By Annavajhula J C Bose, PhD
Department of Economics, SRCC
The field of Natural Resource Economics seeks to value natural resources to aid in the optimization of the production of goods and services from agricultural lands while protecting the environment. In case you are going to specialise in this field, then you will have to reckon with how Krystyna Swiderska (pictured) of International Institute for Environment and Development has been doing it over the last two decades in China, India, Kenya and Peru and elsewhere, using “decolonial and interdisciplinary research methods”.
Krystyna is a genuine friend of the indigenous peoples of the world. She will not teach you natural resource economics as part of Western Economics and its conservation measures. She will instead teach it as “indigenous economics of biocultural heritage” in terms of what you see in the postcard below. Meditate on it.
She gives us this message: “We have to remember that we are facing a double extinction crisis – biological and cultural. Indigenous languages are disappearing really fast, so biocultural heritage is really critical for us to protect nature and culture, to achieve multiple sustainable development goals, and to ensure that the negative impacts of development and conservation on the poorest people, like Indigenous peoples, are avoided. It’s really essential for equitable and effective conservation and human rights to be respected, both in development and conservation spheres.”
“Biocultural heritage is really about food sovereignty – it’s about local control over farming systems, crops and markets. Biocultural heritage territories are reviving traditional crops for nutrition, climate resilience and food sovereignty. It empowers Indigenous peoples and local communities to be the ones who decide over which farming practices to use, which crops to use, and which foods to consume. They are increasingly rejecting modern industrial farming models that are pushed by governments and industry, which have led to worsening health and arising non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, as well as increased vulnerability to climate change. Biocultural heritage makes it more difficult for the agricultural industry to extend their model and their market for products, such as fertilizers, agrochemicals and seeds, into Indigenous territories.”
Concretely speaking, consider the potato park in Peru as shown below.
“The park involves six Quechua communities, comprising thousands of people, who sustainably manage almost 10 thousand hectares of land. Together, they’ve been able to conserve about 1400 different varieties of native potato, thanks to traditional knowledge and Indigenous cultural values and beliefs. The Indigenous, cultural values of solidarity, reciprocity, and balance with nature, which underpin their efforts to conserve biodiversity, have been fundamental to these successes. For these communities, the goal isn’t economic development, but the well-being of both people and nature. And this well-being requires balance between the human, the sacred and the natural worlds. The Quechua Peoples have worked in partnership with scientists, in order to link traditional knowledge and science, establishing a community seed bank and several micro-enterprises that sustain biocultural heritage. The foundation of the Potato Park was driven by a combination of three threats: 1. The external threat posed by mining; 2. The disappearing native potato diversity in the region; and 3. The erosion of local culture. The area where the Potato Park was founded is of incredible importance, in terms of global food security. Traditionally, it offers very rich native potato diversity – it’s a globally important centre of origin for potatoes. The exceptional cultural values of local communities made it a more enabling context for a biocultural heritage-centred conservation initiative. The Potato Park has had multiple impacts: It has revitalized biodiversity and culture; It has protected land rights against mining for 20 years now; It has strengthened livelihoods and enhanced food security; It has strengthened resilience to climate change.”
There are challenges in replicating this Peruvian biocultural heritage approach elsewhere. “The main challenge in the context of working in Kenya, India, or in China, is that the indigenous culture, values, and beliefs have weakened as
the communities have become more modernized. For example, in the Mijikenda communities in the coastal area in Kenya, the elders protect Kaya Forests, but other members, particularly the youth, are becoming less and less interested in the traditional knowledge and culture, as well as the Kaya Forests conservation. What is more, there have been a lot of Western development projects in the region. Because different actors in the communities have different views on their biocultural heritage, it is more difficult to introduce a biocultural heritage initiative. In China, a loss of traditional culture results in similar obstacles. However, in this context, there is also a challenge of centralized government control, which makes it more difficult to support the emergence of autonomous, local institutions, which are at the heart of biocultural heritage territories. Similarly, in India, apart from a loss of culture, the challenges result from multiethnicity in the area, the restricted access to forest, traditional uses and traditional livelihoods, due to protected areas, and the promotion of modern agriculture. In comparison to Kenya, China, and India, in Peru, the cultural challenges aren’t quite so acute.”
Krystina and other researchers like her want you to do bottom-up research in this regard through decolonising and interdisciplinary tools like this: Mapping while walking through the territory to strengthen the sense of place and identity, and show the diversity of food crop varieties and animals breeds, locations of wild food plants and animals, and how the whole territory contributes to the diet. Communities can use GPS to construct a three-dimensional map and introduce some “modern ways” of biodiversity inventory.Can use traditional calendars to show the availability of different foods at different times of year, when to plant different crops, when not to disturb wild animals in the forest and fish in rice fields and rivers to give them time to mate and reproduce and other indicators for changes in seasons. Another medium is using storytelling to show how certain food is valued and why; changes in food production and consumption; and how wild areas are protected and seeds are conserved. Comparing and contrasting, for example, to show how community elders/leaders were more proactive in the past in investigating community issues and concerns and addressing these for the common good, abundance or scarcity of certain foods and health of the environment in the past and today. Learning by doing, for example producing organic farm inputs, conducting soil tests with scientists, using/testing traditional indicators, and introducing innovations in rice farming systems. Collective analysis of the results, which can lead to community policy formulation and action, for example, banning junk food from entering the community and restoring backyard gardens in every home.
This is participatory research par excellence in the landscapes of the indigenous peoples. Are you inclined to drop top-down developmental attitudes, and do this kind of ethnographic work and derive happiness by merging with the concerns of the original, local communities? Would you like to live with tribal women of India, like this one, and relate to and restore their biocultural heritage?
References
https://www.peoplesplanetproject.org/biocultural-heritage
Krystina Swiderska et al. 2022. Indigenous People’s Food Systems and Biocultural Heritage: Addressing Indigenous Priorities Using Decolonial and Interdisciplinary Research Approaches, in Sustainability 2022, 14, 11311. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811311
Arthashastra 