Abstract ID: 3.16030 | Accepted as Talk | Requested as: Talk | TBA | TBA

The Andes have been experiencing glacier retreat at an unprecedented pace in the last decades, leading to the rapid expansion of deglaciated areas. These newly exposed landscapes, or « novel » socio-ecological systems present both opportunities and challenges for local communities and biodiversity. They underscore the urgency for integrating local/ancestral knowledge —potentially relevant to recent environmental transformations— with scientifically-validated approaches. However, geographical, ecological, and socio-cultural barriers must be adressed to enable effective knowledge sharing across different sites in the Andes. Nature-based Solutions (NbS), rooted in ancestral knowledge, offer promising strategies for developing sustainable uses of proglacial landscapes, tailored to local socio-ecosystems. Such solutions can provide both social and ecological benefits while helping to mitigate risks across the region. In this paper, we (1) review existing NbS in high-Andean environments, (2) analyze the biophysical and socio-cultural barriers to the spatial and temporal transferability of proglacial NbS, and (3) highlight knowledge hibridization as a key mechanism for enhancing the accessibility and transferability of proglacial NbS.