PATAGONIA
ARGENTINA
Península Mitre: Southern subantarctic peatlands
Where the Andes mountain range comes to an end in South America, in between the valleys there peatland seems like a fluffy green, red and black carpet, that covers the island of Tierra del Fuego.
They are portals that
keep milenary files of different times and
ancestral ways of life.
The fuegian peatlands were formed in the post-glacial era, when the ice was retreating.
The upper layer is wetland and below there are overlapping layers of millenary organic matter. The beings that remain under the wetland do not decompose. This is why they are an atlas of time. Interplanetary tunnels and bridges, with stories of thousands of years, for those who know how to read them.
Walking travelers of dark waters
Getting to Península Mitre means learning to walk again on different terrain. For those who set out through the valley of peatlands, they know that making peace with the environment is the only way to get through it.
Life in Península Mitre implies an adaptation to the environment in order to evolve with it. Sergio Anselmino traveled by foot from the city of Ushuaia to Península Mitre. He decided to do it alone and it took him forty five days to get there. He arrived with two purposes: to write and to fix an abandoned cabin of this southernmost area inhabited in the last century. He believes a journey like that implies a definitive chance in the way of thinking of any person. It grants a power given by nature, a special strength and an inner harmony, which arise from climbing peaks, crossing rivers, valleys and peatlands.
Sergio thinks that in his search there is something of going back, to a sort of original or primal force, and that modern life leaves us useless since we think that we can obtain everything easily. There is a decrease in skills and learning. He believes that it is important to explain to new generations the skills and possibilities that they can develop in direct relationship with nature.
Living alone in the southern tip of the world he has unique experiences. He especially loves the air metamorphosis in the seasons' cycles.
The river transmutes, there are different sounds, especially in the change of the season of abandonment, before the arrival of winter. When the animales leave, he knows that there will be no more ships, nor any of the few walking travelers that appear in Bahía Aguirre. Then everything is silence and the force of the storms, which can last a week, is exhausting and stunning. However he chooses this way of life, at least for a while.
But at the end of the world there is no place for that escape route or spell. It is not possible to go around the bush too much, the path is not written and crossing the island on foot is an extreme experience that requires a lot of attention. Especially when walking the long paths made of peatlands on the Island of Tierra del Fuego. Traversing them on foot means being in direct connection with hundreds and thousands of layers of time on Earth. For this reason they are a matter of study and deep love amongst their inhabitants and connoisseurs.
Sergio didn’t feel comfortable in modern society. From the age of sixteen he asked himself questions about the meaning of freedom. Modern thinking convinces us that we are something outside of life, the environment or nature, that is lived or experienced in an individual internal world.
Protection of community heritage
In addition to being reservoirs of
the environment and past, present and
future lives, the peatlands are large
carbon dioxide storages.
They protect from and regulate
climate change. That is why it is fundamental to preserve them from human
actions that threaten its existence.
As guardians of heritage they hold precious environmental relationships of existence intertwined with the sea, the forests, and all the beings that live there.
To maintain this source of biodiversity it is essential that these territories are sovereign over the global north and transnational companies, especially mining companies, that destroy peatlands and mitigate the relationship between communities and their ecosystem. Education and divulgation of scientific and artistic projects that seek to raise awareness about the importance of these specific types of wetlands are essential.
Local scientists study the role of peatlands in the environment and people's lives. Adriana Urciolo is a civil engineer and professor at the National University in the area of Hydrology and Environmental Research.
In addition to rebuilding past environmental information, she has been working in management and legislation for the protection of peatlands for more than thirty years. She loves the color symphony that changes through the year in Peninsula Mitre peatlands. Thanks to her research and promotion work, together with her colleagues, they have managed to have it declared Peninsula Mitre Natural Reserve and a site of interest by the International Ramsar Convention. The project involved a significant amount of technical and participative work, carried out at the local level for more than twenty years, between scientific areas and the community. The lands of Tierra del Fuego belong to the entire population of the province. When an area is declared “of interest,” regulations can be put into place to protect it and establish economic, touristic and scientific outcomes.
Rodolfo Iturraspe is a hydrologist and has been working with peatlands for over thirty years. He reveals that the biggest problems are commercialized extraction, agricultural export, and mining drainage. Drainage means losing its essential element—water. When water disappears, so do the peatlands. It’s imperative to respect and understand the value of the peatlands. As such, education is essential. Many times due to ignorance, the peatlands do not have the assessment they deserve.
To achieve that recognition, it turns out awareness is essential of the population.
Educational campaigns in schools prove that as soon as communities and non-governmental organizations get involved, a big change of perception occurs; places that were previously considered unknown and uncomfortable become acknowledged and accessible. The lack of care, as it relates to the peatland, exist due to ignorance.
In addition to being essential to mitigate global warming, other benefits of the peatlands include hydric regulation: moderation during extreme events such as floods and storms.
They also improve water quality by filtering it and adding nutrients. The peatlands are important for tourism and recreational activities for both the local population and its visitors. They are the home of animals and rare plant species (such as the carnivorous plant drosera uniflora). There are shorebirds that choose to nest in the peat. The peatlands hold colors, forms and textures that don’t exist anywhere else. They reveal the phenomena of impermanence when things suddenly appear, metamorphosize, and then change.
The interbeing of life forms that coexist in the peatlands necessarily implies a combination of perspectives and narratives, including lived experiences, scientific and poetic knowledge. Collaboration is key and it requires acknowledging and practicing ancestral bonds with the environment, as well as nurturing harmonious and diplomatic relationships between beings for survival. The peatlands of Tierra del Fuego are master teachers that inhabit this harsh territory. To inhabit these lands means walking away from extractivist gains at all cost.