Smallholders as agents of ecosystem repair: Trajectories of rapid carbon and trophic recovery in the agroecological habilitation of degraded volcanic soils (cangahua) in the Andes
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The habilitation of cangahua (indurated volcanic ash) in the high Andes is conventionally viewed as a physical challenge. Consequently, reclamation efforts prioritize mechanical tillage and external inputs, or degraded land is simply abandoned, often resulting in arrested successional states. This paper presents a 25-year chronosequence of regenerative agroecology at the Ilaló Volcano, Ecuador, demonstrating that the primary constraint of cangahua is biological starvation rather than physical hardness. Utilizing a five-stage successional matrix—ranging from sterile parent material (Ground Zero) and Passive Regeneration plots to Conventional/Traditional agriculture, a restored agroecological system, and a relict native forest—we evaluate the geochemical and trophic trajectory of holistic soil bioactivation.,Results indicate that active biological management multiplied the baseline Soil Organic Carbon by 6.5 times (from 0.58% to 3.80%), successfully restoring 54% of the native forest’s carbon-carrying capacity. This rapid accumulation of organic matter yields an extraordinary, estimated drawdown rate of 14.1 tCO₂e/ha/yr. Furthermore, the biological data resolved three ecological paradoxes: (1) abandoned Passive Regeneration plots fail to sequester deep carbon but serve as vital landscape-level biological incubators for detritivores (Oribatida); (2) macrofauna (earthworms) function as essential "biological plows" required to habilitate the cemented ash; and (3) the restored agroecosystem achieved a "predator parity" that actively surpasses the climax forest in its carrying capacity for apex predators (Mesostigmata).,We propose an Integrated Physiological Framework to explain this acceleration, concluding that, when truly regenerative, smallholder farmers act as a positive keystone species and agents of ecosystem repair through holistic biological system-activation. If scaled horizontally across the 250,000 hectares of exposed cangahua in the Ecuadorian Sierra, this farmer-led intervention could independently meet approximately 40% of Ecuador's unconditional emission-reduction targets under the Paris Agreement.
Language: English
Subfield: Soil Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,190
OpenAlex ID: W7135210602