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Regarding biocultural heritage: in situ political ecology of agricultural biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes

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Abstract

This paper emerges from and aims to contribute to conversations on agricultural biodiversity loss, value, and renewal. Standard international responses to the crisis of agrobiodiversity erosion focus mostly on ex situ preservation of germplasm, with little financial and strategic support for in situ cultivation. Yet, one agrarian collective in the Peruvian Andes—the Parque de la Papa (Parque)—has repatriated a thousand native potatoes from the gene bank in Lima so as to catalyze in situ regeneration of lost agricultural biodiversity in the region. Drawing on participant action research and observation, this paper engages with the projects underway at the Parque—as well as “indigenous biocultural heritage” (IBCH), the original action-framework guiding the Parque’s work. IBCH grounds the ecology of successful crop diversity within the Andean cosmovisión, or worldview—which is included, but marginalized, in mainstream agrobiodiversity conservation policies. The IBCH concept counters apolitical renderings of agrobiodiversity erosion, arguing that this disregard of biocultural heritage perpetuates colonialist devaluations of efficacious “traditional ecological knowledge” and epistemologies. Accordingly, this paper discerns here an on-site, or in situ, political ecology of agricultural biodiversity conservation.

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Notes

  1. I have left this key term in Spanish, since the English translations (cosmovision/cosmology/world vision) fail to encompass the full meaning of cosmovisión. Also, the Peruvian growers of the Parque with whom I spoke and worked often use the Spanish term even when speaking in Quechua.

  2. “In the space of a century and a half—only two full lifetimes—more damage had been done to the productive capacity of the world than in all of human history preceding. The previously characteristic manner of living within the means of an area, by use of its actual ‘surplus,’ is replaced at the time by a reckless gutting of resources for quick ‘profit’…The modern world has been built on a progressive using up of its real capital…The apparent paradox results that the lands of recent settlement are the worn and worn-out parts of the world, not the lands of old civilization” (Sauer 1963 [1938], p. 147–8).

  3. The question of how to integrate cosmological or theological perspectives with historical-materialist analyses of political economy merits further investigation, reflection, and dialogue.

  4. The CGIAR declares itself to be “committed to conserving these collections for the long-term and to making the germplasm and associated information available as global public goods” (CGIAR 2012a).

  5. The invocation, employment, and acronym-ization of traditional ecological knowledge (as TEK) are increasingly important and complex. This paper engages the interplay of agricultural expertise and the politics of agrobiodiversity research and science, but the questions of innovation, epistemology, and intellectual property clearly need further attention.

  6. CBD’s Article 8(j) states: “Each contracting Party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate: Subject to national legislation, respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations, and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge innovations and practices.”

  7. The specific content and inner dynamics of the 1983 Undertaking and Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the 1992 CBD and its lively and broadly inclusive Article 8(j) Ad Hoc Working Group on Article, 1996 Global Plant of Action, the 2001 International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and subsequent Protocols, and the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit Sharing deserve their own essay, but are beyond the scope of this paper.

  8. These funds came from national donations (from US, UK, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, and Ethiopia among others), with the largest single donation being from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which has donated US$29.9 million as of February 2012—and which has a longstanding investment in Monsanto Corporation, having bought 500,000 shares worth US$23.1 million in 2010 alone). Agribusiness provides substantial direct support, with DuPont/Pioneer Hi-bred and Syngenta each giving US$1 million and the Grains Research & Development Corporation giving US$5 million—among other corporate donors (GCDT 2012b).

  9. Such as the Svalbard “Doomsday” Seed Vault near the Arctic Circle.

  10. This debate prompted internal assessments and debates, as outlined in the 2006 report “CGIAR Research Strategies for IPG in a Context of IPR: Report and Recommendations Based on Three Studies,” a survey of major agribusiness corporations and research partners (Chojecki 2006), and the establishment of a Private Sector Committee’s Science and Know-How Exchange initiative.

  11. Throughout these years, the Drug War and cocaine production also (negatively) affected small-scale agriculture, but these complex subjects are beyond the scope of this paper.

  12. This ideology of modernity is epitomized in a quote by celebrated Peruvian novelist Vargas Llosa: “Indian peasants live in such a primitive way that communication is practically impossible…The price they must pay for integration is high—renunciation of their culture, their language; their beliefs, their traditions and customs, and the adoption of the culture of their ancient masters…Perhaps there is no realistic way to integrate our societies other than asking the Indians to pay that price…It is tragic to destroy what is still living, still a driving cultural possibility…but I am afraid we shall have to make a choice…Where there is such an economic and social gap, modernization is possible only with the sacrifice of Indian cultures” (1990, pp. 52–53, as quoted in García 2003, pp. 85–86).

  13. I conducted research at the Parque in 2007, 2008, 2011–2012, using participatory observation, participatory action research, interviews, focus groups, and discourse analysis of related literatures.

  14. The Parque repatriated more than 400 native potato varieties in 2005 and another 500 in October 2010 (Suri 2005; ANDES 2012).

  15. These include a medicinal plant collective, a traditional textile weaving collective, agro-eco-tours and Andean cuisine restaurant, a youth video collective, as well as papa arawiwas (native potato guardians) to implement the repatriation.

  16. Translated from Spanish to English by the author.

  17. Pacha: “adj: Itself, The very. n: Place, Time, Era, Earth, World” (Hornberger and Hornberger 2008, p. 68).

  18. This information was learned through participant observation, informal conversation, and formal interviews and focus groups (in 2007, 2008, and 2011–2012). See Valladolid Rivera (1998) for more information on lunar influence on agricultural activities.

  19. It should be noted that attempting to summarize or even translate elements of indigenous cosmovisión is delicate territory. Without the requisite grasp of Quechua, I cannot claim ethnographic expertise of this region, its people, or its worldvision, nor would it seem appropriate in this context—since the biopiracy of seeds has often been extended to the larger academic appropriation of local knowledges for export and nonreciprocal gain (as warned by Fabian 1983, Smith 1999, and Robbins 2006, among others).

  20. In May 2007, CBD’s Ad Hoc Open Ended Working Group on Article 8(j) began publishing (online) Pachamama: A traditional knowledge newsletter of the convention on biological diversity. In 2009, the CBD agreed to implement key findings from the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which concluded that small-scale, agro-ecological farming is key for economic and ecological viability as well as for social and economic equity and well-being (IIAASTD 2009). In 2010, the CBD Nagoya Protocol asserted yet another valiant and more specific call for equitable access and benefit sharing of PGRFA. The CBD COP Decision VII/16 established Akwé:Kon Voluntary Guidelines for the “conduct of cultural, environmental, and social impact assessments.” Building upon these policies, Decision X/42 instigated the Tkarihwaié:ri Code of Ethical Conduct to Ensure Respect for the Cultural and Intellectual Heritage of Indigenous and Local Communities.

  21. “CIP will conduct its work on genetically engineered organisms in a participatory and transparent manner, considering the diversity of opinions and values of its partners, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders….CIP is sensitive to concerns surrounding the release of genetically engineered products in the center of origin and diversity and will always exercise extreme caution in these cases” (CIP 2008).

  22. Both the Bolivian and Ecuadorian constitutions now include landmark injunctions to protect the rights of Pachamama and to uphold the principles of Sumaq Kawsay, a Quechua term meaning “living well” and serving as a counter-development model deliberately grounded in Andean language and principles. These concepts—from their cosmological/biocultural origins to their social and political invocations and implications—are receiving needed further engagement (such as in Acosta and Martínez 2009; Radcliffe 2012), but are beyond the purview of this paper.

  23. This research faces this methodological and epistemological conundrum as well, with significantly more beyond-Anglophone literatures to engage.

  24. I thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to this pitfall as well as these helpful literatures.

  25. One important move in this direction: the CBD’s Traditional Knowledge Information Portal held an international dialogue workshop in April 2012 in Panama entitled “Knowledge for the twenty-first Century: Indigenous Knowledge, Traditional Knowledge, Science and Connecting Diverse Knowledge Systems.” The workshop culminated in the establishment of an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a global interface between the scientific community and policymakers that works to integrate scientific findings into international environmental policymaking related to biodiversity. IPBES asserts an explicit recognition and respect for the critical contribution of indigenous and local knowledge to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems (IPBES 2012).

  26. In particular, it might call for more dialogic, multidisciplinary research methods, as proposed for example by in Smith 1999 and Denzin et al. 2008 account of post-structural, critical, and indigenous methodologies.

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Correspondence to T. Garrett Graddy.

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Graddy, T.G. Regarding biocultural heritage: in situ political ecology of agricultural biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes. Agric Hum Values 30, 587–604 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-013-9428-8

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