Scaling up Buen Vivir: Globalizing Local Environmental Governance from Ecuador

How does the population of a small Ecuadorian province influence the development strategies pursued nationally and consequently push the global conversation toward an alternative model of sustainable development? This article explores watershed management reform in Tungurahua, Ecuador, to analyze how local communities challenged the dominant international model of sustainable development and drew on indigenous norms to offer an alternative. These communities resisted proposals by a transnational network advocating watershed management reforms that coupled conservation with markets for ecosystem services. Community members, however, did not reject the idea of reforming watershed management, and they negotiated with transnational advocates to create an alternative program rooted in indigenous norms. Tungurahua’s indigenous communities labeled their effort Mushuk Yuyay (Quichua for “new ideas”) to emphasize their departure from the development approach favored internationally. Their approach sought to realize the Quichua concept sumak kawsay (buen vivir in Spanish or wellbeing in English), which refers to...