- Traditional ecological knowledge in the central Peruvian Amazon is not simply being lost to time, but is rather adapting and evolving to a new modern context.
- Ecotourism is providing important job opportunities for Peruvian Amazonian young adults.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily Mongabay.
Several years ago, I took a solo trip to the Huánuco region of the central Peruvian Amazon. After traveling five hours from the nearest town by car, boat and tuk-tuk, I reached the Comunidad de la Naranjal on the banks of the Yamiria River, a tributary of the Ucayali. The Naranjal are an Indigenous community of around 500 members, who were once nomadic but have now settled together and practice agriculture. The latter is one change among many more to perhaps come.
As the tide of homogenizing globalization rises, traditional Indigenous lifestyles and knowledge come under threat. Today, these communities occupy a significant portion of the Earth’s territory containing vast amounts of the world’s biodiversity. Nevertheless, approximately one Indigenous language dies out every other week. In a paper extolling the virtues of traditional medicine amid its rapid decline in the year 2000, U.S. ethnobotanist Paul Alan Cox posed a thought-provoking question: Will tribal knowledge endure into the new millennium?
During my visit to one of roughly 200 Ashaninka communities living in and around the Peruvian Amazon, this question weighed on my mind: How will traditional ecological knowledge continue to survive in our rapidly changing, modernizing and globalized world?
But in this region, I witnessed how traditional knowledge is not dying out, but is rather adapting and transforming. Ancient knowledge of nomadic hunting and living in the rainforest, for example, is now being used for shifting agricultural systems, tourism and to generate jobs for the local youth. Near Tournavista district, the Naranjal are building contemporary livelihoods centered on land management, artisanal products and a strong cultural identity.
Chagras
The concept of traditional ecological knowledge was first defined by Canadian ecologist and anthropologist Fikret Berkes as “a cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations.” The ecological aspect concerns land and land management, pertaining to ancient methods of how best to cultivate, manage and preserve soils.
The Naranjal community’s “way of being” is practiced today in the form of chagras (shifting agricultural farms), fishing, navigating the forest and using wood and plants to make houses, artisanal products and other crafts. They apply the generational passing down of accumulated wisdom, a defining characteristic of traditional knowledge, into their modern farming techniques.
Early one morning, I encountered an Ashaninka woman gently gliding to the river’s edge on a wooden canoe, a woven basket laden with papaya on her head and her daughter at her side. Asking about her work on the surrounding farms, she told me her “parents grow maize, rice, papaya and bananas,” that they taught her craftsmanship as well as what to “cultivate, how to produce, and how to care for our environment.”
The same can be said of the community’s connection with the surrounding trees, as they are exploring the option of selling the abundant local aguaje fruit to tourists, and they continue to utilize supple wood to build simple homes. The importance of work on the chagras and in the surrounding forest remains steadfast today, the Ashaninka kept saying, as it provides sustenance, fosters social relationships, offers income to workers, and regenerates the land.
Artisanal products
As well as hand-building their houses, the community crafts artisanal products from fiber and wooden beads using traditional knowledge. These serve to strengthen their sense of cultural identity, connect them with other communities, inspire them to care for the land, and provide a small income when sold at nearby markets.
In conversation with Veronica Peña Perez, the community’s sub-chief and locally known “president of artisans,” she explained that they make jewelry from seeds, beads and bonbonahai (tree fiber). Her parents, who taught her the practice, are reforesting the trees closer to home to reduce the distance needed to travel into the forest. This not only benefits the forest itself, but also connects them with their “past saints,” their revered ancestors from whom they learned the skills that shape their livelihood.
Artisanal products define the Ashaninka identity through distinct designs, handmade clothing, decorative jewelry, and reflective fiber paintings. The income from occasional sales of these items is enough for Veronica to support her family of 10 throughout the year as they mostly subsist off local fruits, rice and small fish from the nearby river. Nonetheless, Veronica expressed her plans to me to improve the community’s comfort by obtaining electricity and installing lights, running water and other perceived luxuries — which they do not currently have close by.
Ecotourism
The traditional knowledge of the Naranjal and other local communities is a valuable tool for supporting local economies and steering young people away from the various illegal activities in the region. Today’s inhabitants of the Peruvian Amazon have inherited a history of cultural oppression and environmental degradation dating back to the colonial period, peaking during the 19th-century rubber boom, which enslaved thousands of Amazonian natives. The seeds of ecotourism are now being planted in the districts of Huánuco and Tournavista, however.
It is encouraging the youth to apply their knowledge of the forest and its natural pathways as local tour guides. It is a robust income and a much healthier life than one spent deforesting or mining in the very land they call home.
In the Indigenous community, ecotourism or additional income is less necessary than in local towns, as their lives are shaped by land and community and they are almost entirely self-sufficient. Naranjal community chief Bernardo Jacobo Arevalo explained how, “thanks to our deep knowledge of nature, we can create a variety of crafts to subsist our needs in whatever moment.”
Traditional ecological knowledge in certain forms, such as those practiced by the Peruvian Ashaninka community, is not lost to the depths of time. In fact, it is constantly evolving and ever-present, just as it has been since people first arrived in the Amazon some 32,000-39,000 years ago.
Respect for traditional knowledge
Throughout the past several decades, we have made significant strides in recognizing the intellectual property rights of Indigenous peoples, establishing legal defense against bioprospecting and bio-appropriation, and cultivating a renewed respect for conservation biology. The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Article 8(j), for example, enshrines traditional knowledge preservation, promotion and benefit sharing in law, remaining one of the most robust defenses of its kind.
We are headed in the right direction, but we must continue to question if we are doing enough to ensure the protection of Indigenous land and traditional knowledge. As Veronica asks herself, if the Naranjal one day lose their land and their lifestyles, “what will [their] future look like?” During my time with the community, they somewhat profoundly wrote a communal sign that stated “preserving the Ashaninka language is our resilience.”
Anna Juliet Stephens currently works as a Research Development & Design Assistant – Climate Justice at the University of the Arts London and as a Freelance Journalist in Audience Engagement at the Financial Times. She holds an MA in Anthropology of Development and Social Transformation from the University of Sussex and a BA in History from the University of Bristol.
Banner image: Members of Yuturi Warmi, originally from the community of Serena in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo: Yuturi Warmi Archive.
We need an Indigenous conservation state of mind (commentary)
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