ANDES

Santa Cruz

This drawing of Andean biocultural complex system was created by the Indian chronicler Juan Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yanqui Salccamaygua (1613) from a drawing of Incan cosmogony that was located on the main altar of the Coricancha (Golden Enclosure), the most important Monument of the Incas in Cuzco. In its images this rich picture reveal the most important interconnected wholes of the Andean biocultural system developed through historical recursive processes of co-evolution between Andean socio-cultural system and the mountain ecosystems they inhabit. These concepts continue to guide the life of Quechua and Aymara aboriginal South American civilizations.

Methodology

The International Training Workshop aims to bring together indigenous peoples from different geographical and biocultural regions of the world to engage in a contact learning zone environment, to learn about designing, planning, implementing and managing Agrobiodiversity Conservation Areas. The methodology has been designed to facilitate cross cultural learning, using the Potato Park as a model of a biocultural territory for agrobiodiversity conservation centered on the potato. The methodology will provide conceptual and practical tools for replication of the model in other biocultural territories.

Biocultural systems are understood through indigenous concepts as holistic, interconnected wholes that have developed through historical recursive processes of co-evolution between the socio-cultural system and the ecosystems they inhabit.  Working with such complex adaptive systems poses challenges for management, and requires appropriate tools and methods. The methodology for the workshop has been designed using a combination of local indigenous methodologies for holistic thinking, and cutting edge tools for managing complex systems.  Tools for facilitating a process of thinking about complex situations, defining complex systems and analyzing their components to plan interventions, developed by the Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/), use a systems approach and diagramming to guide interventions into real world complex situations. These tools have been adapted to work with indigenous biocultural systems and build upon the Potato Park experience.

Highly dynamic and participatory methodologies will facilitate learning through several avenues:

Principles

Despite rapid advances in information technology that has, in theory, the potential to dramatically improve the flow of information on successful experiences and research findings in Indigenous Biocultural Territories to other indigenous communities and policy-makers, communication and interaction between indigenous peoples themselves is inadequate. The workshop aims to overcome the challenge using a Contact Learning Zone framework, allowing geographically and historically separated peoples to come into contact and establish on-going relations, creating a horizontal and democratic space for intercultural practice. Indigenous peoples from different biocultural territories will come together to inquire and learn about how to establish and manage an Agrobiodiversity Centre.

The shared colonial history of participating indigenous peoples has created legacies of coercion, inequality and conflict. The Contact Learning Zone will overcome these legacies by using the following principles:

• Sharing
• Solidarity
• Participatory knowledge discovery
• Cooperative management of knowledge
• Fostering of interdependent horizontal networking

Within this space, local methodologies which continue to play a critical role in technology transfer in all regions of the world will be used. They rely on group interactions for facilitating learning and transferring information and technology in a horizontal and reciprocal manner.