Modeling Sustainability Trade-Offs in a High-Andean Rural Community: Pine Plantations, Livestock, and Food Systems in Patapallpa Alta (Cusco, Peru)

Rural development strategies in the Andes face persistent tensions between income generation, food provision, and the conservation of ecological functions. In Patapallpa Alta (Cusco, Peru), the expansion of pine plantations associated with mushroom production has created new economic opportunities but also tensions involving water availability, land-use, and labor organization. This study applies the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) approach to develop a model for evaluating these trade-offs in terms of viability, feasibility, and desirability. The analysis includes territorial, productive, nutritional, and biophysical dimensions to represent interdependencies among dietary needs, food provision, labor, land-use, and biophysical pressures. The results show that the community functions as an open metabolic system where social reproduction depends on both local production and external flows. Although the pine–mushroom subsystem generates income and is socially valued, it also reshapes relationships among land, water, and labor in ecosystems where grasslands perform essential hydrological functions. This model brings the underlying structural tensions that shape sustainability to the surface and provides a useful framework for supporting decision-making in complex rural territories.