Multispecies conservation geographies: Relocating the role of the Andean bear in socio-technical water systems of the Ecuadorian <i>páramo<i/>

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Multispecies ethnography explores human and non-human relationships, emphasising interconnectedness, cultural, socio-technical, political significances, and the impact of multispecies interactions on society. Beyond the protection of emblematic species or ecosystems that acquire a conservation status due to the multiple threats they face, there are other relational assemblages that are an index of animal political geographies. The present work addresses the relational human/non-human fabrics within the Antisana Ecological Reserve, Ecuador, which is intertwined with a technological system that brings drinking water to the city of Quito. Since this infrastructure is located in a protected area close to the Antisana volcano, it is necessary to examine how the presence of the Andean bear (Tremarctus ornatus) is articulated with conservationist discourses of the páramo (i.e., as an ecosystem key for water production), which are often in conflict with human activities in the territories surrounding the protected area. Based on a historical analysis and an ethnographic approach to human-wildlife conflicts, we worked with officials of the Quito’s drinking water system, park rangers and community members of Pintag, attempting to contribute to a multispecies political ecology that considers the bear as a political subject. Using ethological and ethnographic methods, the aim is to make visible how the infrastructural systems of water and the Andean bear constitute a relational assemblage of the equatorial páramos.