Peru

Peru is a country with a very singular ecology, having 1,2 millions km2 and 27,2 million inhabitants. It is crossed by one of the most arid deserts of the world, the desert of the South Pacific, with rainfall less than 100 mm a year; by one of the biggest and inhabited mountain ranges (7 250 km long) and by one of the most diverse and extensive forest of the planet, which constitute more than half of the territory (64%).

Also, it is necessary to emphasize that this complex nature has been shaped for more than 10 000 years by the man, which made Peru one of the agricultural centres of the world, being the origin of several cultivated plants, important for the humanity, like: potato, corn, pumpkins, tomatoes, beans, etc.

The complex nature of Peru has the Mountain range of Andes as its principal modeller, giving a mountainous orography to the country. The diversity of landscapes, climates, grounds, plants, animals, microorganisms and, finally, the great number of ways of being related to the nature (technologies), is much related to the Andes.

It is necessary to highlight that this variety of ecosystems share basic features: the climatic instability, the biological diversity and the fragility. These features are very related between themselves, then, the climatic instability is a part of the diversity of habitats, in which exist a huge diversity of the existing forms of life, the whole constituting a very delicate system: fragile.

In this Peruan environmental context, a desertification process is taking place. Although it is true that natural factors take part in this process, a special component is represented by the human factors, related, basically, to the misunderstandings arisen between the promoted development models, and the particular ecological characteristics of the country, mountainous, basically.

The natural factors are represented principally by the vulnerability of the arid zones, which in Peru constitute the third part of the country, including the arid Coast and the semiarid and sub-humid Sierra (36 % of the entire surface: 479174 km2), as well as of the big extension of the tropical rainforest (64% of the territory), especially located in the mountainous areas (Selva Alta). The determinant factor is the presence of the Andes Mountain range; this one, on the one hand, causes a tremendous water asymmetry between the western slope, where there are located the arid Coast and the semiarid and sub-humid Sierra, and the oriental slope, where the forest settles. Thus, the western slope receives only 1.7% of the whole water of the country, exactly where the human activity develops with more dynamism. On the other hand, the Andes determine the presence of droughts and frosts with a high frequency, in addition to the dispersed vegetable coverage and relative geographical isolation, in the mountain regions.

Regarding the social factors, it is important to mention that 90% of the population is settled in the mountainous arid and semiarid zones (western slope) and, therefore, most of the agricultural, industrial and mining activity of the country concentrates there. On the Coast, on the one hand, problems as salinity of the soils affects 40% of the cultivated surface of this region; on the other hand, the dry forests in north have a strong pressure due to the crisis of the cooperatives and low agricultural yields. Sierra presents strong degradation in its fragile ecosystems, the same as in Selva Alta (high parts of the oriental slope), due to desertification and the natural geologic attrition. The deterioration is caused, basically, by the human factor, as a result of the agricultural and forest activities (salinity, water, soil erosion, genetic erosion, illegal logging, etc.) and the mining activity (contamination of waters, air, etc.).

The socio-economic consequences are visible at first sight, although they have not been quantified. 90% of the population lives in areas where there is only 2% of entire quantity of water of the country and in ecosystems of high risk of desertification (mountainous arid and semiarid zones). This population is the one that presents the highest poverty levels, especially, the one of the rural mountain areas, in departments like: Cajamarca, Huancavelica, Ayacucho, Apurímac, Cusco and Puno. The absence of land in Sierra, beside the phenomenon of violence people lived in the 80 ', has generated strong migration processes. Nevertheless, in the last years, the population settled between the Coast and Sierra (90%) has presented some improvements: the poverty decreased from 54 to 47 % between 1991 and 1994, as well as the number of extremely poor population from 22 to 19%, at the moment (Focused Struggle Strategy against the Extreme Poverty 1996 - 2000. May, 1996).

As a response to this situation, different actors have carried out important efforts, translated in relative advance in the struggle against the desertification. Between these actors it is necessary to mention diverse entities of the State (PRONAMACHCS, FONCODES, INRENA, Defensa Civil...), of the civil society (rural communities, ONGs,) and local governments.