HISTORIC INFLUENCES

Pre-Colonial Settlement

Throughout the Andes, the original peoples were nomads whose low population levels, and hunting and gathering activities, probably did not greatly affect the landscape. With the development of tools and technologies leading to a more settled, agricultural way of life, human impact on the land intensified.

The Paltas, who were a confederation of closely related tribes, farmed this region before the arrival of the Spanish. They had a communitarian approach to food production and distribution. Corn was a foundation crop, but there was some diversification of production based on altitude, with probable trading amongst groups over a fairly large geographical range. Cutting and/or burning of forest to create agricultural land would have occurred during this period. Some soil depletion may also have occurred in areas that were cultivated with a single crop over a long period. However, there was still a relatively high level of mobility among the Paltas, and compared to what is seen today, their overall ecological impact was probably relatively minor.

The Inca empire reigned in Ecuador for only a relatively short period of history; about 60 years before the Spanish conquest. However, it is likely that as in other regions of Ecuador, the hierarchical system imposed by the Incas weakened the Paltas’ communitarian structure. More centralization was required for empire-building.

Spanish Colonization

The Spanish, arriving on the heels of the major socio-economic changes that came with the Incas, wiped out the Paltas through slaughter, slave-labour mining and disease. As mestizos (those of mixed blood) moved in, trees were cut for wood and to clear new land. The huilco (wilco) tree was also cut because its bark yielded an extract for tanning leather. (For more information on the huilco tree, see the Gullies and Wooded Slopes heading under Section 3.)

Recent Changes

Until relatively recent times, Vilcabamba was quite isolated. Before construction of the road between Loja and Vilcabamba, the 50 km (30 mile) journey from Loja by horse or mule-train was long and grueling. At that time, the population of the valley was still small enough to sustain itself primarily on the fertile land in the valley bottom and near-by gentle slopes; and this is where the haciendas were concentrated. The legal awarding of new land for colonization, combined with the agrarian reform of the early 1970s, had the effect of attracting new colonists, spreading ownership amongst more people, and extending activity over a greater land area. This resulted in increased deforestation of the hillsides, as agriculture moved up onto the slopes.

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