Patta hoiri and Likanantay people:

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Patta hoiri and Likanantay people
rescuing the knowledge of the land
Traditional knowledge and the Millenium
Assessment Project in the Salar de Atacama,
Chile
RIDES
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This presentation

• Rides and the SG Assessment in Chile
• The Atacameño people
• Their approach to nature and ecosystems
  traditional knowledge
  
• Integration of TK in our assessment how,
  challenges

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• Research center based in Santiago, Chile
• Our mission is to contribute to sustainable
  development public policy development and
  fostering in Chile and the region
  
• Bridge between different actors, topics and
  experiences (international-national-local)
  
• Main subjects trade and sustainable development,
  social responsibility, access to information,
  public participation, and integrated assessment
  of public policies
• www.rides.cl

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The SG Assessment Atacama desert

• The MA started in Chile on June 2003 (until end
  of 2004)
  
• Its objective is to to contribute to
  sustainable management of the ecosystems of the
  Salar de Atacama for human well being and
  conservation
• We just finished phase one base line on water,
  tourism, biodiversity, mining, agriculture,
  astronomic observation, social
  
• Initial resistance from community to project
  objectives and scope, impacts on TK line (bad
  previous experiences with research projects)

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The Atacameños ...

• Heirs to an ancient tradition
• Humans have lived in the Antofagasta region,
  where the Salar de Atacama lies, for at least
  eleven thousand years. For over six millennia,
  the first inhabitants maintained a subsistence
  lifestyle based on resources provided by the
  ecosystem, developing strategies to adapt to and
  make use of the ecological environment,
  characterised by desert and saline water (Desert
  Tradition).

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... The Atacameños

• A people reshaping their past and present
• From disperse settlement system to one town
  settlement
  
• from a community decision system to an
  individual decision system
  
• from catholic syncretic beliefs, to appearance
  of new religions.
  
• but, still, among the poorest of the country.

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... The Atacameños

• Knowledge and use of the deserts biotic
  resources
  
• Knowledge of names, spatial distinctions, uses
  and distribution of biodiversity species in the
  Salar region.
  
• There are special symbolic meaning of hills and
  valleys

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... The Atacameños

• A traditional community integrated into one
  nation..... and then another
  
• The large-scale transmission and socialisation of
  traditional knowledge in the Atacameño community
  and their way of inhabiting the land was affected
  by colonisation, independence and the creation of
  the Bolivian and Chilean states. This occurred in
  many different ways and led to the loss of the
  Kunza language and other traditions of the zone.
  
• Since the inclusion of these indigenous groups
  within Chilean territory at the close of the 19th
  century, their identity has been built upon the
  us/them dynamic that these communities have
  developed with the Chilean state.

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... The Atacameños

• A community making the most of political
  opportunities
  
• Return of democracy and indigenous law define a
  new scenario
  
• The indigenous communities from Northern Chile
  are using these new political opportunities to
  uncover new meaning to their ethnic identity in
  the following ways
• A revaluing of the mythical past
• Creation of ethnically minded organisations for
  rights and productivity, shaped by modern
  structures
  
• Local development project management with an
  ethnic stance, abandoning the passive role of
  simply receiving support
  
• Taking up a new position with respect to the
  others
  
• Reclaiming their territory and resources, based
  on their historical ownership

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The role of traditional knowledge in the
communitys past and present ...

• Traditional knowledge has a role in their human
  well being today, giving cohesion and containment
  to a shared mythical past, bestowing them with
  dignity as people and providing a spiritual
  connection to the surroundings they live in
• Although this knowledge has been significantly
  depleted or lost, it is still cultivated amongst
  the elders, who are aware of its existence and
  validity.

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TK in the community past and present

• ecological knowledge, what is happening in the
  ecosystems
  
• technology and knowledge of management practices
  
  
• symbolic knowledge

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TK in the community past and present
Transmission occur by 2 ways family and social
institutions
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Atacameños appreciation of scientific knowledge
TK in the community past and present

• The cultural pressure transmitted by the nation
  through the existence of a precise form of
  knowledge, adjusted by science to proven and
  replicable fact, places other traditional sources
  under doubt, creating tension within the
  community between the illiterate and literate
  generations between vernacular-traditional
  knowledge rooted in the practical observation of
  nature, and knowledge from books about things
  that are not understood but set down as truth.
• María de los Angeles Villaseca, 2000.

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Challenges for integration
TK in the community past and present

• Changes in labor oportunities affects TK
  negatively
  
• Several experiences health department, CONAF,
  Escuela Andina, bicultural educational programs

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What have we done? ...

• To accompany the process of rescue
• Knowledge coordinates
• what, very broad, but there is important
  knowledge for our assessment
  
• where and when, limited by our time and budget
  for field work (San Pedro and Toconao)
  
• Who, the elders
• How, key point of our approach

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... What have we done?

• Ongoing trips to the district
• Approach to and conversations with key persons
• Educational activities
• Meeting with older members of the community.
• Participation in religious activities of the
  community

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What have we learned ...

• Knowledge is power... But not every power is the
  same power
  
• One vision to gather them all?
• Living with the enemy
• Community logics is no longer predominant. How
  can we deal with individuals? (transmission and
  sharing as bennefit to all)
  

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What role our assessment could play?
... What have we learned

• It has helped generate and strengthen the bridges
  needed for the older generations to bring their
  experience and knowledge closer to the
  youngsters. From this perspective, the direct
  benefits do not only go to the MA, but rather to
  the community and its process of patrimonial
  recovery.
• A second lesson is that the languages needed to
  bring the traditional community closer to the
  this initiative deserve more in-depth study
  
• A third lesson relates to the possibility to
  reveal and highlight the processes by which
  traditional knowledge can be incorporated into
  local decision-making processes.

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Finally

• The key to reaching all knowledge is to trust in
  the great teachers. The project Human Well
  Being and Sustainable Management of the Salar de
  Atacama, has allowed us to identify some
  Atacameño teachers, and we would like to end
  with their words

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• Thank you!!!!
• Questions, comments are welcome.
• Beatriz Bustos
• Bbustos_at_rides.cl