Image 3 – With help from neighbors, Irene Mansilla tills the earth for the planting and fertilizing of potatoes. Irene and her husband are among 400 or so residents of the island of Llingua. For decades, their primary form of subsistence has been farming, fishing, shellfish-extraction, and the tending of a few scattered livestock on their property. Agricultural work is typically done through reciprocal arrangements with neighbors (mingas). Despite the installation of large salmon farms and processing plants along neighboring islands, the Mansillas have been able to maintain a strategy of diversified rural livelihoods, thanks largely to their ownership of a fishing boat, their association years ago with a local fishing cooperative, and the labor assistance they get from neighbors. Other rural islanders have been less fortunate, finding their subsistence livelihoods nearly impossible to maintain in the face of a growing regional cash economy. (Photo by Anton Daughters)