Climate Change Impacts, Adaptive Resilience, and Regenerative Livestock Adoption: A Resilience Trap in High-Andean Camelid Agroecosystems

Abstract

Andean livestock agroecosystems depend on grassland and soil functionality to sustain productivity, threatened by climate-driven glacial retreat, pasture degradation, and increasingly frequent frosts, hailstorms, and droughts. Grounded in the Resilience Thinking framework for socio-ecological systems, this study proposes and validates an explanatory model examining how perceived climate change impacts (IMP) drive the adoption of regenerative livestock farming (ADOP) and impact the deterioration of livestock performance (DES), with adaptive capacity and resilience (RES) as a mediating construct. Regenerative livestock farming is operationalized through soil, forage, water, and biodiversity management, animal welfare, and climate adaptation strategies. Survey data from 91 South American camelid producers in the Puno region, Peru, were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with second-order constructs. Climate impacts emerge as the strongest antecedent of adaptive resilience (β = 0.718) and regenerative adoption (β = 0.604) and have a significant direct effect on performance deterioration (β = 0.292; p = 0.041). However, resilience does not significantly predict adoption (β = 0.075; p = 0.619), revealing institutional, technological, and knowledge-related barriers that disconnect adaptive capacity from ecological transformation. Both adoption (β = 0.327; p = 0.002) and resilience (β = 0.335; p = 0.003) are positively associated with performance deterioration, suggesting reactive containment rather than consolidated restoration. Findings indicate adaptive rather than transformative resilience in high-Andean livestock systems, indicating that an effective regenerative transition requires participatory, context-sensitive approaches supported by policies and technical assistance that strengthen long-term productive sustainability and food security in vulnerable communities.