Stephen Andenmatten
ARCH-4980.2 | Julia Watson, Assistant Professor
ECOAGRICULTURE ZOOFARI
STEPHEN ANDENMATTEN
How can assisted wildlife migration be implemented into a fragmented landscape to protect and sustain biodiversity, and promote biocultural diversity through the adaptation to climate change? By protecting and expanding preservation areas pole-ward across latitudes, cooler zones such as high elevation corridors and southern slopes can act as stepping stones to expand the geographical range of threatened species. New wildlife migration corridors that connect the network of patches in a fragmented area will be forced to intertwine with human infrastructure. If assisted migration is coupled with the human-created obstacles that threaten migration, then these threats will in effect be mitigated.
The establishment of ecological networks to connect ecosystems and populations of species that are threatened will expand their geographic range and facilitate genetic exchange between different populations, increasing the resiliency and chances of survival for vulnerable, threatened species. An important opportunity for design to conserve the future health of our ecosystems exists in agricultural landscapes.
Agrarian development of the Andean cloud forests in Peru, which has been a major cause of habitat destruction and fragmentation, threatens the rich diversity of wildlife and degrades the landscape. This project transforms the agricultural infrastructure, by protecting and assisting the potential and necessary migration of vulnerable species. A paradigm shift to ecoagriculture couples conservation and agriculture, thereby increasing productivity and the livelihoods of farmers, while providing the opportunity for a new social engagement of wildlife viewing.
A new infrastructural network, evolved through a reinterpretation of indigenous Inca irrigation systems, mitigates the tension between an expanding agrarian landscape and proposed wildlife migration infrastructure. The formal logic adapts to perform multiple ecological functions and social program, while navigating the topography to stabilize the steep terrain of the Andes.