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In the Puno Sector, under the strictest control, the outcome of the conflict between the villagers and the government was the same as in the other two regions. By 1986, just over a decade after the CENFOR office had opened in Puno, the villagers had regained full control of the reed beds. Pressure from the Totora Defense League in the 1970s had kept the western Ilave Delta out of the reserve altogether. The intransigence of the villagers in the Ramis Sector in the early 1980s prevented the reserve officials from visiting this portion regularly. And even in the Puno Sector, next to the only city on the shores of the lake, CENFOR was not strong enough to expand, or even to maintain, its initial toehold.

How did the lakeshore villages come to be so effective in their opposition to the reserve? They had a strong interest in retaining control over the totora, an important part of their economy. They faced a relatively weak opponent, since the national government, faced with more severe crises elsewhere, provided CENFOR with little support. It is striking that the villagers' opposition took such different forms: organized campaign against the reserve, with lobbying of government agencies, in the western Río Ilave delta; sustained hostility to all reserve personnel, with many threats, and occasional acts, of violence, in the Ramis Sector; passive resistance to the reserve, with some lukewarm cooperation with the government, in the Puno Sector [footnote 21]. This variation reflects some differences in timing and location. The villages in the Ilave delta had more opportunity for lobbying, because they had begun to act before the reserve was set up. It was easier for those in the Ramis Sector to threaten violence, because of their greater distance from Puno and the more hilly topography of the region.

Nonetheless, these apparently different cases show an important uniformity: the actions in all cases were spontaneous. This quality contributed to the success of the villagers in undermining the reserve, since the government had no organized counterpart with whom they could negotiate. The sources of this spontaneity lie in the social and political fabric of the villages. The assemblies that they held provided an opportunity for a thorough public airing of opposition to the reserve. This opposition also gained support, oddly enough, from distrust with which neighboring villages often view each other. Though villagers often try to sneak into each other's territories, and are jealous if one gets particular attention from the government in the form of a school or health clinic, they watch each other closely. In this instance, any village that contemplated developing particularly close ties with CENFOR knew that it would be roundly criticized by others, and possibly attacked as well.

Another source of this spontaneity lies in the landscape itself, in the sharpness of the boundary between land and water. Though other government measures might affect different villages to varying degrees, it was clear from the start that the reserve would have strong consequences for the lakeshore villages, and only for these villages. Moreover, the state intervenes in many ways on land, through ministries that supervise agriculture, education and transport. The lake, by contrast, has remained in the hands of the villagers, as earlier conflicts over the regulation of fisheries had demonstrated. In this sense, there was no need for organized movements to create and evoke symbols of unity, so that villages would be drawn into the movement. The lake itself was a powerful reminder of the villagers' enduring efforts at autonomy [footnote 22].

The landscape figures in the most recent episodes of the reserve. CENFOR's last effort in Puno Bay was to delineate its boundaries in a form that would be visible to all. In 1985 and 1986, the reserve built markers at six of its boundary-points, located a bit beyond the outer edge of the totora beds. Each of these floating markers consisted of three barrels, welded to a frame that supported a tripod, made of metal bars. At the top of this tripod, more than two meters above the surface of the lake, were signs very much like the ones found in national parks in the United States: a rustic piece of wood, painted brown, with letters inscribed in the surface and painted white. These signs bear the name of the reserve. The markers bobbed on the surface, anchored them to the lake bottom by heavy masses of concrete. They were intended to separate the portion of Puno Bay that was directly administered by CENFOR from the region under the control of the navy. This effort failed. The barrels were dented, the metal bars bent, and the words of the signs were defaced. Rather than showing the government's management of the reserve, these markers indicate the villagers' control of the lake on both sides of the line that the government drew in the water.

After 1986, the reserve had become what many conservation biologists and environmental activists call a "paper park"-a protected area that is depicted in maps and discussed in reports, but that is not managed in any way by government officials or scientists. This term conveys the absence of significant activity by CENFOR or its successors (the reserve passed to the Ministry of Agriculture in 1988, to a joint Peruvian-Bolivian regional development program in 1990, and to the National Institute of Natural Resources, an independent Peruvian government agency, in 1992). Indeed the reserve does exist quite literally on paper, since it is mentioned on the pages of the plans of activities written by government agencies in Puno. The documents give the reserve a kind of existence, to government officials at least. This term expresses an understanding of the villagers as well: that projects, written on paper in towns and cities, can spring upon them, for good or for bad. Well aware of the power of paper, villagers have made concerted efforts to defend their territories.