Land use conflicts in the binational basin
This chapter details the different land use conflicts found in the Mira-Mataje basin. Understand by conflict:
The discrepancy between the use that human beings make of the natural environment and the use that it should have according to its potentialities and environmental restrictions (ecological, cultural, social and economic). It is also defined as “the degree of harmony that exists between the conservation of the environmental offer and the sustainable development of the territory”, which corresponds to the concordance between the use and the ecosystem potentialities. (IGAC 2012).
Figure 1 shows several usage conflicts, such as apt use, underutilization, and overuse. In this way, overuse "occurs when smallholding areas with an agricultural vocation are overexploited, showing degradation of natural resources, and the most obvious expression of which is water erosion". (IGAC 2012).
On the other hand, underutilization:
It occurs when areas of large estates with agricultural vocation are used improperly, thus leading to problems in the supply of food, social disagreement and directly influences the overuse of land in fragile ecosystems and is expanded, at their expense, the agricultural frontier. (IGAC 2012).
For the Mira-Mataje basin, it is detailed in figure 2 that the main conflict is underutilization, with an area of 531 518.73 ha, represented by 47.58%, this conflict is distributed in all the municipalities or cantons of the area , but most of them are located in the center and south of the basin area.
Within this order of ideas and taking into account the municipalities or cantons, it is evident that there is underutilization in Tulcán and San Miguel de Urcuquí on the cover of high dense forest, in terms of logging, recreation, protection and hunting. The mosaic coverage of pastures and crops is also immersed in this conflict, located in Esmeraldas, San Miguel de Urcuquí, Cotacachi, Otavalo, Antonio Ante, Pimampiro, San Pedro de Huacas, Montufar and Ibarra, in the same way in the latter canton. Underutilization is located in some areas of shrub cover.
In addition to the above, in the dense paramo grasslands in Montufar, Cotacachi, Bolívar and Pimampiro, the conflict of underutilization is evident.
Regarding overuse, it stands out that it has an area of 67486.88 ha, represented by 6.04%, (figure 9) and is distributed only in the northern part of the basin between the municipalities of Cumbal, Mallama, Ricaurte, Barbacoas and Tumaco, on the mosaic coverage of crops, pastures and natural spaces, dense scrubland of paramo, which must be protected as indicated by the Agustín Codazzi Geographical Institute:
Conflicts due to inappropriate uses were identified in the areas of paramos ecosystems that must be protected and that are used by agricultural extraction activities, they can severely affect the sustainability of renewable natural resources such as water and soil. (IGAC 2012).
In addition to the previous coverage, there is also an overuse in the mosaic of crops such as natural spaces, mosaic of pastures and crops, in a smaller area in oil palm crops, low and high dense forest, another type of open shrubland and forest fragmented with secondary vegetation.
Finally, we find the land uses that do not present any conflict and by “referring to lands without conflicts of use or in proper use, they are characterized because the dominant environmental offer corresponds to the demand of the population” (IGAC 2012). Therefore, in the Mira-Mataje basin there is evidence of an extension of 515019.05 ha, of land with suitable use, corresponding to 46.10%.
This suitable use is distributed in most of the study area, except for San Miguel de Urcuquí, which in its entirety presents a conflict of underutilization. It should be noted that the north of the area, especially Barbacoas, is the territory with the largest extension of suitable use in the basin. Barbacoas has a great extension in timber use, recreation, protection, hunting, represented in the covers of dense forest, in addition to the timber use, recreation, protection, silvopastoral, agrosilvopastoral, silvo-agricultural system, recovery, constituted by the cover of fragmented forest with grasses and crops.
Methodology to integrate binational information
This section briefly describes how the information between Ecuador and Colombia was unified, as well as the challenges, gaps, and non-existent information.
The information for the Colombian side had more detail, in the territory there were conflicts in areas of bodies of water, conflicts over civil works, conflicts in swampy areas with temporary crops, conflicts in swampy areas with permanent crops, conflicts in swampy areas with pastures, urban conflicts, light, moderate and severe overuse, light, moderate and severe underuse, inappropriate uses in burned areas.
On the other hand, for Ecuador the information corresponds to 2 categories: adequate use and underutilization. Therefore, the information in this section was generalized, adding a common field in the integrated shapefile, where 3 types of conflicts are mentioned: suitable, underused and overused.
Bibliography
- IGAC Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi, Conflictos de uso del territorio Colombiano, 2012, Bogotá, Colombia, ↑
Last update: Friday October 9, 2026 14:16:15 -05