Coping with Climate Change: How are Indigenous Peoples and Rural Communities Using Agrobiodiversity?
| May 10, 2010 | to | May 21, 2010 |
The Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research (PAR) will take place during the Fourteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 14) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) from 10 to 21 May 2010 at UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya.
PAR will hold a Side Event on “Coping with Climate Change: How are Indigenous Peoples and Rural Communities Using Agrobiodiversity” on Tuesday, 18 May 2010 from 13.15 to 14.45 in room CR-3 Lower Floor at UNEP in Nairobi. A scrumptious lunch featuring local Kenyan agrobiodiversity will be served to participants.
Speakers include: Joseph Ole-Simel, MPIDO (Mainyoito Pastoralist Integrated Development Organization), Kenya; Yator Kiptum, Sengwer Indigenous Development Project, Kenya; Maria Mayer de Scurrah, CIP (Centro International de la Papa/ International Potato Center), Peru; Saoudata Aboubacrine, Association Tin Hinan, Burkina Faso; Taghi Farvar, WAMIP (World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples), Iran; Paul Bordoni, Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research (PAR), Italy.
The side event will provide an opportunity for representatives of indigenous groups and rural communities to discuss their experiences related to the use of agrobiodiversity, its role in how to best contribute to adaptation and mitigation. The event will also help stimulate interactions between scientists and farmers. A publication describing the findings of this work will be released at SBSTTA 14 in Nairobi.
Presentations
- The Case of Sengwer Indigenous Peoples (Kenya) – Yator Kiptum
- Mobile indigenous people and climate change: an opportunity in crisis – Taghi Farvar
- How are indigenous peoples and rural communities using agrobiodiversity to adapt? – Saoudata Aboucrine
- Agrobiodiversity as a coping strategy in the face of climate change: Lessons from rural farming communities of Kitui, Kenya – Patrick Maundu
- Pastoralist mobility in adapting to climate change – Nicolas Soikan
- Coping with Climate Change: How are Indigenous Peoples and Rural Communities Using Agrobiodiversity to Adapt - Paul Bordoni
- How Andean Farmers manage their diversity with special reference to potato - Maria Scurrah and Stef de Haan
Andean farmers managing potato diversity uploaded by Maria Scurrah
The Aymara Indians are the First Botanists of Solanum
The Aymara system of nomenclature for potato is linguistically an extremely well developed taxonomy that is not attributed to Spanish influence. The Aymara are in fact the first botanists of Solanum. Life in the highlands would be practically inconceivable without the potato, the Andean staff of life. Development of indigenous agriculture has had an enormous impact upon human history. The annual value of the world potato crop has become several times that of all the precious metals taken from Peru at the time of the Conquest. The highly complex civilization of Tiwanaku was based upon potatoes and other Andean tuberous root crops. With several hundred varieties of potato in the region, it is apparent that humans have been cultivating potatoes in the Andes for a very long time (La Barre 1947:83-88). Aymara agriculture, techniques of food preparation and conservation reveal a sophisticated level of expertise, manifested in the wealth and precision of their terminology (Bouysse-Cassagne 1987:203). Aymara language reflects the importance of the potato to Aymara life and survival (Johns 1990:199).
During World War II, the United States armed forces circularized anthropologists and explorers for seeking specialized knowledge regarding indigenous technology for preserving and concentrating foods. Aymara methods of preparing ch’uñu and t’unt’a from fermented and frost-dried potatoes were utilized for feeding hundreds of thousands of soldiers. These innovations in dehydration that have become indispensable to the world, have been known to the Aymara for millennia (La Barre 1947:101-103). The Andean potato was genetically transformed to become the fourth largest crop in the world.
Crops that had held honored positions in Aymara society for thousands of years were deliberately replaced by European species upon demand by the conquerors. As a result, many native crops were forced into obscurity by botanical colonialism. Nevertheless, today in the high Andes the ancient influences still persist among the Aymara who continue to cultivate the plants of their ancestors (Figure 7). The Aymara are master agriculturalists and their traditional crops hold a valued place in future food production, particularly for malnourished segments of the population. Regrettably, the distribution of Aymara farm products is obstructed (Rudolph Ryser, personal communication, 20 June 2007) and the region of the once great Tiwanaku Empire is one of the most depressed areas in the world, where infant mortality is among the highest in South America and one-fourth of the children die before their first birthday (National Research Council 1989:1-14).