Forest Memories Camila Ruiz, Miriam Lagunas, Kaelin Mudd, Natalia Rico, Bryce Hutchins, Emma Stanfield December 4, 2018 Forest Memories: Mapping Post-Disturbance Trajectories in the Cultural-Ecological Landscape of the Huife Watershed Abstract: Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century, the Mapuche people in Southern Chile survived by hunting and gathering, with light cultivation of crops and minimal impact on their surrounding environment. Although the Spanish were ineffective in their attempts to take control of Mapuche inhabited lands after the 16th century, once the Chilean state was established, they forcefully and brutally started to push the Mapuche from their ancestral lands. Following the pacification of the Araucanía, the Chilean government granted former Mapuche lands to immigrants and various industries. The modern period of the 1900’s is characterized by the implementation of western ideals of land ownership that have transformed the Mapuche way of life. Within the Huife watershed in the Araucanía region, our research identifies the most dramatic disturbance events as the displacement of Mapuche people and a large forest fire, both which occurred in the early to mid 1900s. These two disturbances involved changes in the paths of both cultural and ecological aspects within the Huife watershed. Thus, our research aims to examine how these disturbances have made an impact on the cultural and ecological memory throughout the Huife watershed, and how that memory is still being communicated within the processes of resilience. The research will be examined through the theoretical lenses of alternate stable states, hysteresis, and cultural and ecological memory to better explain how the two (culture and ecological memory) are similarly affected by the same disturbances. Our study was aimed at trying to understand how the memories of the forest are communicated via culture and composition. The results from the vegetation plots conducted in Kod Kod showed how the remnant trees are passing down their ecological memory to a vastly different secondary forest, that was heavily affected by the fire which affected the area 80 years ago. Further ecological surveys exposed a more heterogeneous vegetation cover around old growth treatment trees, and homogenous covers around secondary growth roble trees. The results from drawing and talking with children from the school Carileufu showed that a small number children had advanced knowledge of what species were in their forest and what functions they played in the forest, but not many of the disturbances that affected the forest. The interviews with actors from the Huife watershed helped to pinpoint the key disturbances that the community members felt were important and how some knowledge had been lost, and how some knowledge maintained its resilience. The cultural and ecological memory of the forest have gone through similar paths in terms of loss and resiliency in reaction to the disturbance events. Each
has since settled at an alternate stable state distinct from its pre-disturbance state. In conclusion, these elder figures—old growth trees and older generations—have the capacity to sustain life through processes that have learned to adapt and build resilience to major disturbances. Keywords: Mapuche, ancestral, culture, ecology, memory, Huife watershed, alternative stable state, forest, resiliency, disturbance. Introduction: The research illustrated here evaluates how the cultural and ecological history of the Mapuche and campesino community members along the Huife watershed region coincides with ideas of disturbance, response and resilience. Our research takes a mixed-method approach in order to understand how forest composition and local cultures recall memory of previous states and how the behavior of these trajectories interact. We raise the question of how landscape transformations have ripple effects on secondary forest composition and subsequently on cultural practices and traditions. Theoretical frameworks aid in demonstrating the connections between ecological and cultural memories throughout time. This research seeks to establish how historical disturbances and secondary impacts affect resiliency and capacity to find alternative stable states. Parallels can be drawn between the different alternative stable states and recovery paths of both the ecological and cultural memory in the Huife watershed. Pre-Contact Period The regions of Southern Chile have been marked by radical transformations following the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. These effects have resulted in long-lasting effects on the ecological and cultural landscape, altering the trajectories of recovery for both local ecologies and the human inhabitants of the region. In pre-Columbian times, the Mapuche culture was defined by their hunter-gatherer activities. These activities were largely determined by geograpraphy. Groups living near the ocean and rivers depended more on fishing, while other groups further inland relied more on hunting and gathering. These activities defined the semi-nomadic nature of their communities. Seasonal availability of game animals or carbohydrate sources, such as the piñon, dictated the seasonal movement of communities across their territories (Montalba, 2014). In addition to these hunter-gather activities, the Mapuche also had proto-agricultural activities, mostly consisting of minor animal husbandry, cultivation of some crops, and hunting-gathering activities in the surrounding forests and streams. Agricultural activities were primarily confined to selected locations in the lowland valleys of the central depression. Considering forests comprised a large component of their territory, some 4 million out of 5.5 million hectares, these activities had a minimal disturbance effect on forest ecosystems (Montalba, 2014). Period of Mapuche Resistance
The Mapuche relationship to the land changed following the arrival of the Spanish in Southern Chile in the mid-1500s. The Spanish fought to control the territories of the Mapuche; however, due to strong resistance they ceded regional autonomy to them through treaty in 1641. The following two centuries were characterized by relatively high territorial integrity south of the Bío Bío river (Akhtar, 2013). Despite their relative autonomy, Mapuche culture and traditions were transformed by the arrival of European livestock and crops in the 16th century. Wheat, a crop adapted to the frosts and acidic soils of the volcanic south, was quickly adopted. Cattle also was integrated, transforming Mapuche communities into semi-nomadic groups as they searched for pastures (Montalba, 2014). Cattle herds became status symbols within Mapuche society, followed by the development of a minor commercial or mercantile economy. There was a corresponding shift towards the centralization of Mapuche society. Some Mapuche groups began to settle in permanent villages and became less reliant on hunter-gather activities. The Mapuche, despite creating new value in wheat crops and cattle stock, did not degrade the environment via overgrazing nor land clearing. Instead, they adapted these new pastoral and agricultural systems to their existing realities (Montalba, 2014). The Mapuche were able to adapt to these new activities and create societal resilience to the ravages of European disease and war. However, the mass arrival of European settlers in Mapuche territory during the mid-19th century had compromising ecological and societal effects. Beginnings of Chilean State Period The main factor driving the expansion of the Chilean-state south into the Mapuche regions of Southern Chile was its desire to exploit the vast reserves of natural resources. The population of newly independent Chile had rapidly swelled beyond the supporting capacity of the valleys near Santiago. The liberal Chilean state directed initiatives to modernize the country and assert control across the extent of its borders (Crow, 2014). These aims came at the expense of the sovereignty of Mapuche communities as they were forcibly removed from their traditional territories. Their sense of territoriality, centered on the stewardship of local resources, was out of sync with the desires of the state. Support for the project can be exhibited by the major newspaper, El Mercurio, in 1859 when it wrote, “there is no more glorious and dignified endeavor for our army than to take control of those barbarians, in the name of civilization … and conquering for our country those vast, rich territories” (Crow 2014, p. 22). The demand for farmland increased as the Chilean state encouraged European migration to southern regions. Violent conflicts over encroachment emerged between the new settlers and the Mapuche. In order to defend the interests of these settlers the Chilean state formally sent the military to ‘civilize’ the Mapuche and appropriate their lands. This process, known as the pacification of the Araucania, ended in a final military conflict in 1881 (Akhtar, 2013). Following the military defeat of the Mapuche in the late 1800s, the regions south of the Bío Bío river were opened up for settlement. Auctioned to immigrants, given to war veterans, and snapped up by speculators, the expropriated territories of the Mapuche was rapidly
transformed. The extensive native forests were cleared and burned (Montalba, 2014). The ash left behind by the ancient forests made the soil incredibly productive and fertile for wheat farms. The rapid spread of wheat production in the southern regions of Chile created a large and important export commodity for the fledgling Chilean economy. Due to the intensive nature of the agricultural system, nutrients were soon leached from the soil and barren fields quickly eroded away. What had once been vast productive forests soon became a wasteland (Montalba, 2014). Rapid economic development of the region was an additional force pushing the Mapuche people off their territories. Under the reservation system, the Mapuche were confined to 525,000 hectares in 3,078 separate reserves. These lands were intended for the communal use of the Mapuche, however the Chilean government retained control over these lands and continued to appropriate the most valuable lands (Akhtar, 2013). The European model of land use is in sharp contrast to the historical uses of the Mapuche people. The Mapuche had a much smaller ecological impact than the colonial settlers. This is in part due to their smaller population size, but more importantly due to their economic model and cultural epistemology which understands oneself as belonging to the land. Unlike the colonists, the Mapuche were not raising cattle and growing wheat for an export market. Their society was characterized by their subsistence land ethic. This land use mentality invokes an inherent sustainability because the future of their families and society depended on the sustainable use of natural resources. The settler population, on the other hand, had already moved from farms further north or had immigrated from Europe, their paradigm was one of land exploitation (Montalba, 2014). From these beginnings, the Chilean state embarked on its purge of the Mapuche people from their traditionally held territories. The engine of progress was being slowed down by what the Chileans saw as a group of people who embodied the non-modern past. In order to move forward, the Mapuche had to be eliminated or transformed into objects of control by the states Modern Period In the late 1900s, efforts by presidents Eduardo Frei Montalva and Salvador Allende collectively returned 70,000 hectares to Mapuche peoples whom had ancestral ties to the specific territories (Carruthers & Rodriguez, 2009). This act of reparation is symbolic in the that Mapuche peoples held value of attributing great importance to ancestral territories was being respected and valued. Following the military coup in 1973, the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet abruptly and violently receded the gains made towards Mapuche territorialization and justice. With Pinochet, a modern enclosure movement began in the Araucanía region as “corporate profit maximization, intensive land use, and enforcement of restrictive property rights places ever larger portions of the landscape off limits to poor rural inhabitants” (Clapp, 1995). This is part of a long running transformative process acting on the Mapuche people. The impacts of territorial attrition are notable for their effects on cultural resilience and the ability for local people to practice their cultural activities and traditions. For the Mapuche borders were porous, land was collectively owned and managed through traditions of usufructuary privilege or inheritance
(Giminiani, 2016). The western system of land tenure enforced upon them eroded their cultural identity, namely their concept of Tuwün, a concept within the Mapuche cosmovision that represents their sense of origin paired with a social group. In short, in Mapuche culture it is deeply important to know where you are from and who the people are attached to that place (Giminiani, 2016). The land itself is given agency; people are seen more as caretakers of the land rather than owners. Unfortunately, as Mapuche people were displaced from their lands through the 20th century, this vital sense of self has been destroyed for many people. Direct connection to ancestral territories for the Mapuche represents their capacity to recover, strengthen, and live in practice of their cultural identity. However, the Chilean State’s denial to recognize and return territory to Mapuche peoples continuously threatens the efforts for cultural revitalization. This also futhers communities from practicing cultural traditions, ceremonies, and the lack of access to territory perpetuates a disconnect from passing down traditional ecological knowledge across generations. Narrow History Understanding the historical context is critical to linking how the memories and values of cultural identity are communicated and how they parallel the memories, or remnants of the landscape. The memories of the forest imply the biological legacies that have withstood persistent changes and still remain in the landscape. The disturbance events in Southern Chile have occurred on both a broad regional scale, but also on the scale of local communities. In the area of the Huife watershed, a valley in the Andean foothills next to the Villarrica volcano, these disturbance events paralleled the events in the wider Araucanía region. Following the implementation of the reservation system in the late 19th century, Mapuche people were settled in the heavily forested valley. The arrival of settlers reduced the size of their reservation and their territory became increasingly fragmented. The disturbances affecting the area were not only limited to the social-cultural landscape, the ecological landscape was also being heavily altered by shifts in land use and land tenure. The most prominent ecological disturbance in the valley was a series of anthropogenically induced fires around the 1940s, preceded by the heavy logging of old growth coilgüe and roble forests. These combined disturbance events had a strong effect on the cultural-ecological landscape of the Huife Watershed. The fires transformed the forested hillsides and wetlands that composed the valley. The fires were set purposefully to clear the land and facilitate the transformation of the forested landscape to an agriculture and pastoral system. Wheat-fields then became the dominant agricultural activity, while timber harvesting continued in the higher reaches of the mountains unaffected by the previous fires. The result of these disturbances was the radical transformation of the ecosystems that Mapuche people had used to sustain themselves. By the early 1900s the valley was also inhabited by a community of settled campesino agriculturalists. They too were forced to alter their economic and cultural activities following the effects of these disturbances.
These impacts have lasting impacts ecologically in the landscape still visible today by fire scars on few remnant trees, stumps, and an overall different species composition, diversity and abundance which varies throughout the landscape. The lasting cultural impacts too are remnant through the presence of diverse actors and stakeholders with varying livelihoods, perspectives and historical understandings. Thus as an exploration of these historic disturbances, their effects to cultural practices and the ecological remnants on the landscape, we ask The modern Chilean state and its pacification of the Araucania region was the most recent and drastic disturbance on the ecological structure of the forests in the region as well as the cultural memory of the people. The historical background of the Huife watershed area displays how the movements of people and transformation of land has influenced the functionality of Mapuche and campesino culture. Our research identifies major disturbances to the Huife watershed region, including a disastrous fire that occurred about eighty years ago, as well as the introduction of Western culture via colonial settlement and immigration. We analyze this disturbance, of the modern chilean state along with a series of other disruptions to people and land, to understand how the transformation of land has interconnected trajectories with the communities and peoples who inhabit that land. Parallels can be drawn between the weakening of cultural transmission and ecological memory, along with subsequent resiliency that arises from these disturbances. Through qualitative and quantitative research, we attempt to discern and interpret the presence of ecological and cultural memory that exists in the Huife watershed after several disturbances. The research assesses how the cultural and ecological memory within our study region affect and inform each other through periods of disturbance and resilience. Theoretical Framework Ideas of resilience, stability and thresholds will be deployed throughout the paper for the purpose of critical analysis frameworks for both culture and ecology. This paper seeks to understand the role of disturbance in influencing cultural and ecological memory, by situating the research objective within a set of theoretical frameworks. Resilience can be understood as the capacity of a system, either ecological or cultural, to respond and recover after a disturbance event. Such a response manifests as the continued maintenance of normal patterns, processes, productions, traditions, structures, and function. Disturbances events act on multiple temporal scales, influencing forest and ecological patterns and processes; similarly, disturbance trajectories and disturbance characteristics shape forest and ecological response resilience to environmental change (Johnstone, et al. 2016). Stability is present within a system if changes become normalized across time and whether or not that same system has capacity to return to an equilibrium state (resilience). According to the theory of alternative stable states, any system can have more than one state of stability and such regime shifts happen abruptly rather than gradually (Blackwood, 2018). The theory is typically applied to ecological systems, with the idea that the supporting structures or functions that maintain system resilience have been pushed beyond the natural range of disturbance and are subsequently unable to return to the prior
condition. Because the original conditions that maintained the system no longer exist or are too damaged to function at their prior capacity, the system can no longer rely on inherent or natural resilience to recover on a normal post-disturbance trajectory. Within modeling and discussion of the previous terms, specifically resilience and disturbance, exists hysteresis, which “tracks the trajectory of change within some system in response to externalities” (Nikanorov and Sukhoruhov 2008; Searle, et al. 2009). Furthermore, “hysteresis seeks to understand to what extent has that system called upon its own history to return to its past state or to change states” (Nikanorov and Sukhoruhov 2008; Searle, et al. 2009). By using an understanding of hysteretic processes, this paper seeks to map out the delayed recovery of the Huife watershed ecosystem after disturbance. It is critical to denote that hysteresis combines ideas of time and recognizes that the history within any cultural or ecological system can transcend elements typically within the discussion of such topics. More clearly, politics, laws and other decisions can be created in response to disturbance, perturbance, or related affect. Although such ecological terms have not typically been extended to socio-ecological or cultural studies, they provide a novel perspective for analysis within the context of this paper. Memory is a concept typically applied within cultural and psychological studies; however, memory studies serve within the ecological context of this paper as well. According to Jan Assman, memory can be understood as the “faculty that enables one to form an awareness of selfhood (identity), both on the personal and collective level” (Assman 2008). Cultural memory can be defined as heritage embodied in a collective domain that encompasses and combines ideas of time (both past and present), space, embodiment, and object (Assman 2008). In this respect, our paper seeks to use such frameworks to understand how cultural memory transmission within intergenerational populations along the Huife watershed has corresponded to the transformations made within local forest landscapes. Through this, the trajectory of cultural resilience can be traced and an analytical examination can be made about cultural stability throughout different time periods. In this same respect, the ecological memories held by forests are quintessential and central in understanding system response to disturbance. Forests are complex systems that are able to actively accumulate information over long periods of time. Memories, in the form of biological legacies, are accumulated over time and are able to influence future trajectories, particularly post events of perturbations. According to Johnstone, et.al.: Species life-history traits represent an adaptive response to disturbance and are an information legacy; in contrast, the abiotic and biotic structures (such as seeds or nutrients) produced by single disturbance events are material legacies. Disturbance characteristics that support or maintain these legacies enhance ecological resilience and maintain a “safe operating space” for ecosystem recovery. However, legacies can be lost or diminished as disturbance regimes and environmental conditions, generating resilience
debt that manifests only after the system is disturbed. Strong effects of ecological memory on post‐disturbance dynamics imply that contingencies (effects that cannot be predicted with certainty) of individual disturbances, interactions among disturbances, and climate variability combine to affect ecosystem resilience. (Johnstone, et al. 2016). Essentially, ecological or forest memory of past ecosystem states shape forest resilience to disturbance “transmitted as legacies of species adaptations and materials that support recovery” (Johnstone, et al. 2016). Biological legacies in ecology, such as ancient trees, are important agents of recovery and resilience. Studies have found that forests with close proximity to biological legacies, or remnants, recover more quickly as such elements act as primary sources for recruitment (Filotas 2014). In areas of high disturbance, such as the Huife watershed, these biological legacies provide an opportunity to understand historical forest structure and composition and can be a guide for restoration projects. Furthermore, biological legacies have the capacity to pioneer regeneration in a landscape. We will illustrate the relation of ecological and cultural memory via hysteresis models, resilience-disturbance displays, stable state and ecological threshold frameworks. Research Question Alternative stable states and hysteresis along with frameworks for cultural and ecological memory will be used to inform the question leading the research; How are the memories of the forest communicated via culture and composition? Our understanding of historical and on-going disturbances in the region have shaped our theoretical framework. Exploring how ecological disturbances events in the landscape have coincided, informed, paralleled, or supported social practices have in turn had an affect on cultural functions , livelihoods, and traditions. These frameworks will also aid in describing the connections between ecological and cultural memories through time. The objectives within the research project to explore the research question further, are to understand what remnants of the old growth forest are present within the composition of secondary forest locations. This research seeks to demonstrate historical disturbances and its impacts to old growth forest and it’s resiliency, by surveying vegetation plots. It aims to evaluate how cultural memory has been communicated, by conducting interviews to understand how local communities understand or remember changes to the land. Hysteresis and alternative stable states will be utilized to show what the research has been trying to identify; how changes within the landscape correspond to transformation within local communities. Parallels can be drawn between the different alternative stable states and recovery paths of both the ecological and cultural memory in the Huife watershed. Methodology
The authors of this paper deployed a variety of complementary research techniques. From secondary sources, we collected a historical review of the Araucanía region in terms of natural resources, ecology, and culture. This was complimented with 2 in-depth, unstructured interviews with the Mapuche Presidenta Elizabeth and Roberto, a tour guide for Santuario El Cañi, along the Huife watershed, who provided detailed oral histories of the socio-ecological past of the area. These community interviews contributed to this part of the research by allowing members to share their experiences, history, and traditional knowledge, which was used to analyze the socio-ecological parallel between the composition of secondary forests and the changes of culture in the region. We organized the history according to pre-contact period (high functionality), period of Mapuche resistance, period of Chilean state, and modern period. We also conducted a participant observation activity for 17 young scholars at the local Carileufu School along the Huife watershed region, ranging from 11 to 13 years old. The activity consisted of drawing forests and the cultural and historical connections in order to gain insight on where along socio-ecological memory trajectory youth and future generations stood. Following this activity, we then took the students on the same trail where the ecological surveys were conducted and made brief stops along certain trees such as the large remnant laurel tree which Kod Kod calls the ‘Magic Tree.’ We also stopped at a few other old growth trees including a live healthy roble, a dead stump, and a standing dead tree. After the hike, the students were returned to their initial drawings to add any elements to their forest drawing they thought necessary. In addition to this, sets of vegetation survey sites were conducted, as detailed below. Ecological Surveys We developed 8 survey sites, five of these were within the Kod Kod property and three were slightly outside of the area (Fig 1). All sites were in the same forest type. The survey sites were each comprised of two plots, a control and a treatment plot. Both of these 2.5m fixed radius plots used a tree as plot center. The treatment plots were selected by finding remnant trees, large living trees or dead stumps that were residual from the pre-disturbance forest condition. The control plots were determined based off the location of the treatment plots. The treatment trees were to representative of the old growth condition of the forest while the control trees were to be secondary growth from post-disturbance regeneration. The disturbance we are using as a benchmark were the logging activities followed by extensive fires in the Huife watershed in the early 1900s. To locate the control plots we developed a set of guidelines to ensure consistency in plot selection. A random compass bearing was selected by spinning a pen. We followed the compass bearing 20 meters along the bearing and selected the closest tree greater than 10 cm dbh. This distance was chosen to remove any effects below or above ground from the remnant tree. The tree selected at 20m was the plot center for our control plots. The protocol for our vegetation surveys consisted of running a 5m diameter transect in a north-south direction to measure tree regeneration. Only tree regeneration within 0.5 meters on either side of the transect was measured. Regeneration was recorded within three size class
ranges, 2 – 10 cm dbh, 11 – 25 cm dbh, and >25 cm dbh; these size classes were additionally stratified by species. Tree species less than 2 cm dbh were not recorded as part of the regeneration plot. A survey was conducted within the 2.5 fixed radius plot to determine the total presence of tree species. We also conducted a survey of percent visual cover of coarse woody debris and bamboo understory. Coarse woody debris was defined as having a diameter greater than 7.5cm. Percentage visual cover was measured in increments of 5 percentage points, however percentages close to zero were to be represented as 1%. The trees at the center of each plot were also surveyed for a variety of structural components, such as: dbh, species and decay class. Then, we used a presence and absence checklist to look for bryophytes, lichens, fungi, cavities, vines, dead branches, fire scars, and epiphytes. Epiphytes were considered to be any plant using the tree as a substrate other than vines, lichens, fungi, or bryophytes Results The 5 meter transects measuring the regeneration of tree species in both the treatment and the control plots were intended to show differences in the composition of tree regeneration around the remnant trees and the secondary growth trees. The distribution of size classes also helped to show the future trajectories of the forest composition and structure. The results of these surveys show a heterogeneous composition of size classes within the treatment plots. The survey showed a high number of maqui trees in the 2 – 10 cm dbh size class, as well as some in the larger 11 – 25 cm dbh size class. The plots also showed a diversity of species within the different size classes, indicating that throughout the regeneration history there was a variety of temporally distinct regeneration events. (Fig. 2). The control plots showed a much different distribution. The size class distribution of tree regeneration within the control plot were largely homogeneous. There was a greater diversity of tree species within the smallest size class, however the two larger size classes only had regeneration of roble (Fig. 3). This is indicative of the second growth nature of the forest. The forest structure in the control plots was a roble dominated stand. The forest regenerated following disturbance events early in the 20th century, leaving a biological legacy in the forests species composition. The single cohort of roble is determining future trajectories of the forest’s composition and structure. Roble, a shade intolerant species, is not regenerating in any of the control or treatment plots. The only roble individuals recorded were in the two larger size classes and likely part of the same cohort as the dominant roble stand. The lack of a younger cohort indicates that there will not be a smooth transition to a diverse composition of tree species in the future stand. The lingue and laurel trees that were in the large size classes had regenerated around the treatment trees but not around the control trees, showing that the composition of the forest is being altered by these residual individuals. One of the principle goals of our research was to discover if remnant individuals from the pre-disturbance forest were transmitting ecological memory into the present forest condition. We looked for evidence of this transmission by looking for key structural and biological elements
that were found on the residual tree and not on the secondary growth trees. We found that 75% of the treatment trees had decay class 4, meaning that they were dead stumps without branches; while for the control trees, 88% of them were class 1, meaning that they were live healthy trees. Epiphytic elements such as ferns and vines were much more common on the treatment trees than the control trees (Fig. 4). These are elements that were typical of the old growth condition of the pre-disturbance forest. The remnant trees preserve and transmit this ecological memory into the current forest’s structure. This memory is evident because these elements are predominantly found around the residual trees rather than in the secondary forest. Further, biological legacies are found by looking at the presence of fire scars, dead branches, and cavities. Fire scars were present in 88% of the treatment trees while they were absent from the control trees, illustrating the legacy of fire in creating the current forest condition. The presence of dead branches were higher in the control trees, however this is due to the high number of dead stumps used as treatment trees. All of the treatment trees had evidence of cavities while none of the control trees did (Fig. 4). The high degree of mutualism with bird species and trees in the Chilean forest highlights the importance of cavities for bird biodiversity. Due to a lack of cavities in the second growth forest condition it can be assumed that the habitat needed for these bird species is substandard. The percentage visual cover of bamboo understory was zero for all of our treatment and control plots. The mean percentage cover of coarse woody debris was 7.4% in the treatment plots, slightly higher than the control plots where mean cover was 5.8%. There was not uniform regeneration of tree species in the treatment and control plots. There were seven tree species that were common to both plot types, however the treatment plots had 3 unique tree species and the control plots had 2 (Fig. 5). The total number of identified tree species from the plots around Kod Kod was 12 species. The beta value, a landscape level biodiversity metric, was calculated to be 1.26. The activity with the children provided an insight into their perception of their forest, and the different cultural actors that have played a role in their understanding of the forest. During our walk in the forest, we focused on the importance of snags, and pointed out the ways that snags provide structural diversity, are the substrate to other life forms, and provide nutrients to the regenerating forest. Before students added to their original drawings, they were engaging in conversations about the forest while actually walking through the forest. Some students may have felt pressure to draw structural elements of the forest that had been discussed during the walk in the woods. More limiting however, was that most students did not exclusively use one color before the nature walk, and one other color after the walk. The purpose of this instruction was to distinguish and recognize new elements that the children may have had observed while walking in the forest. Because most children used more than two colors total, it was difficult to analyze with certainty the elements which were drawn after the walk. However, the drawings overall had significant findings being that the students conceptualized forests as dynamic ecosystems. As shown in Figure 8, the students included atmospheric elements (sun, clouds,
rain), topographical diversity, (mountains, volcanos, hills, valleys, ground level), infrastructure (roads, bridges, shelter), animals (birds, hog, frogs, fish, squirrel, dog), water (lakes and rivers) and complex forest structures (understory plants, snags, multistrada, heterogenous trees) demonstrating a complex understanding of the forest.
Fig. 1. Map of the control and treatment sites at Kod Kod Field Station
Fig. 2. Size class distribution of regenerating tree species in the treatment plot. Distribution stratified by species and displayed in trees recorded per transect.
Fig. 3. Size class distribution of regenerating tree species in the control plot. Distribution stratified by species and displayed in trees recorded per transect.
Column1
Bryophytes Lichens
Vines
Fungi
Cavity
Dead Branches
Fire Scar
Epiphytes
Treatment 100% Percentage Present
100%
75%
13%
100%
38%
88%
50%
Control 100% Percentage Present
100%
63%
0%
0%
50%
0%
25%
Fig. 4. Percentage presence of biological and structural elements in control and treatment plots
Treatment Plot
Control Plot
Species
Number of Plots Where Present
Species
Number of Plots Where Present
Arce
3
Arce
2
Arrayán
8
Arrayán
5
Arrayán Macho 2
Arrayán Macho
4
Fresno
2
Asara
1
Laurel
1
Fresno
1
Lingue
3
Lingue
5
Maqui
8
Maqui
8
Olivillo
1
Radale
1
Piñol
2
Roble
4
Roble
5
Fig. 5. Species composition of 2.5m fixed radius plots for the treatment and control trees
Element Drawn
Percent of Students who included Element
Sun
71
Clouds
53
Rain
18
Trees
94
Homogeneous Stands
53
Heterogeneous Stands
41
Stumps
35
Understory Plants
18
Water (Lake and/or River)
47
Mountains
41
Mountains with Snow
35
Infrastructure
24
Animals
71
Fig 8. Table of Elements depicted by children in their illustrations. No distinguishment was made between elements drawn before and after nature walk due to the limitation in our methodology, being that most children used more than two colors.
Alternative Stable States of the Ecological-Cultural Landscape of Araucania, Chile
Fig 9. Visual Representation of the alternative stable states in relation to cultural and ecological disturbances throughout the Araucania Region. This representation seeks to illustrate the general increase of frequency of disturbance events to further discussions on resiliency. Discussion: Environmental disturbances have impacted the species composition and ecosystem dynamics of forests while also having corresponding effects on the cultural practices of local people. The effects of these disturbance events on the cultural-ecological landscape have been recorded both in the cultural memory and the ecological memory as altered trajectories of post-disturbance recovery. Remnant trees are voices of the past and indicators of their own history that are important actors in the regeneration of the secondary forests. While ecological surveys of these remnant trees indicate that the ecological memory of the pre-disturbance forest is being transferred into the current structure and species composition of the forest, a comparative analysis of control plots in the secondary growth forests show that these memory effects are spatially isolated around the remnant tree. Despite the influence of these memory effects, the structure and function of the regenerated forest has not recovered to the same pre-disturbance state. Instead, the forest, through hysteretic processes, is settling on an
alternative stable state. The new forest condition lacks many of the elements considered important for local cultural activities, as well as key habitat elements important for biodiversity. The structure and species composition of the secondary forest at Kod Kod is now in a different state of equilibrium than the pre-disturbance forest, so much so that the possibility of returning to the pre-disturbance state is simply not possible. Originally a coigüe-roble mixed forest, it is now dominated by roble trees. Evidence of this shift is found by looking at the regeneration of tree species in the treatment and control plots. The treatment plots were characterized by the heterogeneous composition of species and size classes, whereas the control plots were much more homogenous. The control plots only had significant tree regeneration in the smallest size class, while the larger size classes were other mature roble trees. This contrasts to the treatment plots where there is a diversity of tree species across size classes. This is informative for understanding the complexity of the forest structure around each plot. Higher complexity of structure and higher diversity are general indicators of higher ecosystem function. The homogenous nature of the secondary forest limits its ecosystem function, most importantly its ability to provide appropriate habitat for wildlife and niches for culturally significant plants. The analysis of the structure of the secondary forest indicates its movement to an alternative stable state. The forest has become dominated by roble trees, predominantly of the same size and age class. The forest will continue regenerating in this homogenous fashion due to the available seed inputs. While present around the treatment trees, there were no lingue and laurel trees measured in the control transects. The absence of these trees indicated that there will be no new seed inputs to promote regeneration. Surveys of all regenerating tree species in the control and treatment plots shows that there is a beta value of 1.26, indicating that there is a higher than expected turnover in species between the two plots. These results are surprising because the plot types were only separated by 20m of forest. While there is an apparent influence of the remnant tree on surrounding species composition and forest structure, these effects are relatively limited in scope and the forest of a whole is on an altered trajectory. Subsequently the composition trajectory of the secondary forest is likely to be dominated by roble. The presence of regenerating species is indicative of the future trajectories of the forest and show that the forest will be unable to recover to its prior condition. This follows the theory of alternative stable states, where a disturbance event pushes an ecosystem to a point beyond recovery. There are parallels between the post-disturbance recovery of the forest and the efforts of local people in the Huife watershed to recover their cultural practices. The disturbances that removed the native forest cover also contributed to the disturbance of cultural memory as elements needed for cultural practice were extirpated from the area. For the Mapuche, this was caused both by the arrival of colonial settlers who fragmented and limited access to their traditional territories, and lack of appropriate bio-cultural resources following fire. Following these disturbance events, Mapuche people have begun to recover their cultural memory and uses of traditional materials; however, due to the altered post-disturbance ecology of the forests, recovery has been pushed into a different trajectory. While currently able to sustain a number of
traditions, the local culture is existing in an alternative stable state. Without access to resources needed for cultural activities and rituals, these communities are unable to totally recover to their original condition. By using the resources provided by secondary growth forests, communities are also settling on an alternative stable state. Both ecological and cultural memory, being analyzed through the forest composition and cultural actors, have been inextricably related throughout the Huife watershed by a shared disturbance history. For one of the actors, these events have had a significant impact on the how her culture has been able function in terms of land and resource accessibility. The interview with Mapuche Presidenta Elizabeth exposed the local disturbances to her Mapuche community over the past 100 years. Elizabeth talked about the persecution of the Mapuche people in the Huife watershed who were expected to integrate into the Chilean lifestyle. She discussed a lapse in time up until now where the Mapuche people were not able to practice rituals, in fear of being massacred by the Chilean government. This occurred at relatively the same time as the deforestation within the Huife watershed, and influenced the Mapuche abilities to access their forest and practice their historical use of the land. According to her, as colonials entered the land and were given specific plots by deployments of fire and deforestation, a language loss began, which represented cultural loss at the same instance especially considering the oral importance of Mapudungun. As indicated by the secondary forest within the Huife watershed the forest is now on an alternate stable state, likewise the cultural memory of the Mapuche people is on a path of resiliency but at an alternative state. Presidenta Elizabeth indicated that after 100 years of experiencing extreme discrimination, her people faced the topic of community redevelopment as a plan or conversation. She noted that Mapuche culture had recovered and maintained certain traditions, relating to solstices, new year, and other major events. Similar to the ecological disturbance that cleared out the old growth forest and introduced an alternative stable state of roble growth, the decrease in Mapuche culture functionality has caused an alternative stable state in its path of revibrancy and recollection of culture. As president of her Mapuche community, Elizabeth illuminates her understanding of ‘place’ through a hysteretic foundation of analyzing the past. Though practices have been lost and will remain so, the community has been resilient enough to maintain an alternate state of culture. Elizabeth explained that her community was revitalized over the bond of traditional practices, connection to the land, and a communal cemetery in their region. Elizabeth’s depiction of her community’s history of disturbance, resilience, and connection to the land coincides with the Mapuche concept of tuwün. Giminiani briefly defines ‘tuwün’ as a place of origin that is evoked by Mapuche as a quintessential element of the self (Giminiani, 2016). The Mapuche term, ‘tuwün’ breeches the one-dimensional understanding of the word ‘place.’ Both the geographic attributes of the land as well as the spiritual presence of ancient dwellers actively influence present dwellers of a particular landscape (Giminiani, 2016). Tuwün illuminates how land or place holds memories and how the remnants of one’s lineage illuminate that place. Although the Mapuche are
geographically and culturally fragmented people, due to colonial dispossession and displacement, their people carry an innate component of tuwün within the shared collective, moreover, a cultural memory. Within this idea of tuwün, the people and land that construct a place work with each other in a respectful, cohesive manner. While the anthropological era introduced practices that are ostensibly harmful to the land, Mapuche ideologies that promote a respectful relationship with the land apply to many rural campesino actors in the Huife watershed. In an unstructured interview with a local campesino landowner, Roberto Sanhueza, the idea of cultural memory emerged in a conversation about campesino culture in the Huife watershed. Roberto explained that the forest is a part of campesino and Mapuche people’s livelihoods. It offers remedies, alimentations, timber and space for other aspects of life. Roberto also spoke of the Mapuche linguistic concept of neweken, which describes the interconnectedness of Mapuche and campesino people with the land and the forest. Similar to Elizabeth’s oral history, Roberto emphasized the importance of a cohesive community and culture in order to live sustainably with the land. He makes the assertion that to kill culture is to kill individuality. Within the Huife watershed, the current distribution of the land is divided by privatization laws which were activated by the westernized mentality of ‘divide and conquer.’ This fragmentation of land has had detrimental effects on the functionality of both ecosystems and community culture. Both Elizabeth and Roberto highlighted the importance of the role of humans in the land. Both Mapuche communities and campesino livelihoods can be understood in the accordance with various Mapuche concepts, such as tuwün and neweken. When Elizabeth was prompted with the question to describe the connection between Mapuche people and the forest, she explained that her people don’t make a division between la tierra and el bosque. Her narrative concurs with the Mapuche concept mahuida— the concept she explained where the land incorporates mountains and forests in one term, and that these are not separate entities. A portion of the youth from Carileufu demonstrated high traditional ecological knowledge which we assumed to be passed down from elder family members. Additionally, a high percentage of the group of students from Carileufu was able to identify species within the forest—maqui, arrayan, roble—which they related back to huertos, cultural practices, and gastronomy. In their drawings, students demonstrated ecological processes geographically relevant to their realities. Further, linguistic concepts related to mapuzungun, like the idea of mahuida were communicated throughout the day and in their drawings. In this same regard, the youth used humanizing traits for nature, which corresponds to cultural valuations and may also be result of their rural upbringing. They also expressed awareness of the connectedness between species within nature, and recognized the importance of old tree stumps and dead trees during and after our hike through the Kod Kod forest. Possible conditions that could have had an influence on the results from the youth participating in this study were the different ecologically centered activities done throughout the day of the drawings. Inclusion of the many dynamic
elements of the forest is likely attributed to the associations they have made through observation living rurally, as well as perhaps familial cultural perceptions. The experiences of the different community elders, the ecological surveys, and the experiences of the children work together to represent different facets of the cultural-ecological landscape whom have in different ways been impacted by historical events. As represented in Figure 9, the frequency of disturbance events have increased over time. Ecologically and culturally, an increased frequency of disturbance events can be correlated to a less resilient and more vulnerable system. The structural elements on the treatment trees are also deeply tied to the socio-ecological memory of the forest. Certain fungi, important for the cultural activities of Mapuche and campesino communities, grew in the old growth forest condition, however our surveys indicated that these were no longer available. Some fungi, such as the Digüeñe, Cyttaria harioti or Llau llau as referred to by the Mapuche, are associated to mature roble trees, Nothofagus obliqua forests, which were not observed in Kod Kod. The pitrana, Cyttaria berteroi, was another type of fungi consumed by the Mapuche and associated to older roble trees. The rotting wood of coilgüe trees called michahuarro or huempe would be consumed in different ways such as by being juiced or as bread with honey or toasted wheat flour (Barreau, 2014). According to Skewes, trees are part of the social existence of human beings, which hold the memory that is transmitted (2016). The laurel tree for instance, serves as a linkage between the living and the ancient, their hollow trunks serve as doors that spiritual beings can link both worlds. Regeneration plays a memory of the deceased trees in the landscape, which deteriorates and moves as a memory to other trees creating interactions between ancient and living beings. In addition, the hollowed trunks, filled with water, serve for healing purposes, it was known that the water of a hollow tree cures all the ailments, cleanses the skin, and rejuvenates immediately (Skewes, 2016). These results are very important in connecting the cultural memory of the Mapuche and campesino communities to the long term effects of disturbance in forest ecosystems. The original structure of the forest could support an array of cultural activities and rituals, however the post-fire trajectory of forest composition has led to the extirpation of these resources from the landscape. The native bamboo species, Chusquea culeu, common name colihue, is an important understory species that provides habitat, contributes to forest composition and structure diversity, and regulates the dynamics of Southern Chile temperate forests (Ibarra, et al. 2018). The lack of bamboo in our plots indicate that there are a number of factors impeding its presence. These are most likely due to a lack of seed inputs and the closed canopy nature of the second growth forest. Kod Kod’s second growth forest structure is characterized by a dense closed canopy that reduces light penetration to the forest floor. Colihue is a species adapted to secondary succession, taking advantage of natural gaps created by windfall or other natural disturbance events. This species has been extirpated from the forest due to the altered recovery trajectory following the fire disturbance. The dense undergrowth created by the colihue is beneficial for ground birds and other mammals that use it for shelter. The absence of colihue indicates that the forest is lacking
important habitat elements compared to the prior old growth forests. The lack of colihue additionally affects the recovery of traditional cultural activities in the region. Both mature colihue and its shoots were traditionally used by both Mapuche and campesino communities in small construction, fish traps, and as a foodstuff. The lack of this resource indicates a wider lack in the availability of culturally significant resources (Barreau, et al. 2014). The memory of past forest conditions is additionally conveyed through the visual presence of the stumps themselves. The control trees measured had an average dbh of 40.1cm, while the treatment trees had an average dbh of 81.7cm. This clearly establishes that remnant trees are visibly and statistically much larger than the surrounding second growth forest trees; subsequently, they work to form a structure that seems out of place within the forest condition. Thus, although the presence of old growth trees has significantly been reduced, the resilient presence of remnant trees act as triggers of cultural and socio-ecological memory. This means that as elder community members engage with their local forests such trees encourage recall for their more personalized understanding of disturbances and transformations within forest landscapes. Furthermore, as these stumps are some of the few visual reminders of the fires that nearly totally altered the forest landscape, young generations can look to such stumps as indicators of cultural memory and stimulate memory transmission within their homes and cultural spaces. Remnant trees now serve both as an ecological memory in terms of their habitat provisions and also as a cultural memory as a reminder of disturbance history. Conclusion In examining how the memory of culture and ecology has been transferred to the next generation within communities and the forest in the Huife watershed, it becomes clear that they run along similar trajectories. According to the presence of resilient species in secondary growth forests and the continued support of remnant trees, we deem the current ecological memories of this region as stable but with its own positionality. In response to these same disturbances, the cultural memory along the Huife watershed has also reached its own stable state following a similar path to the hysteresis of ecological alternative stable states. In other words, although shifts have been made and realities are not the same as prior-disturbance, cultural and ecological functionality can now be understood as stable. Furthermore, our research speaks to the necessary considerations that need to be afforded to local and indigenous communities when concerning conservation practices and ecological literature. When considering the process land management, primary stakeholders—indigenous and local actors—need to be at the forefront of decision making. Additionally, it is critical to denote the importance of elders within cultural and socio-ecological contexts—remnant trees and older community members—in order to maintain and support sustainability and resilience within new and future generations. Moreover, although these new generations are at alternative states, they still embody resilience and memory to be transmitted and recalled upon in the future. When old growth memory is lost within forest
ecosystems, essential carriers of the future generation of species are as well. Within the Huife community, the communication of cultural memory influences the cultural knowledge and traditions that will remain intact and functioning. This notion of cultural memory includes the community’s drive to manage the environment in a healthy and sustainable way. Our research exposed the need to protect, support, and give agency to the cultural and ecological memories of a place and community. The implementation of sustainable infrastructure and practices in a place like the Huife watershed has the ability to promote cultural and ecological longevity. Ecotourism is one of the ways in which the actors within the Huife community are managing their environment through sustainable practices. Roberto mentioned that this is an opportunity to be able to share the culture of the region while at the same time having autonomy over and being able to protect the forest. Roberto admits that in order to conserve and survive, one must adapt or die. He relates this idea to protected areas such as Santuario El Cañi, a natural reserve under community management, to species of the forest such as the Magellanic woodpecker, and to cultures such as the Mapuche. When we as a global community neglect to see how our actions could cause major disturbances in cultural or ecological systems, we are risking losing the memory of both. Memory cannot be regained simply by the system regenerating or being resilient, it requires the unity of humans and land working together, not against each other. While the concept of memory encompasses forgetting, it is also a representation of the past that lives on through people and forests to sustain culture and communities.
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