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SYMPOSIUM: "Climate Change, a mountain of challenges" Executive Summary

The Symposium "Climate Change, a mountain of challenges" sought primarily to share information, knowledge and research, as well as a set of experiences and projects that make interventions in relation to mountain ecosystems and climate change (CC). It tried to answer questions about the state of the art in both areas, about the impacts of climate change on communities living around our glaciers, their own response initiatives, the role and performance with the various institutions, state, private, academic and civil society in general, on this subject. Also to share ideas, options, alternatives, that are being worked on in relation to this mountain of challenges which is CC. At the same time, the event had as an explicit objective that after two days of exchanges between the social actors and various institutions, it would be possible to identify agendas that will allow further work to future work, forming working groups or learning and practicing communities, and subsequently esablish collaborative partnerships to optimize conventional and unconventional resources that are available. THE INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORK AND THE LONG TERM CONTEXT

The Symposium reiterated some findings that show a future outlook, whereby increasing challenges were mentioned: The international negotiations within the United Nations Framework are stuck since Kyoto in 1997 and even going backwards in terms of the binding commitments of countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Even the minimum goals established seem difficult to fulfill.The second period of the Kyoto Protocol entered into force beginning of this year, but only with a very limited amount of countries and with commitments that do not respond to the levels science requires. Only in 2020, a new Protocol, applicable to all countries will enter into force, but it may well be late to asure to control the CC scenarios. The positions of our country in this respect, are confrontational regarding the mitigation responsibilities of developed countries and include a clear statement on the defense of "Mother Earth." However, public policies are not always consistent with these declarative postulates. Unresolved problems regarding development and poverty in our countries, which CC will perpatuate, with a trend to increase. Even if we only take into account the critical variable of access to drinking water, basic sanitation and production; social vulnerability issues could complicate and worsen them to the extreme. Moreover, access to water is generaly emphatizesed only as a human right and not as a social duty to preserve as a common good. The misunderstood empowerment of actors and sectors that ensure private and corporate interests over the common good, may potentiate the existing problems of pressure on this critical resource.

2 The long-term vision of the country which was presented at the Symposium, specifically of the Altiplano, with predictions of a 4 degree rise in temperature, predicts scenarios of aridity and water stress and a wide range of derived phenomena, This constitutes a real stimulus for analysis and healthy provocation, for the set of actors and institutions that are not only interested, but involved with these problems, as we can join efforts for the forecast regarding adaptation, as well as mitigation of climate change.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONS On the first day of work, over 20 presentations were given, divided into three thematic groups: Sustainable Water Management, Sustainable Management of the "green sponge", related to the management of biodiversity and the working group on Local Sustainable Economy. In the working group of Sustainable Water Management, the main ideas focused on relationships with climatic variables, finding the one hand, that there are efforts to gather climate information, especially meteorological data records, but there are still many problems because of dispersed and disrupted information and difficulty to share better the little existing basic information and general research. The construction of climate models and scenarios to which was referred by several speakers in this and other working groups, shows efforts to maximize the data available everyone employes.

In this and other working groups it became evident that there are gaps between the scientific and academic production, respect to, on the one hand, the people who alledgedly are the most vulnerable and require responses generated by these investigations. On the other hand, their is a distance to actually contribute to public policy and dificult access to the sphere of political decision making. One of the concrete proposals in this table, is the example of the construction of the Observatory of Lake Titicaca and the TDPS System, from which lessons can be learned to include the issue of climate change impacts in mountains in such networks. In the working group of the "Green Sponge" Sustainable Management, the CC impacts on native plants and animals it became evident in some research. Shifts in rainfall patterns affect the existence of certain plants, as well as provoking delays in flowering and fruiting times. Before there was a very clear separation of species living above 4,500 meters and those which inhabit lowlands; now these species are sharing habitat (case: papillosa and thola). This involves several problems. This type of studies can be done only by the long-term monitoring, as well as the realization of robust correlations between biological monitoring information and CC, and this is only possible with systematic historical information. Problems or gaps with systematized climate information were also evidenced in this working group.

3 The relationship between research and participation in these communities is considered strategically and vital, not only in socio-economic and cultural issues, but also on biological and climate ones. Committed social participation makes sure there is an engagement to help preserving local monitoring equipments for collecting technical data in the field, making sure they know their value, avoid becoming carriers of pests and to involve communities in the management of information and knowledge involved in field research agendas of medium and long duration. In this space experiences of research networks (Gloria Project) were shown, which count with the participation of countries in the region, even achieving to have some political impacts in the memoranda of understanding of the countries, such as conservation of flamingos. Networks also facilitate access to funding sources. Other ideas in this working groups were proposals regarding the idea of enhancing afforestation and native ecosystems (such as wetlands), enhancing their functions of natural dams for water storage, which cost and maintenance would be lower than conventional physical infrastructure, while adopting better to the culture of the rural population. In the thematic table of Sustainable Local Economy, an issue present in some case studies as the Sajama National Park, is to observe and rescue local strategies of territorial occupation, collective management of resources and territory, related to the management of risks that may affect productive factors. Here, an important issue is the balanced management of rights for water use in a collective way, between families and within families. Another issue present in several presentations, was to show the work done in the perspective of Climate Change that is very related to the problems of risk and natural disasters prevention, especially in regard to production risks. Even, rightly, it was suggested to invest more public municipal and departmental resources in the existing budget items on risk prevention. In this area, some good practices were highlighed, such as: local risk management, the relationship between modern instruments (satellite sensors, GIS) and qualitative and participatory instruments that collect the perceptions of people. Tho is cross this information seems very useful. Another interesting practice is to promote and strengthen new local leadership, such as people with knowledge and abilities to handle the production system and their relationships, as in the case of Yapuchiris (which PROSUCO started years ago) and which now has other interesting applications. These leaders also encourage knowledge dialogues as a very specific exercise in the management of knowledge in relation to technical and academic institutions that ultimately contribute to peer dialogue between them. Also some new contributions and approaches, such as a "Biocultural Economy" (Program Biocultura-SDC), which is based on the complementary relationship between nature and culture, were presented. The antagonistic relationship between capitalist development and systems of reciprocity generates an interface of endogenous economic development, an economy oriented to "live well". Finally, there are the potential contributions of ecological economicy, because of its systemic, transdisciplinary and limits-defining views on the

4 economy, which take into account physical, chemical, and biological phenomena that are inherent to the ecosystems. OPTIONS, EXPERIENCES AND PRACTICES OF CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION On the second, 20 presentations were made, of which the following experiences and initiatives can be highlighted: - Public national programs, such as the Andean Regional Climate Change Adaptation Project (PRAA, for its abreviation in Spanish) presented their pilot projects, whci are relatied to the work on glaciers dependent basins and its applications for water supply projects, addressing issues of efficient use of water resources and identifying new sources of water. - Some of the experiences on CC, are strongly related to the issue of short term risk prevention, as noted in the working groups on research. Also, in this area, the work is oriented, with strong emphasis, to public participation and local, municipal, and even Nacional advocacy. The experiences also point to a more comprehensive approach, including productive, sociocultural, cpacity building and other issues. - Emphasis was put on the presentation of the Cliamte Change Adaptation Plan for the Sajama National Park, which has a holistic approach, in which the participation of the population, and particularly of young people, was essential to develop and implement this document. - Some lessons from the presented experiences arose, which is helpful to begin to record them: The best way to address the CC is the interdisciplinary way. Mountain systems are vertical and especially diverse and complex. The climate is interpreted not only by weather stations, but also with plants, ice, history.

- The specific experience of "water footprint" left ideas that can be very well used in awareness programs especially in relation to the cost of water, the issue of rights and duties in the perspective of promotion of water as a common good . TOWARDS A FUTURE WORKING AGENDA The symposium made clear that there is some progress in information, knowledge and interventions for Cliamte Change issues, but there is a long way to go to learn more about the set of problems arising from the CC and its specific impacts on people, animals, plants and the whole ecological systems. It also became clear that there are different institutional efforts in research and interventions, but they are very scattered and not coordinated among them. Thus, to join them and optimize them in joint and coordinated work is one of the biggest challenges. In this sense, the event identified the need to address some initiatives to generate conditions for interagency coordination through the creation of a Learning Community, for research

5 agendas, and a Community of Practice, to promote the relationship of the work done in interventions. The aim of promoting the creation of these communities is to seek the creation of an environment for meeting, exchange, increased communication between different public and private actors in general. Those could be organised around some basic objectives such as promoting knowledge management, the interinstitutional learning, both of the knowledge and the practices, with the prospect of a better collective contribution to the construction of answers and options to address more adequately and efficiently to the challenges of CC. The Bolivian Catholic University and Agua Sustentable, as organizers, will invite participants to subscribe it to these initiatives, starting from the second half of next June, with the specific proposal to rescue the issues that have been identified in the Symposium, to identify work schedules to take the first steps in the formation of working groups, with a view to progressively establish these communities, which in the future can become true cooperation networks.