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[post_content] => Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to the Political Ecology class at Villa Carmen to discuss their communities’ previous experiences working with researchers, and how in the future, stronger research relationships could be formed between their communities and The School for Field Studies (SFS) in Peru.
The teaching circle in the maloca. From left to right: Professor Adrian Tejedor, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, Sr. Julián Dariquebe, Don Alberto Manqueriapa, David DeHart (student), Erika Weiskopf (student). Photo: K. MacDonald.
Sr. Julián Dariquebe, a community teacher from Queros, and Don Alberto Manqueriapa, village leader and shaman from Huacaria, formed a teaching circle in the maloca to speak with the class. Together, they shared some of their previous encounters with outside researchers, highlighting the positive experiences while suggesting how others could have been improved. Students were encouraged to engage with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto through the preparation of questions, formed with the assistance of Professor Eric Gonzalez, the resident Spanish Professor, and to listen and learn from the Indigenous elders. The bilingual conversation that emerged, facilitated and translated by Tropical Ecology Professor Adrian Tejedor, proved to be a rich and engaging discussion of the history of outsider contact with the Huachipaeri and the Matsigenka peoples, as well as providing an insightful analysis of the potential for Indigenous methodologies to inspire future successful research relationships, grounded in mutual respect, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility.
The Political Ecology class with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto, in the maloca. Photo: T. Bautista Romero.
Sr. Julián and Don Alberto were invited to lunch with us after the class, giving students a further opportunity to engage with our neighbours, and to learn more about their cultures and communities. These conversations will continue throughout the semester, as students and staff continue to interact with various community members locally in Pilcopata, as well as during our visit to the village of Queros, where we will be invited to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity as a future component of the Political Ecology class.
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The teaching circle in the maloca. From left to right: Professor Adrian Tejedor, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, Sr. Julián Dariquebe, Don Alberto Manqueriapa, David DeHart (student), Erika Weiskopf (student). Photo: K. MacDonald.
Sr. Julián Dariquebe, a community teacher from Queros, and Don Alberto Manqueriapa, village leader and shaman from Huacaria, formed a teaching circle in the maloca to speak with the class. Together, they shared some of their previous encounters with outside researchers, highlighting the positive experiences while suggesting how others could have been improved. Students were encouraged to engage with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto through the preparation of questions, formed with the assistance of Professor Eric Gonzalez, the resident Spanish Professor, and to listen and learn from the Indigenous elders. The bilingual conversation that emerged, facilitated and translated by Tropical Ecology Professor Adrian Tejedor, proved to be a rich and engaging discussion of the history of outsider contact with the Huachipaeri and the Matsigenka peoples, as well as providing an insightful analysis of the potential for Indigenous methodologies to inspire future successful research relationships, grounded in mutual respect, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility.
The Political Ecology class with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto, in the maloca. Photo: T. Bautista Romero.
Sr. Julián and Don Alberto were invited to lunch with us after the class, giving students a further opportunity to engage with our neighbours, and to learn more about their cultures and communities. These conversations will continue throughout the semester, as students and staff continue to interact with various community members locally in Pilcopata, as well as during our visit to the village of Queros, where we will be invited to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity as a future component of the Political Ecology class.
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[post_content] => One of the key objectives of the political ecology course is to prepare students for their final, independent Directed Research projects by teaching them the skills required to create, organize, and execute a fieldwork project using qualitative research methods, applied through Indigenous principles, paradigms, and practices. To fulfil this objective, this semester students had the opportunity to visit four markets with the School for Field Studies: the San Pedro Market in Cusco, both the producer’s market and the city market in Urubamba, and the Pilcopata Market in the Andean lowlands. Working together in small groups, students investigated the markets as a means of measuring agricultural production and biodiversity.
While at the markets, students practiced their ethnographic research methods, including observation, participant-observation, and informal interviewing, in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data that could help them measure differing agricultural patterns and practices, as well as food-plant and/or crop agrobiodiversity within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. The objective of the fieldwork component of the exercise was to collect enough information to effectively reflect on the differences noted between the three markets, discuss potential implications for local communities, and link these observations and reflections to potential
broad-scale issues impacting Andean-Amazonian populations.
Pilcopata Market: Learning the history of the Kosñipata Region, and the impacts this history has on modern market production. From left to right: students Audrey Nelson, Madison Wilkinson, Lexi Donahue, Noah Linck, Program Assistant Claudia Gómez, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and ACCA Kitchen Coordinator Luz Ruiz Fuchs
The various projects that emerged from this fieldwork engaged with important political ecology issues within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. One project investigated how the diversity, size and function of each particular market is significantly tied to both the agricultural potential of the surrounding region as well as to the relative size of the consumer base in the immediate area.
Urubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "X Markets the Spot: Market Studies in Various Social and Environmental Climates in Peru." Students Sam Short, Kyle Mabie, and Sam Parks with Student Affairs Manager Casey KelehanUrubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "Healing Plants, Healing the Earth: Medicinal Plants as a Case Study for Sustainable Agriculture in Peru." Program Assistant Claudia Gómez with students Blake Hodges, Lexi Donahue, and Noah Linck
The second project investigated the links between an increasing market demand for medicinal plants, the potential for overharvesting of those plants, and the adaptation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an era of global environmental change. These students found that since many popular plants are harvested from the wild, the increase in demand has caused a scarcity of common species, and put some in danger of over-harvesting, thereby threatening the sustainability of medicinal plant harvesting in Peru.
The third project investigated the role of intermediaries in the market production system and the economics of both supply and demand diversity within and between different regions of Peru. These students found that profit-seeking was increasing competition between the different markets, as well as between producers and vendors, including the intermediaries, potentially lessening agrobiodiversity within the region.
"Analyzing Profit Driven Agricultural Trends in the Peruvian Market System:" Interviewing a market vendor in the Urubamba Market. From top to bottom: students Audrey Nelson, Micaela Roy, and Madison Wilkinson→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon; Peru
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[post_content] => Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to the Political Ecology class at Villa Carmen to discuss their communities’ previous experiences working with researchers, and how in the future, stronger research relationships could be formed between their communities and The School for Field Studies (SFS) in Peru.
The teaching circle in the maloca. From left to right: Professor Adrian Tejedor, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, Sr. Julián Dariquebe, Don Alberto Manqueriapa, David DeHart (student), Erika Weiskopf (student). Photo: K. MacDonald.
Sr. Julián Dariquebe, a community teacher from Queros, and Don Alberto Manqueriapa, village leader and shaman from Huacaria, formed a teaching circle in the maloca to speak with the class. Together, they shared some of their previous encounters with outside researchers, highlighting the positive experiences while suggesting how others could have been improved. Students were encouraged to engage with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto through the preparation of questions, formed with the assistance of Professor Eric Gonzalez, the resident Spanish Professor, and to listen and learn from the Indigenous elders. The bilingual conversation that emerged, facilitated and translated by Tropical Ecology Professor Adrian Tejedor, proved to be a rich and engaging discussion of the history of outsider contact with the Huachipaeri and the Matsigenka peoples, as well as providing an insightful analysis of the potential for Indigenous methodologies to inspire future successful research relationships, grounded in mutual respect, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility.
The Political Ecology class with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto, in the maloca. Photo: T. Bautista Romero.
Sr. Julián and Don Alberto were invited to lunch with us after the class, giving students a further opportunity to engage with our neighbours, and to learn more about their cultures and communities. These conversations will continue throughout the semester, as students and staff continue to interact with various community members locally in Pilcopata, as well as during our visit to the village of Queros, where we will be invited to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity as a future component of the Political Ecology class.
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[post_content] => "Our ancestors have left behind many valuable places and things that teach us of our past. … Our forefathers also left behind Nature Farms that we highly value for their ancient seeds, root suckers and bina, which we harvest carefully up until today for use in our farms and gardens." (South Central People's Development Association, 2012: 69)
This semester, one of the key themes for the Political Ecology class is exploring how Indigenous peoples have traditionally used the land and culturally managed their natural resources in a sustainable manner, in consideration of the future generations yet to come. As a biological research and teaching field station, the Villa Carmen campus incorporates aspects of this Traditional Ecological Knowledge into its demonstration projects in order for students to gain a better understanding of the depth of knowledge Indigenous peoples have obtained through interactions with their environments. Recently the Political Ecology class visited one of these projects, the Medicinal Plant Garden, with Sr. Leonidas Huaccac, a staff member of the Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA), in order to begin to understand how Indigenous peoples traditionally managed their natural resources.
Students experimenting with an anesthetic plant from the Medicinal Plant Garden, Villa Carmen
We learned that the garden hosts over seventy types of medicinal plants used historically by local Huachipaeri and Matsigenka communities, and that this is only a small proportion of the plants which have been traditionally used by Indigenous peoples in their healing and ritual practices. In order to gain an even greater appreciation of how natural resources have traditionally been managed and used, we then visited the forest, walking along the trails of Villa Carmen to explore the possibilities of plants for medicinal purposes.
Sr. Leonidas Huaccac demonstrating to students (from left to right, Erika Weiskopf, Kana Yamamoto) medicinal plant uses in the Villa Carmen forest
Visiting the forest with Sr. Leonidas granted us the opportunity to see the plant life within it from a different perspective, and with his guidance, we could begin to appreciate the vast wealth of Traditional Ecological Knowledge acquired by Indigenous peoples through their interactions with the forest, a theme we will return to when the Political Ecology class visits the Parque de la Papa (Potato Park) in the Sacred Valley.
→ Biodiversity and Development in the Andes-Amazon Semester Program in Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. As we are currently living and studying in the fertile Sacred Valley, once the spiritual and commercial heart of the Inca realm, and today the home of the Indigenous Quechua peoples, we have had the opportunity to learn more about natural resource management, relational politics, and Indigenous worldviews through the lens of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) shared with us by Peru’s Andean populations.
Our first field excursion was to the Cusco Planetarium, where we learned how ancient constellations, including the "dark cloud constellations," were studied to both establish the best times to plant or to harvest, as well as to determine how future weather patterns, such as El Niño events, might affect agricultural production. After the lecture and presentation, students had the opportunity to observe the southern hemisphere night skies through a telescope, viewing various culturally important stars, including the "eye" of the Big Llama.
"The Big Llama" Dark Cloud Constellation. Dark Cloud constellations are found within the Milky Way, and can be seen in the dark spaces between clusters of stars, forming patterns and shapes much as more traditional stellar constellations do. All Photos: Katie MacDonald
Our second field excursion was to El Parque de la Papa (the Potato Park), a cooperative of six Quechua communities working together to protect and preserve the critical role of Indigenous Biocultural Heritage (IBCH – a specialized form of IK) in the conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. Cooperative leaders explained to the class the importance of the adaptation of IK to the changing climate, and explained how these Quechua communities are working together with western science to help preserve the vast diversity of agricultural crops found within the Park.
From community members, we also learned more about Andean principles of reciprocity and relationality between three key communities, or allyus; the people, the landscape, and the forest dwellers (including both plants and animals), and how these relationships help guide the Quechua in the management of their natural resources, including heritage potatoes, ancient grains, and other useful plants, such as those used for the dying of wool for traditional handicrafts.
Learning about the incredible agrobiodiversity of potatoes managed by these Quechua communities, which includes experimenting with 1,395 different varieties of potatoes, and the preservation of 750 potato seeds. From left to right: Students Sam Eller and Nick Greatens, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and two of our Quechua guides from Pampallaqta.
Our final field excursion for this section of the course on Andean Indigenous Knowledge was to the Pisac Botanical Gardens, where Quechua elder Mariano Rayo Flores shared with us his vast knowledge of local medicinal and sacred plants from the Valley. Exploring these opportunities and experiences of IK and natural resources management of the Quechua peoples will serve as a base of comparison for us as we shift our geographic focus in the coming weeks to the Amazonian region of Peru.
Sr. Mariano explaining to the class the use of important plants for Quechua peoples. From left to right: Students Jessica Plance, Abigail Heggenstaller, Riley Schumm, Zachary Froman, Kim Pierson, Melissa Petrich, and Julia Mitchell.
[post_title] => Indigenous Knowledge in the Sacred Valley
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, both historically and through current practices, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. Living at Villa Carmen Biological Station gives us so many opportunities to learn more about this incredible environment, in particular how people have been managing it for millennia, helping to create the amazing biodiversity we see today. Last week we had the opportunity to explore one example of the social-nature of Villa Carmen by visiting the experimental bio-char facility located at the station, and to learn how local people are using and transforming the knowledge of their ancestors to improve soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and even mitigate the effects of climate change!
Bio-Char Oven: From left to right: Students Jessica Plance and Zachary Froman, ACCA sustainable agriculture employee Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado, Program Intern Brielle Seitelman, and ACCA sustainable agriculture bio-char specialist Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto.
Tropical rainforest ecosystems are characterized by nutrient poor and highly weathered soils due to high rainfall and high temperature patterns typical of the region. Terra preta (also known as Amazonian Dark Earth) is a type of soil of anthropogenic origin found throughout Amazonia. Archaeologists and historical ecologists argue that terra preta is formed through the addition of bio-char (incompletely burned biomass) and nutrient rich waste materials such as residue from food production, animal remains, and ash to the soil. Conservative estimates indicate that approximately ten percent of the Amazon region is comprised of terra preta, however locations are still being discovered, usually near larger, white water rivers on terra firme (non-flooded land).
Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado and Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto who work with the sustainable agriculture program at ACCA explained the history of bio-char science at Villa Carmen. Using a prototype bio-char oven (one of only four in the world), waste forestry and farming materials, including the native bamboo which infests the trail system at Villa Carmen, are carefully stacked on giant trays, and then set alight. The heavily insulated door to the oven is set in place, and then the atmosphere inside is carefully monitored and controlled. The temperature inside the oven can reach as high as 700 degrees Celsius, and is regulated through the use of an internal sprinkler system to occasionally cool the fire in order to ensure that char is formed and not merely ash. The bio-char burns for approximately six hours before being removed from the oven and left to cool completely. It is then ready to be mixed into the soil, together with the compost produced from the Villa Carmen kitchen.
Sr. Anacleto engaging the internal sprinkler system of the oven.
Don Leonidas and Sr. Anacleto explained several different bio-char experiments that are ongoing at Villa Carmen. Some fields are being tested to determine how much bio-char is needed to make a difference to soil fertility, while others are comparing the effects of different types of bio-char. One particularly interesting experiment is being conducted on differing types of banana plants in order to help establish the best methods of soil recovery after intensive agricultural production, such as at sites like Villa Carmen which were historically used for cultivation and cattle raising for hundreds of years.
Moving forward, the sustainable agriculture team at ACCA are hoping to engage in more studies investigating the important role bio-char can have in carbon sequestration, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. These scientific experiments are building directly on the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the local Indigenous peoples who have been managing their environments for millennia, helping to create the incredible biodiversity we see today. By visiting the bio-char facility at the end of the semester, we were able to connect many of our theoretical course learnings to an empirical setting, in particular gaining a greater appreciation for TEK, alternate ontologies, and social natures.
One of the banana plant experiments at Villa Carmen.→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon of Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key objectives of the political ecology course is to prepare students for their final, independent Directed Research projects by teaching them the skills required to create, organize, and execute a fieldwork project using qualitative research methods, applied through Indigenous principles, paradigms, and practices. To fulfil this objective, this semester students had the opportunity to visit four markets with the School for Field Studies: the San Pedro Market in Cusco, both the producer’s market and the city market in Urubamba, and the Pilcopata Market in the Andean lowlands. Working together in small groups, students investigated the markets as a means of measuring agricultural production and biodiversity.
While at the markets, students practiced their ethnographic research methods, including observation, participant-observation, and informal interviewing, in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data that could help them measure differing agricultural patterns and practices, as well as food-plant and/or crop agrobiodiversity within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. The objective of the fieldwork component of the exercise was to collect enough information to effectively reflect on the differences noted between the three markets, discuss potential implications for local communities, and link these observations and reflections to potential
broad-scale issues impacting Andean-Amazonian populations.
Pilcopata Market: Learning the history of the Kosñipata Region, and the impacts this history has on modern market production. From left to right: students Audrey Nelson, Madison Wilkinson, Lexi Donahue, Noah Linck, Program Assistant Claudia Gómez, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and ACCA Kitchen Coordinator Luz Ruiz Fuchs
The various projects that emerged from this fieldwork engaged with important political ecology issues within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. One project investigated how the diversity, size and function of each particular market is significantly tied to both the agricultural potential of the surrounding region as well as to the relative size of the consumer base in the immediate area.
Urubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "X Markets the Spot: Market Studies in Various Social and Environmental Climates in Peru." Students Sam Short, Kyle Mabie, and Sam Parks with Student Affairs Manager Casey KelehanUrubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "Healing Plants, Healing the Earth: Medicinal Plants as a Case Study for Sustainable Agriculture in Peru." Program Assistant Claudia Gómez with students Blake Hodges, Lexi Donahue, and Noah Linck
The second project investigated the links between an increasing market demand for medicinal plants, the potential for overharvesting of those plants, and the adaptation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an era of global environmental change. These students found that since many popular plants are harvested from the wild, the increase in demand has caused a scarcity of common species, and put some in danger of over-harvesting, thereby threatening the sustainability of medicinal plant harvesting in Peru.
The third project investigated the role of intermediaries in the market production system and the economics of both supply and demand diversity within and between different regions of Peru. These students found that profit-seeking was increasing competition between the different markets, as well as between producers and vendors, including the intermediaries, potentially lessening agrobiodiversity within the region.
"Analyzing Profit Driven Agricultural Trends in the Peruvian Market System:" Interviewing a market vendor in the Urubamba Market. From top to bottom: students Audrey Nelson, Micaela Roy, and Madison Wilkinson→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon; Peru
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[post_content] => Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to the Political Ecology class at Villa Carmen to discuss their communities’ previous experiences working with researchers, and how in the future, stronger research relationships could be formed between their communities and The School for Field Studies (SFS) in Peru.
The teaching circle in the maloca. From left to right: Professor Adrian Tejedor, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, Sr. Julián Dariquebe, Don Alberto Manqueriapa, David DeHart (student), Erika Weiskopf (student). Photo: K. MacDonald.
Sr. Julián Dariquebe, a community teacher from Queros, and Don Alberto Manqueriapa, village leader and shaman from Huacaria, formed a teaching circle in the maloca to speak with the class. Together, they shared some of their previous encounters with outside researchers, highlighting the positive experiences while suggesting how others could have been improved. Students were encouraged to engage with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto through the preparation of questions, formed with the assistance of Professor Eric Gonzalez, the resident Spanish Professor, and to listen and learn from the Indigenous elders. The bilingual conversation that emerged, facilitated and translated by Tropical Ecology Professor Adrian Tejedor, proved to be a rich and engaging discussion of the history of outsider contact with the Huachipaeri and the Matsigenka peoples, as well as providing an insightful analysis of the potential for Indigenous methodologies to inspire future successful research relationships, grounded in mutual respect, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility.
The Political Ecology class with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto, in the maloca. Photo: T. Bautista Romero.
Sr. Julián and Don Alberto were invited to lunch with us after the class, giving students a further opportunity to engage with our neighbours, and to learn more about their cultures and communities. These conversations will continue throughout the semester, as students and staff continue to interact with various community members locally in Pilcopata, as well as during our visit to the village of Queros, where we will be invited to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity as a future component of the Political Ecology class.
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[post_content] => "Our ancestors have left behind many valuable places and things that teach us of our past. … Our forefathers also left behind Nature Farms that we highly value for their ancient seeds, root suckers and bina, which we harvest carefully up until today for use in our farms and gardens." (South Central People's Development Association, 2012: 69)
This semester, one of the key themes for the Political Ecology class is exploring how Indigenous peoples have traditionally used the land and culturally managed their natural resources in a sustainable manner, in consideration of the future generations yet to come. As a biological research and teaching field station, the Villa Carmen campus incorporates aspects of this Traditional Ecological Knowledge into its demonstration projects in order for students to gain a better understanding of the depth of knowledge Indigenous peoples have obtained through interactions with their environments. Recently the Political Ecology class visited one of these projects, the Medicinal Plant Garden, with Sr. Leonidas Huaccac, a staff member of the Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA), in order to begin to understand how Indigenous peoples traditionally managed their natural resources.
Students experimenting with an anesthetic plant from the Medicinal Plant Garden, Villa Carmen
We learned that the garden hosts over seventy types of medicinal plants used historically by local Huachipaeri and Matsigenka communities, and that this is only a small proportion of the plants which have been traditionally used by Indigenous peoples in their healing and ritual practices. In order to gain an even greater appreciation of how natural resources have traditionally been managed and used, we then visited the forest, walking along the trails of Villa Carmen to explore the possibilities of plants for medicinal purposes.
Sr. Leonidas Huaccac demonstrating to students (from left to right, Erika Weiskopf, Kana Yamamoto) medicinal plant uses in the Villa Carmen forest
Visiting the forest with Sr. Leonidas granted us the opportunity to see the plant life within it from a different perspective, and with his guidance, we could begin to appreciate the vast wealth of Traditional Ecological Knowledge acquired by Indigenous peoples through their interactions with the forest, a theme we will return to when the Political Ecology class visits the Parque de la Papa (Potato Park) in the Sacred Valley.
→ Biodiversity and Development in the Andes-Amazon Semester Program in Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. As we are currently living and studying in the fertile Sacred Valley, once the spiritual and commercial heart of the Inca realm, and today the home of the Indigenous Quechua peoples, we have had the opportunity to learn more about natural resource management, relational politics, and Indigenous worldviews through the lens of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) shared with us by Peru’s Andean populations.
Our first field excursion was to the Cusco Planetarium, where we learned how ancient constellations, including the "dark cloud constellations," were studied to both establish the best times to plant or to harvest, as well as to determine how future weather patterns, such as El Niño events, might affect agricultural production. After the lecture and presentation, students had the opportunity to observe the southern hemisphere night skies through a telescope, viewing various culturally important stars, including the "eye" of the Big Llama.
"The Big Llama" Dark Cloud Constellation. Dark Cloud constellations are found within the Milky Way, and can be seen in the dark spaces between clusters of stars, forming patterns and shapes much as more traditional stellar constellations do. All Photos: Katie MacDonald
Our second field excursion was to El Parque de la Papa (the Potato Park), a cooperative of six Quechua communities working together to protect and preserve the critical role of Indigenous Biocultural Heritage (IBCH – a specialized form of IK) in the conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. Cooperative leaders explained to the class the importance of the adaptation of IK to the changing climate, and explained how these Quechua communities are working together with western science to help preserve the vast diversity of agricultural crops found within the Park.
From community members, we also learned more about Andean principles of reciprocity and relationality between three key communities, or allyus; the people, the landscape, and the forest dwellers (including both plants and animals), and how these relationships help guide the Quechua in the management of their natural resources, including heritage potatoes, ancient grains, and other useful plants, such as those used for the dying of wool for traditional handicrafts.
Learning about the incredible agrobiodiversity of potatoes managed by these Quechua communities, which includes experimenting with 1,395 different varieties of potatoes, and the preservation of 750 potato seeds. From left to right: Students Sam Eller and Nick Greatens, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and two of our Quechua guides from Pampallaqta.
Our final field excursion for this section of the course on Andean Indigenous Knowledge was to the Pisac Botanical Gardens, where Quechua elder Mariano Rayo Flores shared with us his vast knowledge of local medicinal and sacred plants from the Valley. Exploring these opportunities and experiences of IK and natural resources management of the Quechua peoples will serve as a base of comparison for us as we shift our geographic focus in the coming weeks to the Amazonian region of Peru.
Sr. Mariano explaining to the class the use of important plants for Quechua peoples. From left to right: Students Jessica Plance, Abigail Heggenstaller, Riley Schumm, Zachary Froman, Kim Pierson, Melissa Petrich, and Julia Mitchell.
[post_title] => Indigenous Knowledge in the Sacred Valley
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, both historically and through current practices, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. Living at Villa Carmen Biological Station gives us so many opportunities to learn more about this incredible environment, in particular how people have been managing it for millennia, helping to create the amazing biodiversity we see today. Last week we had the opportunity to explore one example of the social-nature of Villa Carmen by visiting the experimental bio-char facility located at the station, and to learn how local people are using and transforming the knowledge of their ancestors to improve soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and even mitigate the effects of climate change!
Bio-Char Oven: From left to right: Students Jessica Plance and Zachary Froman, ACCA sustainable agriculture employee Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado, Program Intern Brielle Seitelman, and ACCA sustainable agriculture bio-char specialist Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto.
Tropical rainforest ecosystems are characterized by nutrient poor and highly weathered soils due to high rainfall and high temperature patterns typical of the region. Terra preta (also known as Amazonian Dark Earth) is a type of soil of anthropogenic origin found throughout Amazonia. Archaeologists and historical ecologists argue that terra preta is formed through the addition of bio-char (incompletely burned biomass) and nutrient rich waste materials such as residue from food production, animal remains, and ash to the soil. Conservative estimates indicate that approximately ten percent of the Amazon region is comprised of terra preta, however locations are still being discovered, usually near larger, white water rivers on terra firme (non-flooded land).
Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado and Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto who work with the sustainable agriculture program at ACCA explained the history of bio-char science at Villa Carmen. Using a prototype bio-char oven (one of only four in the world), waste forestry and farming materials, including the native bamboo which infests the trail system at Villa Carmen, are carefully stacked on giant trays, and then set alight. The heavily insulated door to the oven is set in place, and then the atmosphere inside is carefully monitored and controlled. The temperature inside the oven can reach as high as 700 degrees Celsius, and is regulated through the use of an internal sprinkler system to occasionally cool the fire in order to ensure that char is formed and not merely ash. The bio-char burns for approximately six hours before being removed from the oven and left to cool completely. It is then ready to be mixed into the soil, together with the compost produced from the Villa Carmen kitchen.
Sr. Anacleto engaging the internal sprinkler system of the oven.
Don Leonidas and Sr. Anacleto explained several different bio-char experiments that are ongoing at Villa Carmen. Some fields are being tested to determine how much bio-char is needed to make a difference to soil fertility, while others are comparing the effects of different types of bio-char. One particularly interesting experiment is being conducted on differing types of banana plants in order to help establish the best methods of soil recovery after intensive agricultural production, such as at sites like Villa Carmen which were historically used for cultivation and cattle raising for hundreds of years.
Moving forward, the sustainable agriculture team at ACCA are hoping to engage in more studies investigating the important role bio-char can have in carbon sequestration, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. These scientific experiments are building directly on the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the local Indigenous peoples who have been managing their environments for millennia, helping to create the incredible biodiversity we see today. By visiting the bio-char facility at the end of the semester, we were able to connect many of our theoretical course learnings to an empirical setting, in particular gaining a greater appreciation for TEK, alternate ontologies, and social natures.
One of the banana plant experiments at Villa Carmen.→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon of Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key objectives of the political ecology course is to prepare students for their final, independent Directed Research projects by teaching them the skills required to create, organize, and execute a fieldwork project using qualitative research methods, applied through Indigenous principles, paradigms, and practices. To fulfil this objective, this semester students had the opportunity to visit four markets with the School for Field Studies: the San Pedro Market in Cusco, both the producer’s market and the city market in Urubamba, and the Pilcopata Market in the Andean lowlands. Working together in small groups, students investigated the markets as a means of measuring agricultural production and biodiversity.
While at the markets, students practiced their ethnographic research methods, including observation, participant-observation, and informal interviewing, in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data that could help them measure differing agricultural patterns and practices, as well as food-plant and/or crop agrobiodiversity within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. The objective of the fieldwork component of the exercise was to collect enough information to effectively reflect on the differences noted between the three markets, discuss potential implications for local communities, and link these observations and reflections to potential
broad-scale issues impacting Andean-Amazonian populations.
Pilcopata Market: Learning the history of the Kosñipata Region, and the impacts this history has on modern market production. From left to right: students Audrey Nelson, Madison Wilkinson, Lexi Donahue, Noah Linck, Program Assistant Claudia Gómez, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and ACCA Kitchen Coordinator Luz Ruiz Fuchs
The various projects that emerged from this fieldwork engaged with important political ecology issues within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. One project investigated how the diversity, size and function of each particular market is significantly tied to both the agricultural potential of the surrounding region as well as to the relative size of the consumer base in the immediate area.
Urubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "X Markets the Spot: Market Studies in Various Social and Environmental Climates in Peru." Students Sam Short, Kyle Mabie, and Sam Parks with Student Affairs Manager Casey KelehanUrubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "Healing Plants, Healing the Earth: Medicinal Plants as a Case Study for Sustainable Agriculture in Peru." Program Assistant Claudia Gómez with students Blake Hodges, Lexi Donahue, and Noah Linck
The second project investigated the links between an increasing market demand for medicinal plants, the potential for overharvesting of those plants, and the adaptation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an era of global environmental change. These students found that since many popular plants are harvested from the wild, the increase in demand has caused a scarcity of common species, and put some in danger of over-harvesting, thereby threatening the sustainability of medicinal plant harvesting in Peru.
The third project investigated the role of intermediaries in the market production system and the economics of both supply and demand diversity within and between different regions of Peru. These students found that profit-seeking was increasing competition between the different markets, as well as between producers and vendors, including the intermediaries, potentially lessening agrobiodiversity within the region.
"Analyzing Profit Driven Agricultural Trends in the Peruvian Market System:" Interviewing a market vendor in the Urubamba Market. From top to bottom: students Audrey Nelson, Micaela Roy, and Madison Wilkinson→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon; Peru
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[post_content] => Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to the Political Ecology class at Villa Carmen to discuss their communities’ previous experiences working with researchers, and how in the future, stronger research relationships could be formed between their communities and The School for Field Studies (SFS) in Peru.
The teaching circle in the maloca. From left to right: Professor Adrian Tejedor, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, Sr. Julián Dariquebe, Don Alberto Manqueriapa, David DeHart (student), Erika Weiskopf (student). Photo: K. MacDonald.
Sr. Julián Dariquebe, a community teacher from Queros, and Don Alberto Manqueriapa, village leader and shaman from Huacaria, formed a teaching circle in the maloca to speak with the class. Together, they shared some of their previous encounters with outside researchers, highlighting the positive experiences while suggesting how others could have been improved. Students were encouraged to engage with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto through the preparation of questions, formed with the assistance of Professor Eric Gonzalez, the resident Spanish Professor, and to listen and learn from the Indigenous elders. The bilingual conversation that emerged, facilitated and translated by Tropical Ecology Professor Adrian Tejedor, proved to be a rich and engaging discussion of the history of outsider contact with the Huachipaeri and the Matsigenka peoples, as well as providing an insightful analysis of the potential for Indigenous methodologies to inspire future successful research relationships, grounded in mutual respect, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility.
The Political Ecology class with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto, in the maloca. Photo: T. Bautista Romero.
Sr. Julián and Don Alberto were invited to lunch with us after the class, giving students a further opportunity to engage with our neighbours, and to learn more about their cultures and communities. These conversations will continue throughout the semester, as students and staff continue to interact with various community members locally in Pilcopata, as well as during our visit to the village of Queros, where we will be invited to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity as a future component of the Political Ecology class.
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[post_content] => "Our ancestors have left behind many valuable places and things that teach us of our past. … Our forefathers also left behind Nature Farms that we highly value for their ancient seeds, root suckers and bina, which we harvest carefully up until today for use in our farms and gardens." (South Central People's Development Association, 2012: 69)
This semester, one of the key themes for the Political Ecology class is exploring how Indigenous peoples have traditionally used the land and culturally managed their natural resources in a sustainable manner, in consideration of the future generations yet to come. As a biological research and teaching field station, the Villa Carmen campus incorporates aspects of this Traditional Ecological Knowledge into its demonstration projects in order for students to gain a better understanding of the depth of knowledge Indigenous peoples have obtained through interactions with their environments. Recently the Political Ecology class visited one of these projects, the Medicinal Plant Garden, with Sr. Leonidas Huaccac, a staff member of the Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA), in order to begin to understand how Indigenous peoples traditionally managed their natural resources.
Students experimenting with an anesthetic plant from the Medicinal Plant Garden, Villa Carmen
We learned that the garden hosts over seventy types of medicinal plants used historically by local Huachipaeri and Matsigenka communities, and that this is only a small proportion of the plants which have been traditionally used by Indigenous peoples in their healing and ritual practices. In order to gain an even greater appreciation of how natural resources have traditionally been managed and used, we then visited the forest, walking along the trails of Villa Carmen to explore the possibilities of plants for medicinal purposes.
Sr. Leonidas Huaccac demonstrating to students (from left to right, Erika Weiskopf, Kana Yamamoto) medicinal plant uses in the Villa Carmen forest
Visiting the forest with Sr. Leonidas granted us the opportunity to see the plant life within it from a different perspective, and with his guidance, we could begin to appreciate the vast wealth of Traditional Ecological Knowledge acquired by Indigenous peoples through their interactions with the forest, a theme we will return to when the Political Ecology class visits the Parque de la Papa (Potato Park) in the Sacred Valley.
→ Biodiversity and Development in the Andes-Amazon Semester Program in Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. As we are currently living and studying in the fertile Sacred Valley, once the spiritual and commercial heart of the Inca realm, and today the home of the Indigenous Quechua peoples, we have had the opportunity to learn more about natural resource management, relational politics, and Indigenous worldviews through the lens of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) shared with us by Peru’s Andean populations.
Our first field excursion was to the Cusco Planetarium, where we learned how ancient constellations, including the "dark cloud constellations," were studied to both establish the best times to plant or to harvest, as well as to determine how future weather patterns, such as El Niño events, might affect agricultural production. After the lecture and presentation, students had the opportunity to observe the southern hemisphere night skies through a telescope, viewing various culturally important stars, including the "eye" of the Big Llama.
"The Big Llama" Dark Cloud Constellation. Dark Cloud constellations are found within the Milky Way, and can be seen in the dark spaces between clusters of stars, forming patterns and shapes much as more traditional stellar constellations do. All Photos: Katie MacDonald
Our second field excursion was to El Parque de la Papa (the Potato Park), a cooperative of six Quechua communities working together to protect and preserve the critical role of Indigenous Biocultural Heritage (IBCH – a specialized form of IK) in the conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. Cooperative leaders explained to the class the importance of the adaptation of IK to the changing climate, and explained how these Quechua communities are working together with western science to help preserve the vast diversity of agricultural crops found within the Park.
From community members, we also learned more about Andean principles of reciprocity and relationality between three key communities, or allyus; the people, the landscape, and the forest dwellers (including both plants and animals), and how these relationships help guide the Quechua in the management of their natural resources, including heritage potatoes, ancient grains, and other useful plants, such as those used for the dying of wool for traditional handicrafts.
Learning about the incredible agrobiodiversity of potatoes managed by these Quechua communities, which includes experimenting with 1,395 different varieties of potatoes, and the preservation of 750 potato seeds. From left to right: Students Sam Eller and Nick Greatens, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and two of our Quechua guides from Pampallaqta.
Our final field excursion for this section of the course on Andean Indigenous Knowledge was to the Pisac Botanical Gardens, where Quechua elder Mariano Rayo Flores shared with us his vast knowledge of local medicinal and sacred plants from the Valley. Exploring these opportunities and experiences of IK and natural resources management of the Quechua peoples will serve as a base of comparison for us as we shift our geographic focus in the coming weeks to the Amazonian region of Peru.
Sr. Mariano explaining to the class the use of important plants for Quechua peoples. From left to right: Students Jessica Plance, Abigail Heggenstaller, Riley Schumm, Zachary Froman, Kim Pierson, Melissa Petrich, and Julia Mitchell.
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, both historically and through current practices, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. Living at Villa Carmen Biological Station gives us so many opportunities to learn more about this incredible environment, in particular how people have been managing it for millennia, helping to create the amazing biodiversity we see today. Last week we had the opportunity to explore one example of the social-nature of Villa Carmen by visiting the experimental bio-char facility located at the station, and to learn how local people are using and transforming the knowledge of their ancestors to improve soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and even mitigate the effects of climate change!
Bio-Char Oven: From left to right: Students Jessica Plance and Zachary Froman, ACCA sustainable agriculture employee Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado, Program Intern Brielle Seitelman, and ACCA sustainable agriculture bio-char specialist Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto.
Tropical rainforest ecosystems are characterized by nutrient poor and highly weathered soils due to high rainfall and high temperature patterns typical of the region. Terra preta (also known as Amazonian Dark Earth) is a type of soil of anthropogenic origin found throughout Amazonia. Archaeologists and historical ecologists argue that terra preta is formed through the addition of bio-char (incompletely burned biomass) and nutrient rich waste materials such as residue from food production, animal remains, and ash to the soil. Conservative estimates indicate that approximately ten percent of the Amazon region is comprised of terra preta, however locations are still being discovered, usually near larger, white water rivers on terra firme (non-flooded land).
Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado and Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto who work with the sustainable agriculture program at ACCA explained the history of bio-char science at Villa Carmen. Using a prototype bio-char oven (one of only four in the world), waste forestry and farming materials, including the native bamboo which infests the trail system at Villa Carmen, are carefully stacked on giant trays, and then set alight. The heavily insulated door to the oven is set in place, and then the atmosphere inside is carefully monitored and controlled. The temperature inside the oven can reach as high as 700 degrees Celsius, and is regulated through the use of an internal sprinkler system to occasionally cool the fire in order to ensure that char is formed and not merely ash. The bio-char burns for approximately six hours before being removed from the oven and left to cool completely. It is then ready to be mixed into the soil, together with the compost produced from the Villa Carmen kitchen.
Sr. Anacleto engaging the internal sprinkler system of the oven.
Don Leonidas and Sr. Anacleto explained several different bio-char experiments that are ongoing at Villa Carmen. Some fields are being tested to determine how much bio-char is needed to make a difference to soil fertility, while others are comparing the effects of different types of bio-char. One particularly interesting experiment is being conducted on differing types of banana plants in order to help establish the best methods of soil recovery after intensive agricultural production, such as at sites like Villa Carmen which were historically used for cultivation and cattle raising for hundreds of years.
Moving forward, the sustainable agriculture team at ACCA are hoping to engage in more studies investigating the important role bio-char can have in carbon sequestration, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. These scientific experiments are building directly on the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the local Indigenous peoples who have been managing their environments for millennia, helping to create the incredible biodiversity we see today. By visiting the bio-char facility at the end of the semester, we were able to connect many of our theoretical course learnings to an empirical setting, in particular gaining a greater appreciation for TEK, alternate ontologies, and social natures.
One of the banana plant experiments at Villa Carmen.→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon of Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key objectives of the political ecology course is to prepare students for their final, independent Directed Research projects by teaching them the skills required to create, organize, and execute a fieldwork project using qualitative research methods, applied through Indigenous principles, paradigms, and practices. To fulfil this objective, this semester students had the opportunity to visit four markets with the School for Field Studies: the San Pedro Market in Cusco, both the producer’s market and the city market in Urubamba, and the Pilcopata Market in the Andean lowlands. Working together in small groups, students investigated the markets as a means of measuring agricultural production and biodiversity.
While at the markets, students practiced their ethnographic research methods, including observation, participant-observation, and informal interviewing, in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data that could help them measure differing agricultural patterns and practices, as well as food-plant and/or crop agrobiodiversity within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. The objective of the fieldwork component of the exercise was to collect enough information to effectively reflect on the differences noted between the three markets, discuss potential implications for local communities, and link these observations and reflections to potential
broad-scale issues impacting Andean-Amazonian populations.
Pilcopata Market: Learning the history of the Kosñipata Region, and the impacts this history has on modern market production. From left to right: students Audrey Nelson, Madison Wilkinson, Lexi Donahue, Noah Linck, Program Assistant Claudia Gómez, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and ACCA Kitchen Coordinator Luz Ruiz Fuchs
The various projects that emerged from this fieldwork engaged with important political ecology issues within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. One project investigated how the diversity, size and function of each particular market is significantly tied to both the agricultural potential of the surrounding region as well as to the relative size of the consumer base in the immediate area.
Urubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "X Markets the Spot: Market Studies in Various Social and Environmental Climates in Peru." Students Sam Short, Kyle Mabie, and Sam Parks with Student Affairs Manager Casey KelehanUrubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "Healing Plants, Healing the Earth: Medicinal Plants as a Case Study for Sustainable Agriculture in Peru." Program Assistant Claudia Gómez with students Blake Hodges, Lexi Donahue, and Noah Linck
The second project investigated the links between an increasing market demand for medicinal plants, the potential for overharvesting of those plants, and the adaptation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an era of global environmental change. These students found that since many popular plants are harvested from the wild, the increase in demand has caused a scarcity of common species, and put some in danger of over-harvesting, thereby threatening the sustainability of medicinal plant harvesting in Peru.
The third project investigated the role of intermediaries in the market production system and the economics of both supply and demand diversity within and between different regions of Peru. These students found that profit-seeking was increasing competition between the different markets, as well as between producers and vendors, including the intermediaries, potentially lessening agrobiodiversity within the region.
"Analyzing Profit Driven Agricultural Trends in the Peruvian Market System:" Interviewing a market vendor in the Urubamba Market. From top to bottom: students Audrey Nelson, Micaela Roy, and Madison Wilkinson→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon; Peru
[post_title] => Engaging with Qualitative Fieldwork in Peruvian Markets
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[post_content] => Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to the Political Ecology class at Villa Carmen to discuss their communities’ previous experiences working with researchers, and how in the future, stronger research relationships could be formed between their communities and The School for Field Studies (SFS) in Peru.
The teaching circle in the maloca. From left to right: Professor Adrian Tejedor, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, Sr. Julián Dariquebe, Don Alberto Manqueriapa, David DeHart (student), Erika Weiskopf (student). Photo: K. MacDonald.
Sr. Julián Dariquebe, a community teacher from Queros, and Don Alberto Manqueriapa, village leader and shaman from Huacaria, formed a teaching circle in the maloca to speak with the class. Together, they shared some of their previous encounters with outside researchers, highlighting the positive experiences while suggesting how others could have been improved. Students were encouraged to engage with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto through the preparation of questions, formed with the assistance of Professor Eric Gonzalez, the resident Spanish Professor, and to listen and learn from the Indigenous elders. The bilingual conversation that emerged, facilitated and translated by Tropical Ecology Professor Adrian Tejedor, proved to be a rich and engaging discussion of the history of outsider contact with the Huachipaeri and the Matsigenka peoples, as well as providing an insightful analysis of the potential for Indigenous methodologies to inspire future successful research relationships, grounded in mutual respect, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility.
The Political Ecology class with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto, in the maloca. Photo: T. Bautista Romero.
Sr. Julián and Don Alberto were invited to lunch with us after the class, giving students a further opportunity to engage with our neighbours, and to learn more about their cultures and communities. These conversations will continue throughout the semester, as students and staff continue to interact with various community members locally in Pilcopata, as well as during our visit to the village of Queros, where we will be invited to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity as a future component of the Political Ecology class.
[post_title] => Indigenous Methodologies
[post_excerpt] => Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to our Political Ecology class.
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[post_content] => "Our ancestors have left behind many valuable places and things that teach us of our past. … Our forefathers also left behind Nature Farms that we highly value for their ancient seeds, root suckers and bina, which we harvest carefully up until today for use in our farms and gardens." (South Central People's Development Association, 2012: 69)
This semester, one of the key themes for the Political Ecology class is exploring how Indigenous peoples have traditionally used the land and culturally managed their natural resources in a sustainable manner, in consideration of the future generations yet to come. As a biological research and teaching field station, the Villa Carmen campus incorporates aspects of this Traditional Ecological Knowledge into its demonstration projects in order for students to gain a better understanding of the depth of knowledge Indigenous peoples have obtained through interactions with their environments. Recently the Political Ecology class visited one of these projects, the Medicinal Plant Garden, with Sr. Leonidas Huaccac, a staff member of the Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA), in order to begin to understand how Indigenous peoples traditionally managed their natural resources.
Students experimenting with an anesthetic plant from the Medicinal Plant Garden, Villa Carmen
We learned that the garden hosts over seventy types of medicinal plants used historically by local Huachipaeri and Matsigenka communities, and that this is only a small proportion of the plants which have been traditionally used by Indigenous peoples in their healing and ritual practices. In order to gain an even greater appreciation of how natural resources have traditionally been managed and used, we then visited the forest, walking along the trails of Villa Carmen to explore the possibilities of plants for medicinal purposes.
Sr. Leonidas Huaccac demonstrating to students (from left to right, Erika Weiskopf, Kana Yamamoto) medicinal plant uses in the Villa Carmen forest
Visiting the forest with Sr. Leonidas granted us the opportunity to see the plant life within it from a different perspective, and with his guidance, we could begin to appreciate the vast wealth of Traditional Ecological Knowledge acquired by Indigenous peoples through their interactions with the forest, a theme we will return to when the Political Ecology class visits the Parque de la Papa (Potato Park) in the Sacred Valley.
→ Biodiversity and Development in the Andes-Amazon Semester Program in Peru
[post_title] => Nature Farms
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. As we are currently living and studying in the fertile Sacred Valley, once the spiritual and commercial heart of the Inca realm, and today the home of the Indigenous Quechua peoples, we have had the opportunity to learn more about natural resource management, relational politics, and Indigenous worldviews through the lens of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) shared with us by Peru’s Andean populations.
Our first field excursion was to the Cusco Planetarium, where we learned how ancient constellations, including the "dark cloud constellations," were studied to both establish the best times to plant or to harvest, as well as to determine how future weather patterns, such as El Niño events, might affect agricultural production. After the lecture and presentation, students had the opportunity to observe the southern hemisphere night skies through a telescope, viewing various culturally important stars, including the "eye" of the Big Llama.
"The Big Llama" Dark Cloud Constellation. Dark Cloud constellations are found within the Milky Way, and can be seen in the dark spaces between clusters of stars, forming patterns and shapes much as more traditional stellar constellations do. All Photos: Katie MacDonald
Our second field excursion was to El Parque de la Papa (the Potato Park), a cooperative of six Quechua communities working together to protect and preserve the critical role of Indigenous Biocultural Heritage (IBCH – a specialized form of IK) in the conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. Cooperative leaders explained to the class the importance of the adaptation of IK to the changing climate, and explained how these Quechua communities are working together with western science to help preserve the vast diversity of agricultural crops found within the Park.
From community members, we also learned more about Andean principles of reciprocity and relationality between three key communities, or allyus; the people, the landscape, and the forest dwellers (including both plants and animals), and how these relationships help guide the Quechua in the management of their natural resources, including heritage potatoes, ancient grains, and other useful plants, such as those used for the dying of wool for traditional handicrafts.
Learning about the incredible agrobiodiversity of potatoes managed by these Quechua communities, which includes experimenting with 1,395 different varieties of potatoes, and the preservation of 750 potato seeds. From left to right: Students Sam Eller and Nick Greatens, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and two of our Quechua guides from Pampallaqta.
Our final field excursion for this section of the course on Andean Indigenous Knowledge was to the Pisac Botanical Gardens, where Quechua elder Mariano Rayo Flores shared with us his vast knowledge of local medicinal and sacred plants from the Valley. Exploring these opportunities and experiences of IK and natural resources management of the Quechua peoples will serve as a base of comparison for us as we shift our geographic focus in the coming weeks to the Amazonian region of Peru.
Sr. Mariano explaining to the class the use of important plants for Quechua peoples. From left to right: Students Jessica Plance, Abigail Heggenstaller, Riley Schumm, Zachary Froman, Kim Pierson, Melissa Petrich, and Julia Mitchell.
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, both historically and through current practices, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. Living at Villa Carmen Biological Station gives us so many opportunities to learn more about this incredible environment, in particular how people have been managing it for millennia, helping to create the amazing biodiversity we see today. Last week we had the opportunity to explore one example of the social-nature of Villa Carmen by visiting the experimental bio-char facility located at the station, and to learn how local people are using and transforming the knowledge of their ancestors to improve soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and even mitigate the effects of climate change!
Bio-Char Oven: From left to right: Students Jessica Plance and Zachary Froman, ACCA sustainable agriculture employee Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado, Program Intern Brielle Seitelman, and ACCA sustainable agriculture bio-char specialist Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto.
Tropical rainforest ecosystems are characterized by nutrient poor and highly weathered soils due to high rainfall and high temperature patterns typical of the region. Terra preta (also known as Amazonian Dark Earth) is a type of soil of anthropogenic origin found throughout Amazonia. Archaeologists and historical ecologists argue that terra preta is formed through the addition of bio-char (incompletely burned biomass) and nutrient rich waste materials such as residue from food production, animal remains, and ash to the soil. Conservative estimates indicate that approximately ten percent of the Amazon region is comprised of terra preta, however locations are still being discovered, usually near larger, white water rivers on terra firme (non-flooded land).
Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado and Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto who work with the sustainable agriculture program at ACCA explained the history of bio-char science at Villa Carmen. Using a prototype bio-char oven (one of only four in the world), waste forestry and farming materials, including the native bamboo which infests the trail system at Villa Carmen, are carefully stacked on giant trays, and then set alight. The heavily insulated door to the oven is set in place, and then the atmosphere inside is carefully monitored and controlled. The temperature inside the oven can reach as high as 700 degrees Celsius, and is regulated through the use of an internal sprinkler system to occasionally cool the fire in order to ensure that char is formed and not merely ash. The bio-char burns for approximately six hours before being removed from the oven and left to cool completely. It is then ready to be mixed into the soil, together with the compost produced from the Villa Carmen kitchen.
Sr. Anacleto engaging the internal sprinkler system of the oven.
Don Leonidas and Sr. Anacleto explained several different bio-char experiments that are ongoing at Villa Carmen. Some fields are being tested to determine how much bio-char is needed to make a difference to soil fertility, while others are comparing the effects of different types of bio-char. One particularly interesting experiment is being conducted on differing types of banana plants in order to help establish the best methods of soil recovery after intensive agricultural production, such as at sites like Villa Carmen which were historically used for cultivation and cattle raising for hundreds of years.
Moving forward, the sustainable agriculture team at ACCA are hoping to engage in more studies investigating the important role bio-char can have in carbon sequestration, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. These scientific experiments are building directly on the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the local Indigenous peoples who have been managing their environments for millennia, helping to create the incredible biodiversity we see today. By visiting the bio-char facility at the end of the semester, we were able to connect many of our theoretical course learnings to an empirical setting, in particular gaining a greater appreciation for TEK, alternate ontologies, and social natures.
One of the banana plant experiments at Villa Carmen.→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon of Peru
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Katie MacDonald, Ph.D.
Resident Lecturer of Political Ecology
Indigenous Methodologies
Posted: October 26, 2015
Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to the Political Ecology class at Villa Carmen to discuss their communities’ previous experiences working with researchers, and how in the future, stronger research relationships could be formed between their communities and The School for Field Studies (SFS) in Peru.
The teaching circle in the maloca. From left to right: Professor Adrian Tejedor, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, Sr. Julián Dariquebe, Don Alberto Manqueriapa, David DeHart (student), Erika Weiskopf (student). Photo: K. MacDonald.
Sr. Julián Dariquebe, a community teacher from Queros, and Don Alberto Manqueriapa, village leader and shaman from Huacaria, formed a teaching circle in the maloca to speak with the class. Together, they shared some of their previous encounters with outside researchers, highlighting the positive experiences while suggesting how others could have been improved. Students were encouraged to engage with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto through the preparation of questions, formed with the assistance of Professor Eric Gonzalez, the resident Spanish Professor, and to listen and learn from the Indigenous elders. The bilingual conversation that emerged, facilitated and translated by Tropical Ecology Professor Adrian Tejedor, proved to be a rich and engaging discussion of the history of outsider contact with the Huachipaeri and the Matsigenka peoples, as well as providing an insightful analysis of the potential for Indigenous methodologies to inspire future successful research relationships, grounded in mutual respect, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility.
The Political Ecology class with Sr. Julián and Don Alberto, in the maloca. Photo: T. Bautista Romero.
Sr. Julián and Don Alberto were invited to lunch with us after the class, giving students a further opportunity to engage with our neighbours, and to learn more about their cultures and communities. These conversations will continue throughout the semester, as students and staff continue to interact with various community members locally in Pilcopata, as well as during our visit to the village of Queros, where we will be invited to learn more about Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity as a future component of the Political Ecology class.
Pilcopata Market: Learning the history of the Kosñipata Region, and the impacts this history has on modern market production. From left to right: students Audrey Nelson, Madison Wilkinson, Lexi Donahue, Noah Linck, Program Assistant Claudia Gómez, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and ACCA Kitchen Coordinator Luz Ruiz Fuchs
The various projects that emerged from this fieldwork engaged with important political ecology issues within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. One project investigated how the diversity, size and function of each particular market is significantly tied to both the agricultural potential of the surrounding region as well as to the relative size of the consumer base in the immediate area.
Urubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "X Markets the Spot: Market Studies in Various Social and Environmental Climates in Peru." Students Sam Short, Kyle Mabie, and Sam Parks with Student Affairs Manager Casey Kelehan
Urubamba City Market: Engaging in fieldwork: "Healing Plants, Healing the Earth: Medicinal Plants as a Case Study for Sustainable Agriculture in Peru." Program Assistant Claudia Gómez with students Blake Hodges, Lexi Donahue, and Noah Linck
The second project investigated the links between an increasing market demand for medicinal plants, the potential for overharvesting of those plants, and the adaptation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an era of global environmental change. These students found that since many popular plants are harvested from the wild, the increase in demand has caused a scarcity of common species, and put some in danger of over-harvesting, thereby threatening the sustainability of medicinal plant harvesting in Peru.
The third project investigated the role of intermediaries in the market production system and the economics of both supply and demand diversity within and between different regions of Peru. These students found that profit-seeking was increasing competition between the different markets, as well as between producers and vendors, including the intermediaries, potentially lessening agrobiodiversity within the region.
"Analyzing Profit Driven Agricultural Trends in the Peruvian Market System:" Interviewing a market vendor in the Urubamba Market. From top to bottom: students Audrey Nelson, Micaela Roy, and Madison Wilkinson
→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon; Peru
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[post_content] => Respected elders from two nearby Indigenous villages, Huacaria and Queros, were invited to the Political Ecology class at Villa Carmen to discuss their communities’ previous experiences working with researchers, and how in the future, stronger research relationships could be formed between their communities and The School for Field Studies (SFS) in Peru.
Students experimenting with an anesthetic plant from the Medicinal Plant Garden, Villa Carmen
We learned that the garden hosts over seventy types of medicinal plants used historically by local Huachipaeri and Matsigenka communities, and that this is only a small proportion of the plants which have been traditionally used by Indigenous peoples in their healing and ritual practices. In order to gain an even greater appreciation of how natural resources have traditionally been managed and used, we then visited the forest, walking along the trails of Villa Carmen to explore the possibilities of plants for medicinal purposes.
Sr. Leonidas Huaccac demonstrating to students (from left to right, Erika Weiskopf, Kana Yamamoto) medicinal plant uses in the Villa Carmen forest
Visiting the forest with Sr. Leonidas granted us the opportunity to see the plant life within it from a different perspective, and with his guidance, we could begin to appreciate the vast wealth of Traditional Ecological Knowledge acquired by Indigenous peoples through their interactions with the forest, a theme we will return to when the Political Ecology class visits the Parque de la Papa (Potato Park) in the Sacred Valley.
→ Biodiversity and Development in the Andes-Amazon Semester Program in Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. As we are currently living and studying in the fertile Sacred Valley, once the spiritual and commercial heart of the Inca realm, and today the home of the Indigenous Quechua peoples, we have had the opportunity to learn more about natural resource management, relational politics, and Indigenous worldviews through the lens of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) shared with us by Peru’s Andean populations.
Our first field excursion was to the Cusco Planetarium, where we learned how ancient constellations, including the "dark cloud constellations," were studied to both establish the best times to plant or to harvest, as well as to determine how future weather patterns, such as El Niño events, might affect agricultural production. After the lecture and presentation, students had the opportunity to observe the southern hemisphere night skies through a telescope, viewing various culturally important stars, including the "eye" of the Big Llama.
"The Big Llama" Dark Cloud Constellation. Dark Cloud constellations are found within the Milky Way, and can be seen in the dark spaces between clusters of stars, forming patterns and shapes much as more traditional stellar constellations do. All Photos: Katie MacDonald
Our second field excursion was to El Parque de la Papa (the Potato Park), a cooperative of six Quechua communities working together to protect and preserve the critical role of Indigenous Biocultural Heritage (IBCH – a specialized form of IK) in the conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. Cooperative leaders explained to the class the importance of the adaptation of IK to the changing climate, and explained how these Quechua communities are working together with western science to help preserve the vast diversity of agricultural crops found within the Park.
From community members, we also learned more about Andean principles of reciprocity and relationality between three key communities, or allyus; the people, the landscape, and the forest dwellers (including both plants and animals), and how these relationships help guide the Quechua in the management of their natural resources, including heritage potatoes, ancient grains, and other useful plants, such as those used for the dying of wool for traditional handicrafts.
Learning about the incredible agrobiodiversity of potatoes managed by these Quechua communities, which includes experimenting with 1,395 different varieties of potatoes, and the preservation of 750 potato seeds. From left to right: Students Sam Eller and Nick Greatens, Program Coordinator Nicole Wischlinski, and two of our Quechua guides from Pampallaqta.
Our final field excursion for this section of the course on Andean Indigenous Knowledge was to the Pisac Botanical Gardens, where Quechua elder Mariano Rayo Flores shared with us his vast knowledge of local medicinal and sacred plants from the Valley. Exploring these opportunities and experiences of IK and natural resources management of the Quechua peoples will serve as a base of comparison for us as we shift our geographic focus in the coming weeks to the Amazonian region of Peru.
Sr. Mariano explaining to the class the use of important plants for Quechua peoples. From left to right: Students Jessica Plance, Abigail Heggenstaller, Riley Schumm, Zachary Froman, Kim Pierson, Melissa Petrich, and Julia Mitchell.
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[post_content] => One of the key goals of the Political Ecology course is to explore the interrelations of people with their local environment, both historically and through current practices, particularly with regards to the socio-cultural and economic importance of the local natural resources. Living at Villa Carmen Biological Station gives us so many opportunities to learn more about this incredible environment, in particular how people have been managing it for millennia, helping to create the amazing biodiversity we see today. Last week we had the opportunity to explore one example of the social-nature of Villa Carmen by visiting the experimental bio-char facility located at the station, and to learn how local people are using and transforming the knowledge of their ancestors to improve soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and even mitigate the effects of climate change!
Bio-Char Oven: From left to right: Students Jessica Plance and Zachary Froman, ACCA sustainable agriculture employee Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado, Program Intern Brielle Seitelman, and ACCA sustainable agriculture bio-char specialist Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto.
Tropical rainforest ecosystems are characterized by nutrient poor and highly weathered soils due to high rainfall and high temperature patterns typical of the region. Terra preta (also known as Amazonian Dark Earth) is a type of soil of anthropogenic origin found throughout Amazonia. Archaeologists and historical ecologists argue that terra preta is formed through the addition of bio-char (incompletely burned biomass) and nutrient rich waste materials such as residue from food production, animal remains, and ash to the soil. Conservative estimates indicate that approximately ten percent of the Amazon region is comprised of terra preta, however locations are still being discovered, usually near larger, white water rivers on terra firme (non-flooded land).
Don Leonidas Huacac Delgado and Sr. Anacleto Lipe Ccaccasto who work with the sustainable agriculture program at ACCA explained the history of bio-char science at Villa Carmen. Using a prototype bio-char oven (one of only four in the world), waste forestry and farming materials, including the native bamboo which infests the trail system at Villa Carmen, are carefully stacked on giant trays, and then set alight. The heavily insulated door to the oven is set in place, and then the atmosphere inside is carefully monitored and controlled. The temperature inside the oven can reach as high as 700 degrees Celsius, and is regulated through the use of an internal sprinkler system to occasionally cool the fire in order to ensure that char is formed and not merely ash. The bio-char burns for approximately six hours before being removed from the oven and left to cool completely. It is then ready to be mixed into the soil, together with the compost produced from the Villa Carmen kitchen.
Sr. Anacleto engaging the internal sprinkler system of the oven.
Don Leonidas and Sr. Anacleto explained several different bio-char experiments that are ongoing at Villa Carmen. Some fields are being tested to determine how much bio-char is needed to make a difference to soil fertility, while others are comparing the effects of different types of bio-char. One particularly interesting experiment is being conducted on differing types of banana plants in order to help establish the best methods of soil recovery after intensive agricultural production, such as at sites like Villa Carmen which were historically used for cultivation and cattle raising for hundreds of years.
Moving forward, the sustainable agriculture team at ACCA are hoping to engage in more studies investigating the important role bio-char can have in carbon sequestration, thereby helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. These scientific experiments are building directly on the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the local Indigenous peoples who have been managing their environments for millennia, helping to create the incredible biodiversity we see today. By visiting the bio-char facility at the end of the semester, we were able to connect many of our theoretical course learnings to an empirical setting, in particular gaining a greater appreciation for TEK, alternate ontologies, and social natures.
One of the banana plant experiments at Villa Carmen.
→ Biodiversity & Development in the Andes-Amazon of Peru
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[post_content] => One of the key objectives of the political ecology course is to prepare students for their final, independent Directed Research projects by teaching them the skills required to create, organize, and execute a fieldwork project using qualitative research methods, applied through Indigenous principles, paradigms, and practices. To fulfil this objective, this semester students had the opportunity to visit four markets with the School for Field Studies: the San Pedro Market in Cusco, both the producer’s market and the city market in Urubamba, and the Pilcopata Market in the Andean lowlands. Working together in small groups, students investigated the markets as a means of measuring agricultural production and biodiversity.
While at the markets, students practiced their ethnographic research methods, including observation, participant-observation, and informal interviewing, in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data that could help them measure differing agricultural patterns and practices, as well as food-plant and/or crop agrobiodiversity within the Andean-Amazonian ecotone. The objective of the fieldwork component of the exercise was to collect enough information to effectively reflect on the differences noted between the three markets, discuss potential implications for local communities, and link these observations and reflections to potential
broad-scale issues impacting Andean-Amazonian populations.
