The páramo are the Andean highlands of Venezuela. This ecosystem is found in the high elevations, between the upper forest line at 3,000 meters elevation and the permanent snow line at 5,000 meters. The páramo is cold, with animals uniquely adapted to the temperatures, such as the woolly donkey pictured below. These areas consist mostly of valleys, grasslands, lakes, and occasional patches of forest. It is a harsh environment: wet, windy, and receiving a high degree of ultraviolet radiation due to the elevation.
These photos are by a California-born agroecologist named Mason London. He provides us with a look at the paramos of the Venezuelan state of Merida.
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- The home of a campesino family in the Venezuelan paramo with potatoes growing alongside their residence (Mason London).
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- A Venezuelan woman and child walk through the small rural village of Gabidia, in the Venezuelan paramo. Note the child’s head is kept warm by a small red Christmas cap (Mason London).
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- An example of the scattered plots of small-scale family-based agricultural production in the Venezuelan paramo (Mason London).
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- A group of agricultural workers seeds a potato crop after using animal traction to prepare the cold Andean soils of the Venezuelan paramo (Mason London).
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- A group of agricultural workers seeds a potato crop after using animal traction to prepare the cold Andean soils of the Venezuelan paramo (Mason London).
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- The son of a rural producer looks over the family’s sheep as they eat broccoli produced on-farm (Mason London).
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- The child of a rural producer, with red cheeks typical of children in the elevated paramo, plays with one of the family’s sheep (Mason London).
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- Harvest celebrations in the Venezuelan paramo include reverence to traditional catholic saints, the natural conditions that allow for a productive harvest, and more traditional pagan figures (Mason London).
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- Participants in a typical harvest celebration show off the diverse array of results from the 2011 vegetable harvest (Mason London).
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- Harvest celebrations in the Venezuelan paramo include reverence to traditional catholic saints, the natural conditions that allow for a productive harvest, and more traditional pagan figures (Mason London).
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- One practice that is common in rural Venezuela is the controversial use of food coloring to dye baby chicks a diverse array of colors (Mason London).
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- A close up of two chicks dyed before being sold to passerbys (Mason London).
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- An image of a typical paramo landscape, covered in the endemic frailejon plant (Mason London).
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- Woolly donkey of the paramo
