collective biocultural heritage
Parque de la Papa: “In Highland Peru, a Culture Confronts Blight”
This is simply to draw your attention to a reportage by Joanne Silberner about a place that colonos have also had the great pleasure and privilege of visiting. It is called Parque de la Papa and their story is yet another (potential?) climate change disaster:
“In Highland Peru, a Culture Confronts Blight“
and a little excerpt:
Alejandro Argumedo is a plant scientist and social activist with Association Andes. Argumedo says climate change threatens not just farmers like Baca Huaman, but Peru’s whole native culture.
“Potato is not just food. Potato is also spirituality; it’s culture,” Argumedo says. “There are songs, dances, ceremonies. So this is a potato land … a culture of potato.”
Potatoes originated in Peru. They fed the Inca empire. There is a potato god.
Other staples grow here — corn and quinoa, for example. But potatoes have special cultural symbolism. They are as important as rice is in China.
“Potatoes are like living beings,” Argumedo says. “People treat them like that. They are members of the family for farmers.”
See also:Protecting Community Rights over Traditional Knowledge.
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