In the highlands of the Central Andes, one finds the "bofedales." Known by some as 'high Andean wetlands,' bofedales are ecosystems and landscapes crucial for water regulation and storage in the Andes. Moreover, they are natural infrastructures that constitute a material and immaterial heritage to address contemporary climate crises and to sustain local Andean communities, which have nurtured them for generations.
Wetlands have been identified in arid areas such as wadis in Africa, oases in the Middle East, and billabongs in Australia. However, "bofedales" – also known as high-altitude wetlands – have received much less analysis and study (Squeo et al., 2006). These ecosystems form in patchy formats in the central Andes, despite the difficult conditions for their existence and the great hydrological variability, typically situated in grassland areas of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina above 3100 meters above sea level (Tapia-Núñez and Flores-Ochoa, 1984).
These ecosystems, containing a wealth of organic matter, are made possible by a specific linkage between local hydrology, soil qualities, and types, along with associated biotic components (Fennesy et al., 2007). Their existence is fundamental for water provision, as well as for the growth of flora and the consequent sustenance of Andean fauna, components that are, in most cases, fundamental resources in the productive and economic chains of high Andean communities.
High Andean communities have ancestrally been able to expand artificially the bofedales through traditional practices by irrigating arid areas in the puna and thus improving ecosystemic, water, and productive conditions. The impacts compared to their ecological value as well as around the ecosystem services they provide, as well as hydrological, ecological, and soil dynamics, are being recently studied by various initiatives that will enable the development of strategies for better management of these ecosystems and understanding the differences and similarities compared to natural bofedales (Monge-Salazar et al., 2022). The creative capacity of the landscape and the role played by the communities adjacent to them until today for their maintenance, generation, and regeneration is evident, creating and recreating, based on their structuring logic, the Andean landscape in communion and balance with its environment for the expansion of the ecosystemic benefits they provide.
Currently, many threats exist over the bofedales such as the illicit extraction of peat - also known as "champería" - for subsequent sale in nurseries as high-value organic soil (Ziegler, 2020), as well as overgrazing - also due to the change from camelid livestock to livestock with greater weight than they can normally support, such as sheep or cattle - or drainage. Therefore, it is crucial to highlight their importance in the hydrological cycle and their fundamental value for the local economy of Andean communities, as well as the provision at a multiscale level (local, regional, and global) of ecosystem services.
In this regard, it is necessary to recognize the multiple benefits they provide, whether as valuable pastures for high Andean livestock, water storage, and regulation - being capable of acting as 'sponges' in the territory and collecting and safeguarding waters released by glaciers and rainfall, as well as groundwater -, as well as, at a landscape level, slowing down precipitation runoff and benefiting slow flows in rivers downstream (Foster, Chien & Kieser, 2020), which entails benefits and impacts at the regional level as well. Globally, concerning climate change adaptation and carbon sequestration services, bofedales are considered fundamental pieces due to their high carbon storage capacity since, despite only accounting for 3% of the Earth's surface, they contain 30% of the carbon existing in the planet's soils (Limpens et al., 2008).
It is crucial to recognize bofedales as ecosystems and infrastructural landscapes that are part of the physical territory, as well as within the imagination of our Andean territories, acknowledging their tangible and intangible value, and continuing their research to foster better interventions while ensuring the water security of the territory. Likewise, from a design perspective, we should begin to see them as projective strategies that can be conceived for the benefit of all Andean communities and as specific inputs for improving living conditions, allowing us to imagine alternative futures for our Andean landscapes based on the specific knowledge that, even today, though with difficulty, is preserved within them.
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