Abstract

Agroecology-based conservation interventions are promoted to reconfigure society-nature relations in rural landscapes. However, there is little evidence on how these interventions influence valuations of nature in simplified agricultural landscapes where intensive production systems predominate. This study analyzes the impact of an agroecological intervention on plural valuations—instrumental, relational, and intrinsic—in communities in the Llanganates-Sangay Corridor in the Ecuadorian Andes. Using a comparative design involving farmers undergoing agroecological transition and conventional farmers, the study examines the value assemblages present in both groups. The results indicate that both groups share a wide repertoire of valuations of nature, with a predominance of instrumental values, especially under conventional management. Relational values are present in similar proportions, reflecting shared peasant cultural frameworks. However, intrinsic valuations and increased references to social relations linked to productive organization emerge in the agroecological group. The article concludes that, although these interventions do not immediately transform valuations of nature, they can generate socio-productive contexts in which relational and intrinsic values begin to emerge within peasant assemblages that remain largely instrumental in simplified agricultural landscapes.

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