David FLOOD CHAVEZ, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Piotr NIEWIADOMSKI, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Despite providing important ecosystem services and having a unique ecological value, the fog oases (seasonal ecosystems in the coastal areas of Peru and Chile) scattered around the City of Lima, face various human-imposed threats, with informal urbanisation and land-trafficking being the main drivers of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss which thrive in a context of apparent absence of the state and increasing corruption. As a response, local communities organise themselves to protect their fog oases by means of promoting ecotourism and exercising “everyday governance” which has given them an important political role at the local level.
The paper adopts an urban political ecology perspective to demonstrate that the different claims on the land which fog oases occupy reflect poor urban planning and the under-developed legal framework and, as such, they are inevitably intertwined with the wider structures of power across the city. Those power structures can be traced back to political decisions in the 1950s that created the conditions for the emergence of “two different cities” within Lima: one with a conventional urban planning and better access to public services, and one characterised by land-invasions, self-help constructions, and poor urban conditions which in many cases overlaps with fog oases.
Drawing from interviews with key stakeholders and various available documentation, the paper analyses the operations of local tourism organisations in Lima and finds that, although they strengthen local governance and contribute to the conservation of fog oases, they are constantly confronted with various formal and informal hurdles. The paper also demonstrates that ecotourism could be used as a bottom-up strategy by local communities to draw the attention of political actors to problems that they could not see otherwise.
Mots clés : urban political ecology|environmental degradation|everyday governance|ecotourism|land-trafficking
A105307DF