The biology, geology, and climatic zones of the Tropical Andes are extraordinarily diverse. It is also the indigenous heartland of South America, with close to ten million indigenous people belonging to dozens of different ethnic groups. This indigenous population, and the close coexistence of multiple worldviews, which I identify in their most extreme incarnations as indigenous and mestizo, are key to understanding the environmental history of the Tropical Andes from the nineteenth century.
DOI: doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6261