Documentary series ‘Páramos, where life is born’ premieres its first episode on January 19

The most recent documentary series of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL) invites to revalue the moors, ecosystems that are the basis of the economy, culture and the fight against climate change in Ecuador.

In the continent, the paramos are distributed between Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Costa Rica. They are located between the upper limit of the Andean forests and the lower limit of the perpetual snow.

Moors, where life is born bring six didactic chapters of ten to twelve minutes to show, among other aspects, the place where the fresh water that millions of people drink and sustains a large part of the productive activities is born.

Javier Vázquez, manager of Scientific Culture of the UTPL and director of the projectindicates that the most important We stopped is that it collects a decade of scientific research by teachers in the areas of biology, urban planning, architecture, economics, civil engineering, geology and others. “It is important to see the ecosystem from biology and ecology,” explains Vázquez, but also address the importance of the moors for the survival of the human groups of the Sierra and the Coast.

“We have to close the gap between academic knowledge and society”, says the disseminator, moving from information to training and understanding. “We decided to make a documentary series because it allowed us to articulate different perspectives.” Furthermore, observe, interest in the moors in recent years has increased among citizens. And also in the scientific field. “If we look at the number of publications in recent years, those that have to do with the moorland ecosystem have increased.”

The first episode deals with the origin of the paramos, 120 million years ago, when the Andes began to form. In the second, you will learn about the types of moors, which are different between the southern and northern zones of Ecuador, among the most extreme environments on the planet.

In the third part, the rich biological diversity that inhabits the moors will be exposed, with species such as the spectacled bear, the condor, the tapir, the puma or the blue-throated star hummingbird. The fourth chapter will show the importance of this ecosystem in the face of climate change.

Water and its relationship with urban, productive and social development is the axis of the fifth episode. But in the sixth, suddenly, there are no moors, because the documentary takes us to a real example of what happens in those places where water does not reach.

The specific case occurs in the province of Loja, in Catacocha, canton Paltas, where the ancestral knowledge of the artificial lagoons that were created in the pre-inca culture of the avocados.

In Catacocha, the rains occur two or three months a year; It is a place marked by droughts and migratory processes. Avocados, Vázquez points out, they accumulated the water in hundreds of artificial lagoons; This filtered into groundwater, and then came out at other points, called water eyes. The UTPL is currently carrying out a hydroecology project that takes up the technology of the avocado culture in favor of this community.

This extensive audiovisual work was produced in the space of a year, and was shot in 4K. joins others UTPL documentary productions, dedicated to the mangroves and national parks of Ecuador. Mangrove, the sacrifice of a land (2018) was a finalist at the Columbus Film and Video Festival. Everybody is available on the UPTL YouTube channel; the most recent will also be released on the Facebook channel and the following will be released every Wednesday.

What will come next? Among the next productions there is a candidate, the lojano coffee. “Seeing it from the scientific side would be super interesting for society.” In Ecuador there are millions of topics, says Vázquez, a Spanish nationalized Ecuadorian, but what is missing is getting citizens to marvel at everything this land has to show the world, and “not lose it without having known it.” (F)