Valuing Place and Purpose by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Urban and Land Use Planning, Land Use, Geographic Information Systems, Real Estate, Land Administration, Land Management
Publisher: Esri Press
Published: 2022-01-28T19:09:50+00:00

Defending fragile ecosystems

David Gadsden, Esri

High in the foggy Peruvian hills, for just a few weeks in June, bright-yellow flowers resembling tiny phonograph horns light up the hillsides. The Flower of Lima, with its naturally short, seasonal life and the fog oasis it calls home, is increasingly under threat.

Illegal land-grabbers seized on the demand for affordable housing as more Peruvians are pushed further from Lima’s established settlements. These land traffickers having staked and sold fraudulent claims to the soil that the Amancaes flower (pronounced: ah-mawn-KIE-us) calls home. The housing crisis has led people to build structures on land that not only needs protecting but can be vulnerable to earthquakes and poses health concerns because of the pervasive humidity. The unmanaged development, including unsanctioned quarries where miners extract construction materials, has left behind damaged land unfit for plants.

The unique flora and fauna that make up the fragile ecosystems of this region’s lomas, or fog oases, have long been at risk of disappearing. A conservation effort in late 2016 led to the formation of the Lomas EbA project, an initiative directed by the National Service for Natural Protected Areas (SERNANP) of Peru and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with support from the Global Environmental Fund (GEF). The project aims to preserve 19 of the estimated 100 lomas that only occur along the desert coasts of Peru and northern Chile. “We can’t lose the only place where this amazing flower grows,” said Adriana Kato, a communications specialist with the UNDP group working to preserve the lomas.

The disappearing fog oases in this high-elevation desert are at the crux of a demand for housing at a time when about one-third of Peru’s population, nearly 11 million people, live in Lima. While poverty levels in Peru dropped from nearly 59 percent to about 22 percent between 2004 and 2015, much of the population remained in danger of returning to poverty. With a lack of housing strategy in Lima, unorganized development has encroached into the fog oases. “It’s not just an environmental problem,” Kato said. As a UNDP report noted, the effort addresses an “unprecedented complex combination of problems.”

The endangered hills faced a unique challenge: few people have witnessed the land in its full glory because it’s covered in a blanket of mist from May to October. By the time the fog lifts, the land turns back to dry desert. Kato, who grew up in Lima, was among those who didn’t know about the nearby beauty until she joined the UNDP. “Lima is surrounded by these fog oases, these green hills, but not many people know about them,” Kato said. “We have all this, but we don’t see it.”

The UNDP’s Maria Miyasiro, a GIS and remote sensing specialist, raised awareness by building a detailed geoportal to share local apps and maps, including one named GeoLomas, to allow anyone to explore the areas that had gone unseen. Local environmental leaders, often self-taught experts in botany and laws relating to the lands, gathered data for GeoLomas using ArcGIS Survey123 app on phones and tablets to input what they observe as part of a pilot project.

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