In a five-year research programme, researchers of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) investigated depressions of the upper forest line in the Ecuadorian Andes as a result of human interference, and formulated directions for future reforestation efforts. In June 2009 they presented the final results to the Ecuadorian Vice-Minister of the Environment Blgo. Manuel Bravo.

Human impact on the upper forest line in Ecuador

The highest parts of the tropical Andes in Ecuador consist of fragile ecosystems characterized by a high biodiversity. They are mainly inhabited by indigenous populations that entirely rely on subsistence use of the natural resources in these systems. The ecosystems in these high montane areas include páramo (tropical alpine) grasslands and humid montane rain (and cloud) forests, which originally covered large tracts from Venezuela to Peru. These ecosystems fulfill important environmental functions e.g. supply of drinking and irrigation water, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, agricultural production, and tourism. Over the past decades, population pressure on the systems in question has rapidly increased and agricultural land use has strongly expanded, often using inappropriate techniques and leading to rampant degradation. Natural upper montane forests have been widely replaced by either potato cultivation or tree plantations and native páramo grasslands are over-exploited by grazing and burning.

The RUFLE programme

Over the last decades, the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) has been involved in multidisciplinary ecosystem research in support of the conservation and sustainable management of the upper Andean forest and páramo biomes, in cooperation with various organizations in the Andean region. A recent research effort was the Reconstruction of the Upper Forest Line in Ecuador (RUFLE) programme. The aim of RUFLE was to obtain better insight into the dynamics of the UFL in the Ecuadorian Andes and use it to formulate directions for future reforestation efforts in the Andean region. To overcome scientific uncertainty surrounding the natural UFL position, a multi-proxy approach was chosen to reach this goal. In this approach an innovative combination of techniques derived from soil science, molecular organic geochemistry, palynology, and vegetation ecology was set up to identify the spatio-temporal vegetation dynamics along series of short altitudinal transects that cross current and past forest-páramo ecotones in the Ecuadorian Andes.

Main conclusion of the RUFLE program was that during the last 10.000 years the UFL in the study area in northern Ecuador has not reached altitudes higher than 3600-3700 m. Consequently, the current páramo vegetation above this altitude is a natural ecosystem instead of a product of deforestation. As a consequence, from a conservational point of view Kyoto Protocol triggered reforestation activities in this part of the Ecuadorian Andes should be limited to maximally 3600. In addition, the results showed that owing to the complex interplay of factors that determine the natural location of the UFL, the results cannot be extrapolated to other similar areas. Instead the UFL in those areas must be individually assessed to guide local reforestation efforts there, using the methodology developed within the framework of the RUFLE program.