +

69

-

93,552

20

Total

14,258

100

468,352

100

Unit Distribution


Unit

Land Area

Chanchamayo

5,705

134,417

Satipo

4,439

119,895

Oxapampa

4,114

214,040

Total

14,258

468,352

Source: INE, 1972.

Land Use

Land use intensity, technology, and production all vary according to various population components. Production, except for that of the natives, is directed at commerce (Table 8-5). Coffee accounts for no less than 50 percent of the cultivated land. Next in importance is fruit, accounting for 15 percent of the land, while subsistence crops (manioc, corn, rice, beans, peppers, and others) account for scarcely 20 percent of the cultivated land.

All available space on small farms is used, regardless of steepness. Erosion and leaching, however, occur rapidly in the rainy Selva as soon as plant cover is removed, while in other parts of the country rainfall is not as intense and erosion damage is only observed over a prolonged period of time. Those native communities that still have access to sufficient land, as in Palcazu and Pichis, continue to rotate land every three or four years. However, when demographic pressure and land restraints force a less frequent rotation, degradation of farm land results.

Commerce

Coffee, fruit, wood, and meat are principally destined for export. Fruit is sent directly to Lima through the wholesale market, except for small amounts that are consumed in the mountain urban and mining centers. Coffee is sent primarily to international markets, while wood is sent to Lima, as is meat from Palcazu and Satipo. Subsistence crops are consumed locally, in nearby towns and Andean mining centers.

Buyers and sellers operate idiosyncratically, according to the size of their operation. The smallest producers sell from their fields, from central locations visited by buyers and truckers, and from weekly town markets. The medium sized producers sell their harvest to larger-scale merchants, while the largest producers sell directly to the wholesale market in Lima. Many sell coffee through businesses in which they are stockholders. Meat from Palcazu and Satipo is acquired primarily by a corporation in which several important coffee-growers are stockholders. Wood is sold directly at the sawmills or warehouses in Lima. Fruit processors obtain their raw material when market prices are low, setting their own terms. Because of the complicated and little-understood chain of intermediate stages, fruit prices can increase 15 times from field to consumer. Rarely in any of these transactions do prices favor the small farmers.

Problems confronting settlements in the humid tropics

Types of Rural Settlements

On the coast rural settlements are nuclear. The peasant lives in the town, but goes daily to tend his parcel of land in the countryside. The corral for his animals is part of his town dwelling, and the animals breed in stables and graze on the country property or on other accessible land. This system follows a model, imposed during the colonial period on Indian towns to help control the populations, collect taxes, facilitate religious instruction, and establish colonial institutions.

Table 8-5
PRINCIPAL CROPS IN THE CENTRAL SELVA

Valleys

Years

Avocado

Bananas

Fruits

Coffee

Subsistence Crops

Total

%

%

%

%

%

%

Chanchamayo

1970

867

3

1,300

4

1,959

5

27,145

75

4,765

13

36,034

100

1975

2,585

6

2,100

5

3,725

9

27,570

64

6,965

16

42,965

100

1980

1,210

4

1,983

5

4,053

10

25,447

64

6,879

17

39,572

100

Satipo

1970

2,544

8

3,340

11

3,202

10

13,947

44

8,499

27

31,532

100

1975

101

1

3,000

13

837

4

12,241

50

7,623

32

23,802

100

1980

145

1

2,391

10

544

2

12,663

54

7,637

33

23,450

100

Oxapampa

1972

633

5

1,132

9

618

5

7,169

54

3,644

27

13,196

100

1980

528

6

532

6

500

5

4,114

45

3,447

38

9,121

100


1970

3,411

5

4,640

7

5,161

7

41,090

61

13,264

20

67,566

100

1975

2,694

4

5,100

8

4,562

7

39,811

60

14,600

21

66,767

100

1980

1,355

2

4,374

7

4,697

7

38,110

60

14,516

23

63,052

100

Farm cooperatives arose in the agrarian reform of 1969 on the foundation of the old farms. The settlements also are nuclear, with the cooperative members living in the vicinity of the former farm-house (now primarily the administrative center of the cooperative) in rancherías, usually constructed in rows. In cooperatives and coastal settlements water is provided by the state, while drainage and electricity are provided by the landholders or, in some cases, by the cooperatives themselves.

Many of the old Indian villages have grown into district capitals with urban infrastructures and services. However, these are still rural settlements, as is demonstrated by the dominant agricultural activity around them. A similar phenomenon occurs in some of the linear settlements that appear regularly along some stretches of road; initially they provide some services, such as rest and refreshment, to truck-drivers, and then they develop other services for themselves. The dispersed settlement, characterized by the home being located on the farm parcel, is less typical of the coastal region.

Varied types of settlements are found in the mountains, ranging from totally dispersed to nuclear. The most dispersed communities are those made up of shepherds who raise alpaca and sheep on the puna. They live on farms, from which they daily tend their livestock, grazing them in the open and sheltering them at night in corrals contiguous to the living quarters. They sell or barter their wool and fibers and then acquire other foods and goods in neighboring communities.

Peasant communities, whether officially recognized or not, are typically of two types, nuclear or linear. Nuclear settlements exhibit patterns similar to coastal settlements, the towns in most cases having become district capitals. Isolated homes frequently appear around the settlement. Recently, linear settlements have appeared along some stretches of road forming "sister communities" of homes and small businesses separate from the main settlement, though still linked to it by common ownership of land.

Forest settlements are varied. They can be categorized as riverbank populations, native communities, spontaneous colonies, and planned colonies.

Riverbank populations fundamentally consist of the descendants of people who arrived during the height of the rubber boom, and natives that have practically lost their ethnic identity such as the Cocamillas of Huallaga. Settlements of these populations follow along the river-banks. The people live on individual parcels, although nuclear settlements can appear around schools. From the family homes, the people pursue agriculture, small livestock ranching, fishing, hunting, commerce, and wood harvest. In some places, large-scale floodings have forced the settlements to farm on high ground, such as at Choro Yacu on the Amazon river and at Jenaro Herrera on the Ucayali river.

The native communities center their traditional forms of settlements and tribal organizations around the maleca (the large family and ceremonial building), as demonstrated by the Matzas on the Galvez and Yavari rivers. Their homes are built on dispersed parcels of land near some kind of community center, such as a school, a playing field, or a church. These dispersed settlements also tend to locate along river banks or lagoons.

Spontaneous settlements follow Andean patterns, with the colonist erecting his home on land he has obtained by inheritance, purchase, grant or some other way. Distances between homesteads are small when the parcels are small and greater when they are large. The colonists usually try to construct their homes near water sources and roads, which they often work together to construct. Compelled by the desire for a school, a church, or a playing field, the colonists frequently erect a town with a central plaza and delineated streets, and in which they usually obtain a lot for a second home. Such towns frequently compete with each other for the status of becoming district capitals.

Colonists in the spontaneous settlements have come from the same home area, and their communities are similar to those they left in the Andes. Volunteer work resolves family labor shortages and establishes needed services, such as roads, schools, and churches, while a few towns may join together to offer municipal services, and to help establish various state agencies.

Linear settlements predominate in planned colonies, in which family parcels are delineated on maps. In cases where nuclear settlements also are affiliated with the cooperative, each colonist has a home for himself and his family and benefits from an associated center for administrative, technical, and social services (such as schools and health care). These "Basic Services Centers" are far from the established towns that the colonists visit regularly for commercial, religious and other purposes. In Tingo Maria, a type of mixed settlement called bilocular, occurs, which contains both family parcels and one large parcel for communal use. Individual family farms are not an efficient way of working this land, but cooperatives have problems too stemming from the heterogeneity of their members, the absence of adequate basic services, technical and credit deficiences, and rudimentary education in the art of manufacturing and farming cooperatives.

Planned Settlements

Since the 1950s governments in the American humid tropics have adopted policies to redistribute their populations, in part to combat the erratic and massive migrations from countryside to city. These policies have included the establishment of forested areas in planned settlements designed to avoid the undesirable consequences of spontaneous migration. The planned settlements presuppose the presence of great amounts of inexhaustible resources, able to support thousands of surplus people. The reality, however, can be glimpsed in the Brazilian, Bolivian, and Peruvian experiences (Nelson, 1973).

Brazil began to develop small planned settlements in 1970. The National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) was created to undertake Integrated Colonization Projects (PIC's), designed to meet economic objectives and to bring order to spontaneous colonization efforts. They were concentrated in northeastern Mato Grosso (P/C Paulo de Assis Ribeiro), Rondonia, and eastern Acre, and they were to settle 29,000 families. But they failed, independent studies revealed, because of bureaucratic incapacity, poor selection of colonists, the counterproductive ease with which land titles and loans could be obtained, the high tax costs of supporting the settlements and inadequate social services and commerce mechanisms.

The 1954 completion of the paved Cochabamba - Santa Cruz road in Bolivia sparked spontaneous migration to the eastern part of the country, and initiated work toward some planned settlements. With technical and financial assistance from the Andean Mission of the UN in 1953, the Cotoca Program resettled 78 families from the Andean high plateau and valleys, but by 1975 only 10 families remained. Apparently the excessive paternalism, which gave a house, one or two cleared hectares, tools, and other investments to each family, failed to produce the desired results, and the discouraged colonists returned to their communities of origin.

In 1954 Arena Colony, with 240 families, 130 of them of Japanese origin, was established in a cooperative arrangement between Bolivia and Japan. The Japanese families subsequently broke away to form Okinawa Colony. I n1951,18 Mennonite families established another colony in the vicinity of Santa Cruz. This series of settlements encountered serious difficulties with erosion and poor soil, inadequate technical assistance, and lack of the necessary knowledge to make the enterprise work.

The Bolivian Economic and Social Development Plan of 1962-71 sought an intensive colonization in the Alto Beni (La Paz), Chimore (northwest of Cochabamba), and Yapacani-Puerto Grether (northwest of Santa Cruz) areas. The effort was to be financed by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Bolivian Government and was intended to settle 8,000 families from the inter-Andean valleys and the altiplano on 150,000 hectares over a period of three years. The project began in 1966, but at the end of the year only 3,200 families had been settled, 19 percent of which had deserted. By 1970 this desertion rate had increased notably; the reason given was that the Andean people had difficulty adapting to the forest environment.

In the 1960s and 1970s Peru had been confronted by a disorganized occupation of its forests, particularly the high forest, by thousands of Andean peasants. Their low standard of living led to the degradation and destruction of forests and soils. To protect the forests' resources the country initiated four planned settlement projects: Tingo Maria-Tocache - Campanilla (in the future, simply Tingo Maria) and Pichari in the high forest, and Jenaro Herrera and Marichin-Rio Yavari in the low forest. In addition, Saispampa was also begun in the subregion by an agricultural association dating from the 1969 Agrarian Reform. In three projects the settlers came from the mountains, while the settlers of Jenaro Herrera and Marichin chiefly came from the local forest regions to escape flooding problems and to become better incorporated into the market economy (Martínez, 1976).

These projects have not yet settled as many families as they had hoped. Only 59 percent of the lands have been adjudicated (142,413 hectares), of which only 30 percent have been actually used. Similarly, only 59 percent of the projected number of families have been settled, but high desertion rates would make the figure much smaller (Table 8-6).

All these settlement efforts have essentially failed to make significant inroads in resettling people and in intensively exploiting land; they have not succeeded in reducing demographic pressure on land in the Andean region, or reorienting the Andean-coastal migrations; increased sustained agricultural productivity and transformation of riverside subsistence economies into market economies has not taken place. These settlers have also suffered living and working standards as low as those found in spontaneous settlements.

Reasons for the failure of the planned colonies range from human error and inexperience to disastrous confrontation with natural hazards. In the absence of a coherent and determined settlement policy, the colonies were located far from important markets for their products, rural and regional development plans were not coordinated, and not enough money was invested to make them a success. Other problems included the total reliance on agriculture and livestock to provide income, the slow establishment of communication and service infrastructures, individual adjudication of land parcels where crops required a great deal of care, and finally the colonists' lack of knowledge about their new endeavors.

Technical assistance - human resources, materials, and financing - was inadequate. All agreed that the number of extension workers was insufficient to train a dispersed and inexperienced colonist population in agriculture and soil management: cars and boats were too scarce for rapid mobilization, and obtaining adequate loans to maintain the colonists while their crops were growing proved difficult (Miller and Martinez, 1981).

The National Development Plan of 1971-1975 (INP, 1971) recognized this reality. Noting the failed development attempts in what it called the "economic frontier zones," it stated that it would encourage efforts to incorporate lands and make complementary investments strictly to established agriculture and livestock interests.

Livestock operations in the colonies frequently replaced failed agriculture, but were never very successful themselves. The technology used to raise cattle in the rain forest was the same as that of the temperate regions, with their extensive natural grasslands. But grazing pastures previously forested rapidly compacts the delicate soils and suffers from the regrowth of woody vegetation. This forces the farmers to clear new forests, and so ranching becomes an itinerant activity. Additionally, the animal breeds used (Brown Swiss, Holstein, Cebu, Criollo), are selected according to the availability of breeding stock and are introduced in the absence of adequate knowledge about their care. After a long journey from distant localities, the animals generally arrive in poor condition. Further, in Tingo Maria in 1974 only one veterinarian was available to cover 1,200 square kilometers, Finally, delays in obtaining loans and price fluctuations prevent the purchase of large numbers of high-quality cattle.

Table 8-6
BASIC INFORMATION ON COLONIES PLANNED BEFORE 1974

Colony

Regional Locality

Distance to (KM)

Years of Establishment

Colonized

Land Area Adjudicated

Developed

To be Established

Families Established

Costb in Soles (in millions)

Tingo Maria T.C.

Selva Alta (Huallaga)

Lima: 630

1966

140,000

122,685

39,458

4,680

3,794

2,104

Pichari

Selva Alta (Apurimac)

Ayacucho: 200

1961

18,710

7,890

1,710

500

360

100

Jenaro Herrera

Selva Baja (Ucayali)

Iquitos: 300

1965

47,500

6,842

1,328

1,400

418

20

Marichin-RY

Selva Baja (Ucayali)

Iquitos: 500

1971

10,000

5,000

400

100

50

22

Saispampaa

Selva Baja (Ucayali)

Lima: 840

1972

26,000

-

200

1,500

30

15

Total




242,210

142,417

43,096

7,180

4,252

2,261

a. 20-year duration.
b. Dollar = 43.58 soles.

Natural Hazards

The capricious courses and unexpected flooding of large rivers, the abrupt changes in temperature, the mudslides in the high forest and the rapid spread of diseases all threaten human settlements in the humid tropics. They can destroy a lifetime's savings or make the investment of large amounts of resources to combat them useless. For example:

- Iquitos is the most important city in eastern Peru, founded, along with Manaus, Brazil, during the rubber boom of the last century. Because of bank erosion and flooding, Iquitos suffers annual buffeting by the Amazon river, which has seemed to condemn the city to eventual disappearance. All possible solutions have proved useless, from constructing expensive retaining walls to letting nature take its course.

- The Huallaga river unexpectedly flooded a wide sector of Uchiza, an old town of colonial origin, destroying homes, crops and roads and killing hundreds of animals and human beings in 1982. Many residents lost all of their belongings; some were forced to migrate to the coast to live with relatives.

- In the early 1950s the unanticipated great floods of the Ucayali caused considerable destruction of crops and livestock on lands usually flooded sporadically and lightly. This flood forced people to found another town on higher ground, which is now being gradually eaten away by the same river as its course continues to change.

- Floods caused by the rising Amazon river led to the 1970 settlement of Choro Yacu on the road between Iquitos and the Brazilian border. Some 30 families came together from various hamlets to form the town. These same floods led to the failure of the planned colonization livestock project of Marichin-RioYavari, while flooding by the Tambopata and Madre de Dios rivers constantly threatens the town of Puerto Maldonado.

- In the early 1950s the settlement of Pucaramayo in the high jungle of Sandia Province in Puno was almost totally destroyed by landslides originating in the surrounding hills. At the same time unexpected temperature decreases in the high jungle valley of Tambopata (Sandia, Puno), while coffee plants were maturing caused financial ruin to many, leading some to abandon the valley. Strong surazos (winds originating in Patagonia) caused considerable damage in Puerto Maldonado in the 1960s, tearing off the roofs of most of the houses, while falling temperature caused crop and fruit losses.

- Finally, pests, such as the broca (a coffee borer), and diseases, such as papaya fungosis, are potential dangers in extensive parts of the Central Selva that threaten the livelihoods of colonists, cause great economic hardships, and lead to high desertion rates in planned colonies.

Planning Problems

The natural phenomena that continually affect human settlements in the humid tropics can disrupt the most well-intentioned plans. Planners must consider such factors as the steep slopes in the high forest and the meandering courses of the great rivers. They must also deal with changes introduced by human activity.

Adequate planning fundamentally relies on knowledge of all the factors that planning is expected to affect. Knowledge of the high and low forests is scarce, however, as is revealed by what has happened to past colonization efforts. Insufficient understanding of forest characteristics and the physical properties of woods, of the capacities of soils or the seasonal flows of rivers, of the effects of river course changes, of human activity, of fish behavior and more, all severely restrict the capacity to plan properly.

Human factors are also important. The functioning of the economy of riverbank populations is hardly understood. We only know the types of their settlements and that their economies are multi-faceted. Studies concerning this area are fewer than those describing some native populations. Managing the forest is based more on supposition than on careful empirical observations, and the circumscribed knowledge gained in some communities needs to be applied to others. The commerce system imposed by the rescatistas is scarcely known, and harmful to most if not all producers. The manner in which spontaneous colonies organize communal labor to accomplish concrete tasks is poorly understood. The power structure within one small region is almost completely unknown. How colonists actually take part in planning is little understood, notwithstanding the widespread realization that people need to participate in planning development projects. In short, the changes planned for these populations are based more on our own preconceptions than on knowledge stemming from analysis and investigation.

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