LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS

- The Meso-American Biological Corridor: Conservation or appropriation?

The idea of a series of protected natural areas joined by surrounding buffer zones where low intensity activities take place is no doubt attractive. It could be a scheme that might even guarantee landscape or habitat continuity and avoid the fragmentation caused by industrial activities such as large-scale agriculture and tree plantations, urbanization or works such as roads and dams. This is what the text of the Meso-American Biological Corridor (MBC) project proclaims.

However it is also true that serious doubts arise, considering that this project is located in Meso-America in the context of the ferocious advance of company interests towards the harnessing of areas that so far had not been on the market – such as genetic resources or water – where there is great inequality and where the communities that had enabled the rich biodiversity of the region to last are increasingly being dispossessed.

The origins of MBC can be traced back to 1992 when, in the framework of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) and the Central American Biodiversity Convention, the Central American Council for Protected Areas was entrusted with the development of the Meso-American System of National Parks and Protected Areas, “as an effective Meso-American biological corridor.” Later, in the Central American Alliance for Sustainable Development, adopted in 1994, the development of biological corridors and protected areas is mentioned and a commitment was made by the Presidents to establish the Central American Biological Corridor. Also in 1994, the University of Florida, United States of America, under the auspices of the “Paseo Pantera Project”, published a report on the feasibility of establishing a biological corridor in Central America.

The agreement formally establishing the concept of the Meso-American Biological Corridor was signed in February 1997. The Meso-American region comprises five southern states of Mexico (Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Yucatan and Tabasco) and seven Central American countries: Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The project was officially adopted at the Central American Presidential Summit Meeting, held in July 1997 in Panama City and its implementation is the responsibility of the Central American Environment and Development Commission (CCAD) (project document available at: www.biomeso.net/GrafDocto/PRODOC-CBMESPAÑOL.pdf ).

The project is circumscribed in a special region of 768,000 km2 of lands and landscapes considered as one of the regions of the planet having the greatest biodiversity – 10 to 12% of all the world’s biodiversity, depending on the longitude recognized – inhabited by over 40 million people. It is the meeting point of two American biota (the Neo-Artic biota inhabiting the north and the Neo-Tropical biota inhabiting the south of the continent), turning the isthmus into a funnel where migratory movements of all types of species, biological individuals and genes are condensed.

The MBC arose at a time when the world had started to recognize the planetary value of biodiversity. However, this recognition comes in a context in which everything fast becomes merchandise. Carbon sequestration, water, soil, and biodiversity conservation, are all presented as “environmental services” that may be profitable. The concept of profitable “environmental services” fulfils the function of creating a broad economic framework, within which fragmented collective property and small-holdings of these services may turn into protected areas, basin heads, river-beds, water-tables, knowledge, genetic codes, etc., being privatised by mega-companies. The proposal of environmental services also encompasses bio-prospecting – to preserve in situ species that may be privatized or marketed through patents – and eco-tourism.

It is thus that conservation becomes yet another business, but also serves as an attractive pretext to capture funds aimed at “sustainable development” what ever it may be. The territorial planning of Meso-America is established in function of the environmental services and goods that the ecosystems to be protected, can provide. The idea may seem interesting if it were not that so far there is no exact definition of sustainable development; the term has become a pipe dream that can mean anything depending on who uses it.

What is true is that, according to the testimonials of various organizations in the region, three years after having launched this 16.6 million dollar project, the results are not encouraging. Protected areas in the zone continue to be highly threatened and pilot projects promoted by MBC have not caused any substantial change in this situation. The fact that the design was submitted without attempting to remedy already known problems makes us think that there are other interests behind it, different from those of conservation, and that an attempt is being made to “greenwash” conventional “development.”

The strategy of paying for environmental services is presented as an economic alternative for the peoples of Meso-America, suffering from the burden of the historically heavy foreign debt. But in turn, it should not be forgotten that the context in which this trade is carried out is that of a world of “free trade” in which transnational companies have all to win insofar as their increasing accumulation of capital and power enables them to have hegemonic control over the whole cycle of production, transformation, marketing and distribution. These dynamics are continuous and for this reason, in a further attack, transnational companies now seek to become the owners of genetic codes – the raw material for the genetic engineering business – and of water – as its increasing scarcity will make it become a strategic resource.

Furthermore, it is important to place the MBC in the context of the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP) proposed by the Mexican President, Vicente Fox and accepted by the other heads of State of the region in 2001. The PPP contemplates the construction of roads, sea ports, electric cabling and optic fibre communications, hydroelectric dams, oil pipelines, gas pipelines, railways, airports, dry and wet docks, as well as industrial and maquila (assembly plants) corridors. With all these, the zone will be linked to the requirements of international trade and markets.

In this context, it would seem that the implementation of the MBC somehow gives out the message that there is a protected zone, the conservation of which is guaranteed, but that the rest is unprotected and subject to unsustainable use, which is what will happen with the PPP. However, eventually, depredatory activities will end up by affecting it all, as conservation and depredation are irreconcilable. Furthermore, there is an inherent contradiction in the co-existence of the two projects, insofar as the PPP conceives a network of corridors of inter-oceanic infrastructures, which interrupt at various points the flow between the biota from the north and from the south circulating along the trans-Meso-American biological corridors. The cuts imposed by the mega-projects and infrastructure (mainly at the Panama Canal, in Honduras and in the Tehuantepec Isthmus) are added to all the environmental destruction that has previously been taking place in the Meso-American region. Moreover, to increase this schizophrenia even further, side by side with the conservation corridors, the establishment of tree plantation corridors is being promoted to act as zones of “reforestation” and “carbon sinks.”

The peoples of the region already have had bitter experience with mega-projects that have caused serious problems, such as the lack of recognition of economic and social asymmetries, the weakening of States, the privatization of goods and public services, the increase of the vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples, women and children, the subordination of food security and sovereignty, the growth of the informal sector, the drop in social protection, the ransacking of natural resources, the destruction of small and middle-sized farmers, and of national production in general.

Both the MBC and the PPP have World Bank funding. In the case of the MBC, in addition to the World Bank, various donor countries, mainly from Europe, Japan and the United States together with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have allocated a contribution of 470 million dollars to carry out national and regional projects. It is unlikely that the presence of these bodies and these governments in the MBC is accidental. There is a lot of money being moved around these projects, which will give rise to many studies, assessments, consultation and advisory missions and very often these lead to association with private companies for bio-prospecting activities and investment in Protected Areas. It should not be ignored that there are strong entrepreneurial and geopolitical interests concerned with giving an impulse to the Puebla Panama Plan and with taking over a biodiversity from which great profits are expected.

However, there is no doubt that genuine interests do exist, aimed at diversity conservation, both biological and cultural, which see the MBC as a viable alternative to achieve this objective.

Therefore, the discussion on the good or bad points of MBC should take place in the framework of the type of development to be implemented in the region. If the Puebla Panama Plan model triumphs, the MBC will simply be part of a package for the ransacking and degradation of the region’s resources. If a socially just and environmentally respectful vision predominates, as a result of informed, real and free participation of the local peoples, the idea of a system of protected areas simultaneously acting as a biological corridor in the region could be an important step in improving the quality of life of the people and in the appropriate use of natural resources.

Article based on information from “PPP y corredor mesoamericano, otra forma de invasión externa”, Angélica Enciso L., La Jornada, http://www.geocities.com/investigacion_rural/ ; “Press Communiqué from the Forth Meso-American Forum for the Self-determination and Resistence of the Peoples” (IV Foro Mesoamericano Por la Autodeterminación y Resistencia de los Pueblos”, 9 July 2003, http://www.4foromesoamericano.com/noticias.htm ; and comments by Andrés Barreda, UNAM - Universidad Nacional de Mexico, e-mail: barreda@laneta.apc.org ; Piedad Espinosa, Trópico Verde, e-mail: mailto@tropicoverde.org , http://www.tropicoverde.org ; Magda Lanuza, Fundación Hijas e Hijos del Maíz, e-mail: elia35@yahoo.com

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- Meso-America: Indigenous Peoples’ opinion regarding protected areas

On analyzing the issue of protected areas, it is essential to hear the opinion of those who inhabit them, as the establishment of such areas usually results in impacts on the local populations. In this respect, we have extracted part of the Declaration of the Meso-American Indigenous Peoples to the First Meso-American Congress on Protected Areas (March 2003), which clearly expresses their points of view and their claims. The declaration makes the following considerations:

“1.- That we, the Indigenous peoples have examined and concluded that the decrees on Protected Areas issued by the States have shown themselves to be legal instruments that repeatedly and systematically infringe on and violate the Indigenous peoples’ own territorial planning processes, in addition to being instruments that have served to continue with the spoliation of our territories, prohibiting access and use of spaces that are sacred to us, to then give the use and usufruct of such protected areas in concessions to individuals, with no due return of the benefits that could be used to strengthen the capabilities of our peoples.

2.- That decision-making processes regarding policies, plans, programmes and projects related to protected areas have been carried out without the participation, consultation, prior and informed consent and without the full and effective participation of our Peoples.

3.- That the concept of CO-MANAGEMENT of protected areas is incompatible with the Indigenous Peoples’ vision and cosmo-vision, given that our vision of territoriality and biodiversity conservation is not limited to the accumulation of capital, because the so-called protected areas are part of our home, as they are located in our ancestral territories.

4.- That the design of research, plans, programmes and projects and their implementation has been undertaken unilaterally and with the exclusion of our Peoples, in spite of the fact that we have been the main guaranteeing actors in the conservation of our territorial spaces, with or without State decrees, which may be demonstrated when superimposing maps of Protected Areas with maps of Indigenous Peoples.

5.- That addressing the issue of “an ethnic vision on protected areas” as a final symposium on the Congress agenda, shows a racist and discriminatory practice regarding Indigenous Peoples, already overcome in the international framework within the United Nations.

In view of the above, we Declare:

1) That management of Protected Areas between stakeholders (States, Researchers, NGOs, etc.) and rights-holders (Indigenous Peoples), should firstly and as a fundamental pre-requisite, be recognized by the free will of our Peoples.

2) That a legal framework should be formulated, guaranteeing the full participation of the Indigenous Peoples in the process of management, conservation, protection and administration of protected areas established within their territories.

3) That the State should recognize and respect the full validity of the collective and collateral rights of the Indigenous Peoples over their territories, as is the case of Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization, the Convention on Biological Diversity, etc.

4) That the State should guarantee provision to the Indigenous Peoples of financial, technical and administrative resources for the management of protected areas.

5) That initiatives to be developed in protected areas should be carried out following consultation, and the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous Peoples.

6) That the principle of equal rights and opportunities in decision-making should be fully enforced.

7) That income from the use and usufruct of protected areas should be invested and distributed for the development of the communities who live in protected areas and for the restructuring of ecosystems.

8) That we reject the Central American Protocol for Access to Genetic Resources and to traditional knowledge that leaves out and does not recognize our rights.

With the above we want to set on record the basic prerequisites for the implementation of co-management under a cooperation policy between stakeholders and indigenous peoples, giving a chance for future generations to see, believe and recreate themselves in a world at least as rich in biodiversity as the one we have inherited, and our understanding of a shared responsibility, as Meso-American Originating Peoples.”

Declaration by the Indigenous Peoples of Meso-America to the First Meso-American Congress on Protected Areas, Managua, Nicaragua, 9 March 2003.

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- Honduras: Rio Platano Reserve questioned

For most of the population of Honduras, the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve is a motive for national pride. Added to the scenic beauty of this zone is its biological and cultural wealth with its conservation ensured for future generations. However, another part of the population – the most important one – is not of the same opinion.

The reserve is located in the Atlantic zone of Honduras, in the territory of the Miskito Indigenous Peoples, who live alongside smaller percentages of Pech Indigenous People and Garifuna populations. As in other Biosphere Reserves in the world, its 830,000 hectares (7% of the country’s territory) are divided into a core (untouchable) zone, the buffer zone (having restricted use) and the productive use zone. The area is characterized by enormous wealth in terms of plant and animal diversity and by considerable cultural diversity.

As with other similar reserves, the local population was never consulted about the establishment of the reserve and still less informed about the restrictions this would impose on its use. To understand the injustice this implies, two facts need to be highlighted:

- That the area was inhabited by Miskito populations long before the creation of the Republic of Honduras
- That by means of sustainable use of natural resources, the Miskito and other native inhabitants of the zone ensured an excellent state of forest conservation.

That is to say that, in addition to ignoring their ancestral rights to the land, they have been awarded a “prize” for forest conservation, by declaring it a Biosphere Reserve and imposing them restrictions on the use of their resources.

However, the same restrictions are not placed on those who have destroyed the forests of the region and who continue to do so, extracting mahogany and other valuable wood from the area declared a reserve: the timber loggers.

A local Miskito inhabitant – who preferred to remain anonymous – emphasized the presence of many logging companies in the zone, which obtain permits from the Honduran Corporation for Forest Development (Corporación Hondureña de Desarrollo Forestal – COHDEFOR). However, “native people cannot obtain permits and every so often go to jail for cutting down a tree.” This contrasts with the fact that “the State never arrested anyone linked to the logging companies.”

The reason the person interviewed did not want to give his name is explained by the fact that “there have been murders and constant threats to leaders who make complaints against the logging companies. One of those threatened is the Miskito leader, Aldo Allen.”

While the logging companies continue their business with the explicit or implicit support of the authorities, the local inhabitants are forbidden to access certain zones and restrictions on hunting, fishing and wood and plant extraction are enforced.

Under these conditions, it is not surprising that sources of labour are scarce and poverty is increasing. The State centres its action on forest protection, but at the expense of the local population. The situation is summed up by our interviewee, who stated, “we are rich, but we manage poverty. The Reserve did not generate employment except for outsiders.”

However, the State obtains funds through the reserve, an important part of the Meso-American Biological Corridor. Among those providing financial resources, are the following: the World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, GTZ (the German International Development Agency), the US Department of the Interior and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency.

Unfortunately, these financial resources are not being used to improve the local peoples’ situation. On the contrary, the reserve has led to a worsening of their living conditions. “People are afraid of the word ‘reserve’ because the result is that they have been deprived of all their rights. Many do not even know they are in a reserve.”

In spite of the difficulties, the Miskito and other local populations are developing actions towards recognition of their rights. Among these is the issue of obtaining land tenure deeds. The people are demanding that the communities be granted deeds (and not individually). Added to this claim, they demand that the Reserve and its management be placed in the hands of the Indigenous Peoples - which is only demanding justice.

Article base on information from an interview with an anonymous Miskito Indigenous person, July 2003, Eco-Index: Rio Plátano Biosphere Reserve Integrated Management Program http://www.eco-index.org/search/results.cfm?ProjectID=135

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- The vision of protected areas as seen by the Indigenous organization COICA

The Greater Amazonia that stretches over approximately 7,8854,331 km2 (*) possesses the largest rainforest in the world, with flora and fauna that constitute, on their own, over half the world’s biota, comprising hundreds of thousands of plants and millions of animals, many still unknown to western science. At the same time, its waters represent between 15 and 20% of the planet’s total fresh water reserves, and the great River Amazon alone empties 15.5% of the non-salt water into the Atlantic Ocean.

We, the Hunikuin, Shuar, Yine, Kichwa, Tagaeri, Machsco and hundreds of other millenary Peoples, known as Indians, live in this world of extraordinary diversity of species, protectors of our territories where almost 100% of the forests and biodiversity existing today are to be found. Threatened by political, economic and social factors, the Amazon is in a continuous process of occupation, tension, disputes, human and environmental damage, justified by the myths of integration and poverty alleviation in other regions, while attempting to find here the model of sustainable development based on ancestral knowledge and forms of harmonious relationships between the Indigenous Peoples and nature.

Various interests in the strategic resources existing in the Amazon (uranium, oil, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, genetic resources, among others) have made this vast region a propitious venue for starting disputes, with the creation of categories and concepts granting adjectives to nature, under the form of protected areas such as national parks, forest, fauna and ecological reserves, etc. The impact on our territories has been enormous due to the superimposition of false conservation interests over our territorial rights, ignoring that we have existed since time immemorial. None of these categories offers a true guarantee to the protection of Indigenous territories, affected by the 181,251 hectares of protected zones in the Amazon Basin countries, as they are absorbed by interests in mining, oil and timber exploitation, colonization and tourism. As an example we highlight what has happened in the Yasuni National Park (Ecuador), where recently a genocide of the Tagaeri people took place, permanently instigated precisely by timber traffickers, without the State (through the Ministry of the Environment) having been able to exercise any authority or control.

Furthermore, management plans for protected areas have not considered the existence of local inhabitants in an appropriate manner, forcing them to migrate to other places where other social actors already exist.

In addition to this, there is a lack of compliance with the scant legislation existing in the countries of the region, because of an economic model destroying the environment and facilitating operating licenses without considering the basic human and social principles of the Indigenous Peoples. Such is the case of the presence of oil companies on Huaorani territory (Province of Pastaza, Ecuador), where the following oil blocks have been granted: Petroecuador, Block 14 Vintage, Block 16 to Repsol-YPF, Block 21 to Kerr MacGee, Block 31 to Perez Compac.

For us the impacts are even more complex, considering the usual practices of assistance, division and cooptation to justify agreements or consultations that have supposedly been reached with the communities, peoples and organizations.

As a way of overcoming these disputes, it is essential to ensure that our territories are guaranteed as a means of protecting nature. This must be respected and supported, primarily by the governments, because it is the best way of guaranteeing conservation with the presence of human lives, represented by us, the Indigenous Peoples. This is the only way that the Earth Summit declaration of principles, the Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests and other international instruments of relevance regarding the environment can be put into practice.

In those cases in which protected areas are superimposed on our territories, our pre-existence should be recognized and the consequent existence of ancestral rights, even before adopting any legal standard of recognition for the use and management of natural resources existing in Indigenous territories and the responsibility for co-management with the participation of our local government institutions.

It would seem that this relationship between protected areas and Indigenous territories has generated more disputes than agreements, requiring the implementation of practical action plans and respect for our existence as peoples in our diversity to face the systems or criteria created by economic interests or territorial occupation. We would therefore highlight the following proposals:

- The pre-eminence of our territorial rights over any figure of protection together with free access to and control over existing natural resources;
- The prohibition of all types of external extractive activities in already declared protected areas and the guarantee to the Indigenous Peoples of economic benefits for environmental services;
- The elimination of superimposition of protected areas, in particular those which affects our territories;
- The direct participation of our representative organizations in the formulation of political, legal and other decisions affecting us.

(*) Bolivia 824,000 km2; Brazil 4,982,000; Colombia 406,000; Ecuador 123.000; Guyana 5,780; Peru 956,751; Venezuela 53,000; Surinam 142,800 and French Guyana 91,000.

By: Sebastião Haji Manchineri, General Coordinator of COICA (Coordination of the Amazon Basin Indigenous Organizations), Quito, 29 July 2003.

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- Peru: Visit to a ‘Potato Park’

High in the Peruvian Andes a unique initiative in indigenous-run conservation is being pursued to preserve the huge variety of domesticated potatoes that are one of the most significant elements of the region’s biodiversity. The ‘Parque de la Papa’ (Potato Park) is the brainchild of an indigenous-run organisation called the ‘Asociacion Andes’ (Quechua-Aymara Association for Sustainable Livelihoods – ANDES) and is being implemented by an association of six Quechua villages in the mountains south of Pisac in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Under this initiative, the 8,000 villagers of the six communities of Amaru, Pampallacta, Quyo Grande, Sacaca, Paruparu and Chahuaytire have agreed to bring together the 8,661 hectares in their six communal land titles and manage them jointly for their collective benefit. Their aim is to conserve their landscape, livelihoods and ways of life, and to revitalise their customary laws and institutions.

Rainfed agriculture remains the mainstay of the local farming system, which is dominated at this high altitude (the land is between 3,600 and 4,600 metres above sea level) by potatoes. The wealth of the area is based on the astounding 1,200 different varieties of potato that are named, known and managed by the local people. The area is thought to be within the ‘centre of origin’ of the potato and the great majority of the potatoes – a typical farm plot may contain 250-300 varieties – are for local consumption and the regional barter trade. This trade has important nutritional, as well as economic, value, allowing the highlanders to exchange the carbohydrates and meat that they produce (in the form of potatoes, guinea pigs, llama and alpaca), for vegetable protein from the grains and Andean pseudograins produced at middle altitudes and for vitamins and essential fatty acids from the fruits and vegetables grown in subtropical gardens down towards the Amazon. Vertical trade of this kind has been an integral part of the economy of the region since pre-Inca times.

The high peaks around the edge of the valley also enclose other important assets: wetlands and high lakes, Inca ruins, the rare condor and other wildlife, but the Potato Park is holistic, and its major goal is to establish a functioning management regime based on customary law and traditional knowledge, in a way that brings together all the land under a single system but allows for maximum flexibility for individual farmer’s initiatives and the choices of the distinct villages.

Authority for the Park is shared between the villages, each of which elects one Chairman to coordinate the work of the Association and concerted efforts are made to integrate traditional religious beliefs and understanding into the management. Libations in “chicha”, the local beer, are poured to the local ‘gods’, which are present in the surrounding mountains, springs and rocks, at all communal events. Mother Earth – Pachamama – is still deeply revered and recognised in the syncretic worship of the Virgin Mary, reflecting the strong role that women play in the traditional social order. The custom of one-year trial marriages, which women may dissolve if they choose, is retained in the villages.

International support for the project has come from a number of NGOs, including the Sustaining Local Food Systems Agrobiodiversity and Livelihoods Programme of IIED and the Rockefeller Foundation. The initiative is also backed by an International Support Committee which includes Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary of the CBD, Juan Mayr Maldonado, ex-Minister for the Environment in Colombia among others including movie artists and human rights activists. Recently the Potato Park negotiated an agreement with the International Potato Institute, based in Lima and which is part of the CGIAR group, which has led to 206 additional potato varieties being repatriated. Currently these varieties are being cultivated by the villages of Pampallacta and Chahuaytire with the aim of later sharing them among all the other villages once viable stocks have been established. A long term goal of the Association is to re-establish all the world’s 4,000 known potato varieties in the valley.

But this is not a backward-looking project. New technologies are being applied alongside the old. Greenhouses have been established in the villages to provide vegetables in school meals; members of the women’s cooperative are being trained in making and digitally editing videos in order to record and share knowledge of potato varieties and how to manage them, using the local language, Quechua. Although the Association opposes the patenting of indigenous knowledge, traditional medicines are being produced by the cooperative for local sale and benefit-sharing. A database of traditional medicinal knowledge is being established to protect against biopiracy.

The communities are also re-establishing forests on critical lands. Nurseries for growing thousands of seedlings of native species have been set up. The aim is to regenerate the native forests, most of which were cut down in 18th century to provide timber for Spanish silver mines. Currently the main tree species on the hillsides is Eucalyptus, planted in the ‘40s and ‘50s, which though it is valued for being fast growing and currently the main source of fuelwood is otherwise of limited use. ‘We find Eucalyptus dries the land. The native species don’t and they also fertilize the soil. The native species are useful for medicines, fertilizers, fuel and fodder…Trees are very important to us and maybe they also protect us from pollution from other places’ notes Paulina Gihuaña of the women’s cooperative.

By regenerating native forests, the villagers hope to promote wild bird and animal species and make the area still more attractive to tourists, who already come regularly to their villages. With the aim of developing ‘agro-ecotourism’, the Potato Park is already in discussions with the National Institute of Culture to agree a system for co-management of archaeological sites and sacred areas. The Park is also developing an autonomous programme for controlling tourism and ensuring local people benefit equitably. A new research and visitor’s centre is being established to help with administration, marketing and coordination. The new sense of unity that has been established between the communities has already brought other benefits too. A history of (occasionally violent) land conflicts between the communities has been largely overcome, in part through the revival of the customary village boundary festival, in which each villages’ links with the land are celebrated each year by walking the boundaries. As the Association Chairman, Wilbert Quispe, observes ‘Before this project we were divided and were losing our diversity, native potatoes, wildlife and many other things….we were also forgetting how to manage this variety. Our aim is to reunite our villages in order to restore our traditional ways of managing our landscape.’

The Potato Park can be seen as one expression of a powerful social movement, the currents of which can be felt throughout the Andes, of indigenous peoples recovering control of their lands and heritage. In large part this cultural revival can be traced back to the land reforms of the 1960s and early 1970s, which dismantled the old “hacienda” system and redistributed lands as communal holdings to Andean villages. In the first years after the reforms, many observers claimed that they had led to failure. Even though many peasants regained control of their lands, agricultural production fell, incomes declined and exports stagnated.

However, these disappointing beginnings are now explained in terms of a lack of continuity in government agrarian policies. When General Velasco, who had pushed through the Agrarian Reform, fell from power, the policies, credit systems and agricultural extension packages needed to promote restituted farmers were dropped. Moreover, the previous four centuries of domination by the “hacenderos” (landowners) imposed obedience and blunted peasant initiative. Paradoxically, the fact that the landowners had also purposefully kept their serfs (peones) isolated from education and even from learning Spanish, also helped preserve their traditions, crops, customary institutions and language.

Now a more experienced and psychologically liberated generation is rediscovering its power: customary institutions of water and land management are being revived, traditional forms of dance, song and music are being re-taught, traditional curing systems and medicines regaining their currency and political coalitions, invoking the names of 14th century Incas like Pachacutec, have taken control of numerous local councils and municipalities.

Not all government agencies view these reassertions of indigenous culture and identity with equal enthusiasm. The indigenous proponents of the Potato Park have yet to persuade the Peruvian National Parks agency, INRENA, that the Park should be recognised as part of Peru’s protected area system. Although the IUCN’s revised protected area category system could readily recognise an indigenous-owned and controlled park of this kind as a Category V ‘protected landscape’ [‘managed mainly for landscape conservation, where the interaction of people has produced a distinct landscape which requires protection’], Peru’s current conservation laws do not provide for such an area to be under local control. However, these anomalies will have to change, as they are a legacy of the old colonial model of conservation which no longer conforms with international human rights and conservation laws ratified by Peru, such as ILO Convention 169 and the Articles 8j and 10c of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

By: Marcus Colchester, Forest Peoples Programme (e-mail: marcus@fppwrm.gn.apc.org), based on field visit August 2003 with many thanks to Alejandro Argumedo of the Asociacion Andes.