Biocultural territories

Indigenous Peoples’ territories cover about 40% of the world’s natural lands. They conserve most of the world’s biodiversity and diverse ecosystems, including forests, mountains, grasslands and wetlands that provide critical ecosystem services such as freshwater and climate change mitigation.

Indigenous and traditional territories also sustain biodiversity-rich food systems, including centres of domestication of crops and livestock and resilient wild relatives, which are  evolving and co-evolving for climate adaptation and food security. But these territories face growing threats from destructive development, unjust conservation and globalisation.

Biocultural territories are landscapes rich in biocultural heritage that are collectively self-governed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities based on ancestral cosmovision and customary laws. They conserve and restore biodiversity, protect territorial rights, enhance climate resilience, food security, nutrition and sustainable livelihoods, and revitalise traditional knowledge systems.

Biocultural territories provide a key tool for achieving the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity targets, including Target 3 which states that 30% of land and waters are effectively conserved by 2030 “through equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognising indigenous and traditional territories”.  They are also important for achieving many of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Biocultural territories are an Indigenous self-designation that emerged from a 20-year struggle for self-determination by Quechua communities in the Potato Park (Peru). They are a decolonial conservation approach, guided by Indigenous holistic wellbeing concepts that promote respectful  interrelations between the human, wild and sacred realms, rather than Western conservation paradigms that separate people and nature.

Biocultural territories are also a food-centred approach that sustains biodiversity-rich, ritualistic indigenous food systems and promotes food sovereignty.

Biocultural territories have been defined as: “land use mosaics encompassing Indigenous and traditional land tenure, production and exchange systems, cultural identity, community organisation and simultaneous goals of endogenous development and biodiversity conservation”. They are autonomous processes that use Indigenous methods and tools to revitalise traditional knowledge systems, and link Indigenous and Western sciences.

Biocultural territories support the continuation and revitalisation of indigenous and traditional approaches to land management, and provide a tool to strengthen the collective territorial rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. They are a holistic approach to conserve and regenerate interdependent biological and cultural heritage, and to protect rights to land, self-determination, bio-genetic resources and traditional knowledge, in accordance with UNDRIP and UNDROP.

Biocultural territories enhance the capacity of communities to protect their rights by building strong collective local organisations which can influence policies, advance legal rights and ensure these rights are respected in practice. Options for legal recognition of self-governed biocultural territories depend on the country context. In Peru, for example, biocultural territories can be registered under the Law on Agrobiodiversity Zones.

The Potato Park is an Indigenous biocultural territory governed by five Quechua communities (over 6,000 people) in a micro-centre of origin of potato diversity near Cusco.  It covers approximately 10,000 hectares and spans an altitude of 3,400-4,500 metres above sea level. The communities registered a collective Potato Park Associacion in 2002 with support from the Indigenous NGO ANDES.

The Potato Park’s objectives centre on Sumaq Kawsay - an ancestral concept which requires balance and reciprocity between the human and domesticated, the wild and the sacred realms to achieve wellbeing. The park is governed on the basis of Andean customary laws, by a general council composed of elected indigenous community leaders. Mountain gods are the highest governance authority in the park and are revered through daily rituals.

The Potato Park has had multiple impacts. It has reversed the loss of agrobiodiversity and now  conserves about 1,400 native potato varieties and 3-4 potato wild relative species. It has conserved and restored Andean wildlife (such as an endangered hummingbird), and has strengthened traditional agroecological practices, including seven-year fallows, rotational grazing and use of wildlife indicators.

It has reaffirmed spiritual beliefs related to nature: sacred mountains, lakes and rivers are strictly protected. The park has enhanced food and nutrition security, despite severe climate change impacts in the high Andes; and doubled incomes through economic collectives led by women.

The Potato Park has also reaffirmed Quechua values that centre  conservation and equity, and nurtured vibrant indigenous knowledge systems, language and taxonomies, engaging youth and children (for example. in festivals and competitions) to ensure inter-generational transmission. It has protected territorial rights despite growing threats, and is now legally registered as an Agrobiodiversity Zone.

The park has also strengthened community rights over genetic resources and traditional knowledge through a native potato repatriation agreement with the International Potato Centre (reverse access and benefit sharing), and by influencing the development of regional laws against biopiracy and banning genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Other tools  include  an inter-community agreement (biocultural protocol) for collective governance and benefit-sharing, and a community seed bank and register. Underlying the park’s success is a decolonising action-research approach that centres traditional knowledge.

Since 2012, IIED, ANDES, INMIP and partners  have organised a number of community-to-community learning exchanges and supported community-led processes to scale out and adapt the Potato Park model in different countries.

Barter-Maize Park, Lares, Peru

This biocultural territory in the Cusco region has been established through horizontal learning with facilitation by the Potato Park’s indigenous experts and ANDES. It brings together four Quechua communities to establish a territory of about 50,000 hectares, which protects rich barter traditions, maize and potato diversity, and Andean ecosystems and wildlife, cosmovision and rights. The communities have adopted the Potato Park model and  its biocultural innovations, providing ‘proof of concept’ in the Andean region.

Rabai biocultural territory, coastal Kenya

IIED and KEFRI (Kenya Forestry Research Institute) have been supporting 10 Mijikenda villages in Rabai’s sacred Kaya forest landscape to  establish a collectively governed biocultural territory of about 20,000 hectares, building on Rabai’s Council of Elders and Kaya court. The process aims to empower Kaya elders, conserve and restore Kaya forest and agrobiodiversity for climate resilience, protect land rights and strengthen livelihoods. The goal of the biocultural territory is ‘Mudzini’, the Rabai  concept of holistic wellbeing. The community has adopted many of the Potato Park innovations, but the context is challenging, with significant pressures on Kaya forests, loss of traditional knowledge and colonial influences. A dialogue methodology developed by SALT (Society for Alternative Learning and Transformation), a local NGO from Tharaka central Kenya, has proved helpful to address these challenges.

Three Naxi-Moso Village Biocultural Heritage Network, Southwest China

In northwest Yunnan, near Tibetan and along the upper Jinsha River watershed, the Stone Village (Naxi ethnic group) and the Youmi and Labo villages (Moso ethnic group) have formed a collaborative community network.  Supported by the Farmers’ Seed Network and research institutes, this network focuses on agrobiodiversity, agroforestry and nature conservation, and aims to protect Naxi-Moso biocultural heritage through community to community knowledge and seed exchange and joint action. The Stone Village has provided expertise in community seed banks and participatory plant breeding and supported their scaling-out to the Moso  villages; and the Moso  villages have shared knowledge on traditional Dongba with the Stone Village. Their work includes documenting, revitalizing and disseminating shared Dongba culture and its values that promote harmony between humans and nature.  This includes publishing booklets on Dongba culture and engaging farmers in monitoring local wild plants and animals for conservation.

Rice, bean and orchid Park, Kalimpong, northeast India

In the eastern Himalayan forests of West Bengal, bordering Bhutan and Sikkim, 11 Lepcha and Limbu villages have come together to establish a biocultural territory of about 20,000 hectares, with support from IIED, Lok Chetna Manch and the Centre for Mountain Dynamics. The aim is to strengthen customary sustainable use rights, enhance forest and agrobiodiversity conservation, and improve livelihoods. Challenges include the marginalisation of Indigenous Peoples and changing aspirations of youth with globalisation. Opportunities include biocultural tourism potential - the area has about 200 orchid varieties and rich wildlife.

Scaling-out biocultural territories through INMIP

INMIP – the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples – is a network of Indigenous Peoples and local communities with members in 14 countries: Bhutan, Bolivia, China, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Mexico and Nepal.

INMIP is establishing a global network of biocultural territories inspired by the successful Potato Park model, including in centres of origin of potato, maize, rice, wheat, apple, pear, walnut and soybean. INMIP has held several community-to-community learning exchanges and walking workshops to enhance capacity to establish biocultural territories. INMIP’s secretariat is currently at the Indigenous NGO ANDES (Peru), and is supported by IIED.