A01=Karl S. Zimmerer
academic books
agricultural development
Author_Karl S. Zimmerer
biodiversity conservation
books for history lovers
Category=GTP
Category=RNF
Category=RNK
development through history
ecology and economy
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eq_nobargain
farming
geography in farming
homeschool history textbooks
Indians in peru
peru geography
peruvian culture
philosophy
political development
psychology
quechuan agriculture
quechuan culture
quechuan economics
quechuan geography
quechuan people
quechuan politics
quechuan society
sociology
south American anthropology
south American culture
south American history
Product details
- ISBN 9780520203037
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 29 Jan 1997
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Two of the world's most pressing needs--biodiversity conservation and agricultural development in the Third World--are addressed in Karl S. Zimmerer's multidisciplinary investigation in geography. Zimmerer challenges current opinion by showing that the world-renowned diversity of crops grown in the Andes may not be as hopelessly endangered as is widely believed. He uses the lengthy history of small-scale farming by Indians in Peru, including contemporary practices and attitudes, to shed light on prospects for the future. During prolonged fieldwork among Peru's Quechua peasants and villagers in the mountains near Cuzco, Zimmerer found convincing evidence that much of the region's biodiversity is being skillfully conserved on a de facto basis, as has been true during centuries of tumultuous agrarian transitions. Diversity occurs unevenly, however, because of the inability of poorer Quechua farmers to plant the same variety as their well-off neighbors and because land use pressures differ in different locations. Social, political, and economic upheavals have accentuated the unevenness, and Zimmerer's geographical findings are all the more important as a result.
Diversity is indeed at serious risk, but not necessarily for the same reasons that have been cited by others. The originality of this study is in its correlation of ecological conservation, ethnic expression, and economic development.
Karl S. Zimmerer is Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
