The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
native crops as health foods, establishing local pharmacies and processing of medicinal plants.
They also work jointly on capacity-building in sustainable agriculture and CCA management,
and on supporting local innovations to sustain livelihoods and protect Quechua peoples’
traditional resource rights. There is a strong emphasis on “learning by doing.”
The experience of community participation in the establishment and management of a
community-conserved area based on agro-biodiversity is providing valuable insight into the
process of adapting traditional management practices and indigenous knowledge systems into a
comprehensive and sui generis plan for the conservation of local biodiversity and the goods and
services of mountain ecosystems. The Potato Park offers the elements to develop a model of
sustainable agriculture that is based on the conservation and sustainable use of native crops and
ecosystem goods and services in order to increase agricultural productivity and rural economy.
An example of the above assertion is the agro-ecotourism concept being developed in the
Park. Agro-ecotourism activities build upon extending the existing links between the tra -
ditional Quechua agricultural system and the character of the Pisac landscape, particularly its
cultural features, to non-traditional economic activities such as ecotourism in order to generate
additional income for the local community while at the same time creating incentives for the
conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and the goods and services of the ecosystem.
This model of ecotourism seeks to develop market niches for recreation activities based in
landscape enjoyment, such as wildlife observation; gastronomic experiences based on unique
native crops; and educational exchanges.
The goals of sustaining local livelihoods and ecosystems are tied to strong promotion of the
local Quechua culture. By focusing attention on the conservation of native crops, particularly
on the potato, the Potato Park seeks to reinforce traditional indigenous values and ensure that
these coincide with today’s social, economic and technological issues. This is to ensure that the
community-conserved area becomes a model for indigenous self-development that projects the
Quechua culture into the future. Providing the means to ensure that Quechua cultural identity
evolves with dignity in the face of present economic and technological challenges is therefore
of great concern.
Human wellbeing and cultural identity are central to the work of the Potato Park. Traditional
Quechua values have been incorporated into all activities of the project, including the values of
solidarity, equilibrium and duality, which are important to management of genetic resources
and landscapes, and which are also the basis of customary laws. By linking CCA activities to
Quechua values, actions acquire strong indigenous identity and therefore help to strengthen
Quechua culture and achieve an authentic vision of being. The use of traditional knowledge in
biodiversity and landscape management – for example in plant breeding, irrigation and weather
forecasting – ensures that Quechua culture survives. Indigenous culture reproduces itself
through reference frameworks packaged as knowledge, practices and innovation systems,
particularly those related to agriculture and food systems; therefore the viability of the Potato
Park concept is inextricably linked to projecting these reference frameworks into the future. For
Quechua farmers, reality comes into being through agriculture, and therefore having potatoes
as their cultural symbol converges their being into reality.
The activities and projects of the Potato Park deal with all aspects of the well-being of
Andean peasants such as soil fertility, pastoral and forestry activities, materials for con -
struction, firewood collection, and drinkable water supplies, as well as the development of
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