Inventories of Terraced Landscapes in Peru

The inventory of terraces in Peru in most regions was initiated in 2011 as part of a reconstruction project funded by the IDB and implemented by Agrorural, the extension agency of the Ministry of Agriculture. The aim was to identify areas of agricultural terraces to be rehabilitated as an effort to gain new areas to extend the agricultural frontier. The inventory tried to revise the different efforts of the Natural Resources office ONERN (National Natural Resources Office) from 1987, INRENA (National Institute for Natural Resources) from 1995 and PRONAMACHCS (National Project for Hydrographical Watershed Management and Soil Conservation) from 2004 and complete the available data. The history of inventories for different areas of Peru and the analysis of available maps shows the limitation of the last inventory finished in 2014 as it does not include all existing (in use or abandoned) terraces as there was no observation on the ground and the task was too vast for the GIS team. The total estimation of terraced fields of the Agrorural study arrives at 340,719 ha of terraced fields in Peru (81,367 ha abandoned – only 24 %). Our review shows that the abandoned terraces not detected can be up to 50 % – 100 % considering the available data and analysis. We want to provide insights into the future tasks of further intensifying the inventory of terraced landscapes in cooperation with local communities so that a real recuperation of the best agricultural lands for producing excellent food for the Andean people will be possible.