sábado, 11 de diciembre de 2010

Notas reunión Ética y Arte

Notas reunión Ética y Arte
11 de Diciembre, 2010
Casa del Refugiado, ACNUR
Col Roma, DF.

Damos inicio con un práctica de Capoeira dirigida por Yehécatl seguido por una meditación por Alexandro, Mtro de Teatro.
Marco Antonio nos da la bienvenida, y habla de la importancia de estas actividades para ir formando comunidad. 

Presentaciones de los participantes:

LAB: artista plástica, considera la ética al frente de cualquier actividad y es la que dirige nuestras acciones y la de los demás hacia nosotros. Debe ser parte integral de cualquier profesión así como de la vida de cada uno.

Mónica Castillo: artista plástica piensa que la ética es un tema complicado en el arte . Hay que buscar grupos fuera del medio artístico para discutir las aportaciones del arte más allá de los espacios establecidos.

Alexandro Guerrero: filósofo, director de una compañía de teatro. Está en busca de lugares de expresión y de encuentro mas allá de lugares convencionales. El trabajo en lugares vulnerables para encontrarnos a nosotros mismos.

Placide Thiere Pertue: haitiano, vive en el DF desde hace 5 meses en DF es actor de la pastorela.

Wilkens: haitiano y tiene un año un mes radicando en el DF es actor de la pastorela.

Kaira: haitiana, tiene 4 años de edad y vive en el DF.

Antonete: del Congo Belga. Trabaja en la caja de ahorro.

Jose Antonio: alumno y artista. Se encuentra en la reunión para compartir.

Antovely: estudiante diseño gráfico.

Bernardo: empleado CNA, se siente muy motivado por los ejercicios de la meditación, está interesado en explorar la espiritualidad y apoyar esta iniciativa.

Carla Gómez Monroy: su campo de trabajo es la educación. Le interesa retomar la cultura a través de la educación a todos los niveles. Ha trabajado en comunidades víctimas de la violencia, en México, Sudamerica, África, y otros países. Actualmente, ha tomado el camino del arte, trabajando con grupos de personas con capacidades diferentes, busca la manera de unir la educación y el arte. Está interesada en temas de Derechos Humanos y buscar la manera de usar el arte como medio de expresión y fuerza para ejercer derechos y valores

David-Galleta: estudiante de física, es miembro de la comunidad de la Iglesia del Pastoral del Altillo y participa con el equipo de producción de la pastorela.

Ana: diseñadora gráfica, es miembro de la comunidad de la Iglesia del Pastoral del Altillo, EMAUS. 

Jorge: estudiante de preparatoria.

Perla: estudiante de teatro en la UNAM. Le interesa apoyar estas iniciativas.

Victoria: estudiante de arte en la Esmeralda, trabaja con el grupo Rémora. Busca plantear y compartir sus cuestionamientos acerca de lo que sucede en nuestra sociedad.

Christian: licenciado en Derecho y trabaja en un despacho de abogados. Voluntario en Amnistía Internacional.

Ingrid: nacida en Guatemala y naturalizada mexicana en 2007. Curadora y crítica de arte desde hace siete años, le interesa en especial el tema del desarrollo de la conciencia, donde nace la ética y la estética. Considera importante explorar ambos campos para buscar una nueva puerta de desarrollo profesional como curadora y crítica de arte. Tras vivir una crisis existencial en su trabajo, al confrontarse con un arte desvinculado de lo social, se alejó por un tiempo; más tarde regresó con nuevas inquietudes buscando vivir una nueva experiencia en la comunidad del arte. 

Nelida: refugiada colombiana, salió de su país debido a la violencia y se nacionalizó mexicana, es beneficiaria de La Casita. Es tutora de jóvenes del Instituto de la Juventud de Desarrollo Social INJUVEN.

Marion: francesa radicada en México desde hace 6 semanas. Se dedica a la investigación dentro de instituciones que apoyan a migrantes. Es militante en la organización de  Amnistía Internacional y gracias a ellos entró en contacto con el grupo La Casita.

Dragan: originario de la ex-república de Yugoslavia, vive en México desde hace 16 años, salió de su país por razones políticas. Comenta como del grupo con el que llegó "unos vinieron y luego se fueron". estudió turismo en su país natal y posteriormente aquí estudió  filosofía. Actualmente es entrenador de futbol. Considera que lo más importante para el desarrollo en Latinoamérica es la formación y la educación.

Rosalba: estudió psicología educativa, trabaja con niños. Mas allá del slogan de que "los niños son el futuro" a ella le preocupa la violencia en la infancia y como esto desensibiliza a los niños desde muy cortas edad. Su objetivo es ofrecer algo que enseñarle a los chicos acerca de los derechos humanos, y la importancia de respetar a la persona no importa de donde venga. Para los niños esto es intangible, pero es necesario hablarlo con ellos. Esta invitación le permitirá ver otras perspectivas y llevar estos conocimientos a sus alumnos . Le gusta el arte por el arte.

Carlos: mercadólogo y artista. Actualmente trabaja en la Secretaria de Turismo del DF. Le encanta el arte con objetivos sociales y proyectos en grupo y colectivos.

Hector: comunicólogo, trabaja en el área de mercadotecnia enfocado a la publicidad. En este campo el arte es un referente esencial. Está trabajando con Carlos en proyectos relacionados con el turismo.

Marco Antonio López: trabaja en el área de la educación y protección. Estudió derecho y psicología y se ha vinculado con el campo de los derechos humanos. Cada una de estas áreas tienen un significado importante en su vida. Considera que un conocimiento no da solo respuestas, sino que permiten la búsqueda de otras, y permiten la reflexión colectiva. Considera importante su trabajo con el grupo Rémora. Piensa que actualmente, por el contexto en el que vivimos de violencia, el panorama es muy complicado y desolador para los derechos humanos y se necesita un discurso sobre el tema de la paz, porque vemos que ante el bombardeo de violencia y consumo de tecnologías, se vuelve mas difícil entender lo que sucede. El arte es una herramienta fundamental, lo ético y estético son pilares para construir una comunidad. Considera importante el tema de la ética y el arte porque pueden ser fundamentales en el desarrollo de nuevas perspectivas.
_________________________________________________________________________

DEBATE

Bernardo: sugiere a todos entrar en este diálogo de concientización con humildad y no  perderla nunca. Todos con la conciencia de ser seres humanos y no despegar los pies del piso. Pide que expliquen bien los términos profesionales para entender mejor y sugiere el apoyo entre el grupo.

Christian: relaciona el arte con el derecho, en el aspecto derecho penal comparte su experiencia de haber estado en una conferencia con el maestro Correa, es muy complicado en material de teatro y a uno como ser humano lo toca desde lo mas profundo. En un reclusorio todos han cometido un crimen, y es importante en mi carrera sensibilizarnos. Muchas veces el derecho penal se dedica a calificar conductas y hoy por hoy se habla de una reinserción de los que están en reclusorios a la sociedad real y se olvida la parte humana.

Bernardo: Muchos luego son inocentes.

Cristian: Luego dicen todos ser inocentes.

Carla. También veamos la impunidad, por ejemplo en las guerras, que desde la cabeza todos los crímenes cometidos son impunes.

Dragon: El tema actual de Ponchis, es una vergüenza la historia de un niño de 14 años de edad y si es criminal quien lo hizo y ahora lo exhiben. Que hagan lo que tengan que hacer. Pero, ¿donde va a terminar? Ponchis es un joven sicario que tenia una vida activa, convertido en un asesino de la mafia, sin prejuzgar . Me mueve mucho la sociedad. Tengo entendido que la falta de dinero fue lo que lo llevo a eso. El no tiene la culpa de eso.

Rosalba: Al ver a los adolescentes no sabemos lo que los chicos traen, cual es su historia. Ellos saben que tienen derechos pero no saben lo que son derechos humanos y estamos formando estos niños que serán los futuros adultos. Hay niños que están en escuelas privilegiadas que quieren ser narcos, o hijos de narcos y secuestradores que están en escuelas privilegiados, todos esos niños conviviendo en un mismo lugar, recibiendo una educación institucional. Una manera de sensibilizarlos es a través del arte, que solo sea para niños con recursos pero para niños sin recursos también.

Carla: Independientemente de lo que niños hayan vivido en el pasado no tienen ningún derecho de seguir fomentando la violencia. La educación en casa no es ninguna garantía, independientemente de los tiempos que vivimos a veces el uso de tu propia voz es lo que aumenta la violencia. Por ejemplo con mujeres violentadas, que al expresar su voz de protesta, la respuesta en su entorno es aumentar la violencia en su contra.

Bernardo: es que somos muy egoístas. Si estamos en x situación queremos que nos escuchen y nos falta abrirnos a escucharlos. A veces a los niños les falta esi. No saben como acercarse a hablar y buscan fuera de sus padres para ser vistos para que no cometan los mismos errores.

JA: Siento que es muy difícil dentro de escuelas de arte encontrar una visión de este tipo y es difícil en este sentido comunicar por medio del arte. Podemos hacer una exigencia por parte de los que vemos arte, y que hagamos la experiencia participativa y que éste sea un reflejo social. ¿Que recomendaciones pueden dar al arte para poder incidir mas en nuestra juventud?

Christian: hoy vemos jóvenes en el campo de la criminalidad y por razones económicas y familiares . Las leyes favorecen estas actividades porque si son detenidos las leyes protegen a los niños. 5 años es la mayor sanción.

Ingrid: ¿que mecanismos se pueden idear para incidir en esa situación de violencia? Es compleja porque se ve afectado desde lo que se le esta llamando arte desde las estructuras de poder y lo que se produce en el campo artístico; toda expresión manifiesta el nivel de conciencia que tenemos. Grupos como éste puede ir realizando mecanismos que pueden ir repitiendo el esquema de reflexión y permitir hablar de conciencia y ética. Porque si vemos lo que se promueve como estética hay muchos puntos en los que podemos reflexionar porque la ética esta hecha a un alado y la propia reflexión también, y es muy común que se promueva una estética de muy bajo nivel de conciencia. ¿Quienes lo promueven? creo que espacios como éste en el que se abarcan todos los intereses y propuestas, pueden crear células que permitan que haya más reflexión sobre éste tema. El Presidente debería de tener un asesor que le diga que hay una conciencia personal y una conciencia nacional y quienes dirigen el arte y la cultura desde las instituciones también deberían de tener ese asesor. Hay muchas manera se reflexionar sobre estos puntos.

Dragen: los niños son un esqueleto que viene desde la casa y sale. La publicidad tiene la culpa y los niños se vuelven locos. He visto a niños en un partido que no se querían levantar si no le ponen el spray que usan los jugadores profesionales.

Hector: es más importante la ética hablando de publicidad que en el arte. Por ejemplo, hablando de pintura, a principios de siglo representaban su entorno social plasmaban lo que sucedía. Yo no soy estudiante de arte, pero en mi opinión va enfocado a un individualismo y representa lo que soy y quiero, el arte tiene que llegar a enfocarse y abrirse. Estamos viendo blogs y redes sociales y lo trágico es que no podemos vernos la cara, la impersonalidad del medio. Es una herramienta importante y quien no se suba a esto se queda atrás, pues uno puede encontrar tanta información y tanto desde tu aldea y no dejar de estar en su sociedad. A el publicista le pagan para vender un producto. Pero nuestra conciencia es responsabilidad de cada uno. La formación de los padres hacia los hijos debe de trabajarse y el publicista debe generar sueños porque la gente ha vivido de sueños, como la libertad, ser rico, no es sueño ser pobre. Éticamente los publicistas rozamos esa parte donde somos intolerantes a esa realidad.

LAB: Responsabilidad debe ampliarse y abarcar un sentido de responsabilidad social.

Mónica: Ahí estamos dentro del tema de la acción social responsable, me parece curioso que tu trabajo tenga como objetivo el consumo pero al mismo tiempo apelas a que los niños deben de estar educados apara no hacerle caso a la publicidad. ¿Porqué no promocionar cosas que no se pueden consumir?

Héctor: Es contradictorio y es la diferencia entre nosotros y publicistas y el arte. Ambos son consumibles y también tienen la posibilidad de replantearse. Ustedes los artistas pueden tener solo un objetivo. Lo nuestro es difícil desde un punto ético.

Marco. Detonadora para mas preguntas a futuro, ninguno nos damos cuenta desde nuestras distintas esferas el replantear la ética y la postura humana. Podemos pasar a un siguiente nivel y preguntarnos ¿para que replantear la ética desde arte o publicidad¿ cuando están inmersas en nuestra estructura social. Coincido en que el que no esta dentro de las redes no esta adentro de la dinámica social. Pero habrá que preguntarse ¿para que se usan? Pueden ser usadas para denigrar o promover algo . En cuanto al uso de las tecnologías y el tema de la ética , sería replantear lo estético desde la visión de los derechos humanos ¿como podemos resaltar la vida ante estas realidades donde se ve y siente la violencia?.

Que tan conscientes estamos de que desde nuestro lugar, haciendo conscientes las congruencias del arte y la ética tenemos una gran herramienta muy importante. El tema de la compasión, ¿como la entendemos? Cuando comencé a trabajar con ONG y Derechos Humanos, yo sabia y les diría que ese camino estaba equivocado, luego fui a trabar en conjunto con gente dando la asistencia que podía dar, pero tampoco era el camino pues no resolvía el problema. La interacción con sectores vulnerables y la creación de estos espacios, que se reúnen para compartir me enseño que el tema era la compasión. Lo entiendo como acciones que pueden aminorar el sufrimiento humano. Pero mas bien es construir comunidad, dialogo y discurso. Por ejemplo interacción con jóvenes, ¿como puede lo estético difundir la compasión?

Hector: Con lo que acabas de decir la mercadotecnia en cuanto al Teletón, es triste que los niños apenas pueden hablar y es mercadotecnia, yo no lo tolero por eso no veo la televisión. Pero finalmente tiene un fin que es el ayudar a alguien y algunas persona,s pero la manera estética de transmitirlo es lastimoso. Pude haber un dialogo de congruencia, he visto grupos muy valiosos con fines muy positivos pero no tienen la mercadotecnia para alcanzar y transmitir su mensaje de una manera efectiva y correcta. Si no tienes un público, no tienes a nadie quien te escuche.

Dragan: De acuerdo. Tampoco veo tele y me molesta que la publicidad y la mercadotecnia nos la ponen a fuerza. Es incidente y no se puede evitar.

Ingrid: acerca de la ética, he tenido la inquietud de hacer esas células en concreto de artistas, debemos de ser más combativos y mas exigentes ante esta estructura anquilosada con proyectos propositivos; tengo un proyecto curatorial sobre la conciencia y encontré que en museos no había interés por este tema. Creo que en el caso de los artistas que es un sector que por su propia naturaleza transgrede, puede desde sus distintas visiones llegar a las cabezas para promover la cultura de la ética.

Antoveli: El Teletón, no lo están haciendo con fines de ayudar y además que por medio de la lástima promueven que dones. No lo usan para ayudar sino para cubrir gastos o impuestos de empresas.

Carla: yo he trabajado con niños, y una cosa que me dijeron en un pueblo remoto es que no es lo mismo escuchar sobre algo, verlo pasar , que vivirlo. A la mejor lo que el Teletón quiere es ponernos en contacto con esto. Si no has estado en contacto con esto, no sabes como es ese tipo de violencia. Viviendo en lugares marginados es posible definir la violencia, pero no todos viven en esos contextos. 

Antoveli: Vivirlo se puede, mi tio pidió ayuda del Teletón para su hijo que es autista pero no le dieron apoyo porque no cubría los requisitos. ¿Cuáles son?, ¿económicos, socioeconomicos?

Dragan: Yo estuve pidiendo dinero a distintos organismos. Juguetón, me dijeron que teníamos que comprar una ambulancia para Puerto Escondido y luego mandarían juguetes. Ponen condicionantes.

LAB: creo que la mercadotécnia responde y trabaja con las tendencias sociales y parte de los movimientos sociales para vender sus productos. Entonces nosotros podemos crear y exigir de las empresas la consciencia y ética que consideramos importante. Si podemos ir ampliando los círculos de discusión de éste tema y que se vaya expandiendo para que alcancen hacer eco social, entonces las empresas y la mercadotécnia tendrán que partir de ahí para hacer su trabajo.


JA: desde nosotros mismos de manera individual debemos lograr una forma distinta de llegar. No por el camino mas fácil de esperar que las instituciones cuiden nuestro bienestar, para mi ellos tienen esos tipos de asesores. Pero su interés es opacar, y cerrar nuestras posibilidades de abrir y ser agentes de cambio.

Christian: Fromm dijo que el gobierno quiere crear consciencia colectiva. Dogmatismo social. Para el desarrollo de una sociedad no podemos negarnos a la comunicación y la tecnología.

Antoveli: en un experimento con 10 monos y un plátano, condicionados a nunca alcanzarlo ya después de varias generaciones el que trataba de alcanzarlo el grupo se lo impedía.

Carla: Estamos dentro de una sociedad de miedo.

Carlos: no defiendo el gobierno, pero no croe que el gobierno nos quiera someter o tenernos ignorantes. Mas que nada es que las personas que están en los puestos importantes no están sensibilizados a estos temas. Es que los directores no saben. Tienen sus límites aunque estén educados.

Christian: yo difiero. Se ve en la Educación Pública, por ejemplo cuando un joven no es igual a los demás hay un método y sistema para apartarlo y no para ver cual pueda ser la realidad de ese caso particular. Hay un método de educación.

Carla: México tiene muchos recursos pero falta de visión. Existe el miedo de que si se expande la educación, el que tiene recursos dejará de ser rico. Esa mentalidad desarrolla sistemas educativos terribles, por ejemplo si no se desarrolla la parte creativa en la educación no hay un desarrollo integro. El resultado es que no saben como resolver sus propios problemas, debemos ser agentes de cambio y no se le enseña a pensar de manera creativa.

Mónica: estoy de acuerdo de que esta agenda maquiavélica existe menos de lo que uno cree, pero hay otra. Estuve trabajando con el Secretario de Cultura de Yucatán, panista y habìa una serie de sobreentendidos, que no se hablan. El señor era el mas benevolente, pero si se hubiese dado cuenta de lo que hacíamos ahí en la escuela la cerraría. Regularmente había problemas en el espacio público, con los estudiantes grafiteros y con la carga de represión tan terrible que cargan los jóvenes de provincia y ahí se tambaleaban los sobreentendidos de la agenda que se calla. Para nada diría que era maligno, pero si hay toda una serie de valores que se transmiten. Los políticos no se arriesgan. Él tambien me sugería calladamente que no me arriesgara, por ejemplo diciendo que mejor deberían aprender a dibujar bodegones en vez de despertar en los chavos la rebeldía, la rabia, la energía contenida que cargaban.

Igrid: y luego todo se va a contagiando. Eso mismo se ve en museos, curadores y la cultura.

Carla: Los que invierten en la tierra, y están trabajando con la gente de la comunidad. No se preocupan por su responsabilidad social. No ven su lugar en la sociedad, por ejemplo una empresa que compró tierra muy barata en una comunidad, sentían que cumplían con su responsabilidad social al estar trabajando energía verde, y no incluían a la comunidad local como parte de la solución sustentable. En el arte sucede lo mismo.

Consciencia.

Hector: la exigencia es una responsabilidad colectiva, socialmente no exigimos como mexicanos. La exigencia social es decirle al político te exigimos para que hagas esa chamba, no deberían de existir las ONGs si el gobierno funcionara bien. Vivimos violencia y repugna y socialmente no hay ninguna respuesta a eso. Socialmente no tenemos la capacidad de seguir así.

Mónica: Me he cuestionado mucho porque no existe la capacidad de autoorganización que hay en el primer mundo. Tenemos integrada esa incapacidad de pensarnos como ciudadanía y como fuerza social. Sin embargo cuando empiezas a juntar gente y propones hacer cosas en conjunto comienza a resonar la inquietud y te encuentras con el deseo que sí está ahí. Es más, yo diría que funcionar en grupo es algo que está dado engramáticamente.

Carlos.: Tenemos que ver que e problema esta ahí, y no peleado con el problema y con la manera de hacer las cosas. Mi proyecto es que pongo mi granito de arena y estoy tratando de sensibilizar a jefes y cabezas etc.

Mónica: ¿cómo?

Carlos: Comencé realizando proyectos de ayuda y apoyo a artesanos, haciendo ferias y que mis jefes vieran esta parte social en la que pueden y deben trabajar y promover. También en sensibilizarlos hacia los derechos gay, promoviendo actividades culturales.

JA: quiero hacer una propuesta. Me gustaría concebir esta plática como ejercicio de arte. Es parte de nuestro ejercicio artístico. Ustedes sean partícipes de esta acción, propongo crear una idea que resuelva estéticamente la idea que se ha hablado en este momento. Como un recuerdo sintético y estético de esto.

Carlos: Yo propongo una acción personal. En su trabajo o familia.


Perla. Ver, juzgar y actuar. Vimos los problemas planteados hoy, los juzgamos y ahora podemos actuar. Nos enfrentamos a la realidad, la palabra y luego el compromiso y de ahí actuar. Un compromiso concreto. Si no hay acción. No todos somos artistas, no se necesita ser artista plástico para realizar una acción.

Victoria: una acción comunitaria que cada uno realice y luego nos reunimos y compartimos lo que fue.

Carla: me gusta ese cartel, lo que dice al final: Somos responsables de lo que decimos y hacemos.

Bernardo: respetar la individualidad de cada ser, persona y grupo social. Comenzando con niños. Gracias. Cambiemos nosotros hacia los demás.

Carla: quiero mas tiempo para pensarlo.

Antoveli: ayudar a gente con sillas de rueda.

Victoria: estamos tan inmersos en nuestra propia individualidad. Yo creo que voy a hacer algo así, abrazar mas.


Se concluyó la reunión y se acordó que la siguiente será el sábado 22 de enero, 2010 a las 11 am en el mismo lugar: La Casa del Refugiado.

sábado, 30 de octubre de 2010

Primera Invitación

Discusión Ética y Arte

A raíz de una reunión del "Plan de Estudios Utópico" organizado por Mónica Castillo en el MUAC, Laura Anderson Barbata propuso llevar a cabo mensualmente en las áreas verdes de la Esmeralda, una serie de encuentros para discutir acerca de ARTE Y ÉTICA.  La decisión y propuesta estuvo motivada en gran parte por la discusión que se sostuvo en La Esmeralda después de la ponencia de Amnistía Internacional.

Este es un ejercicio que esperamos nos permita ventilar temas que consideramos fundamentales para la sociedad pero que en las escuelas de arte no están integradas al currículum de los planes de estudio.  Esperamos que la convocatoria tenga éxito y poder llevarlas a cabo una vez al mes.  Nos encantaría contar con su asistencia y participación, ya que el tema del medio ambiente, los derechos humanos y la no violencia son fundamentales en esta discusión.

La primera reunión será en el Centro Nacional de las Artes el lunes 18 de octubre a las 4pm. Nos veremos a la entrada de la Esmeralda para de ahí caminar juntos hacia los jardines entre la escuela de música y los cines.

Es un evento auto-organizado y abierto al público, ¡sean bienvenidos todos los interesados!  
Si quieren participar, agradeceremos nos envíen un mail confirmando su asistencia, dirigido a Jose Antonio a la siguiente dirección:  sssopitasss@hotmail.com

Es importante rigistrarse para saber confirmar su asistencia, y poder compartir con todos una torta.
¡Muchos saludos!
Abrazos,
Laura Anderson B

miércoles, 1 de septiembre de 2010

Indigenous knowledge...

Indigenous knowledge and sustainable development

Mervyn Claxton
Third Distingushed Lecture, The Cropper Foundation
UWI, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
September 1, 2010

Biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, and sustainable development are very closely linked. The indigenous knowledge systems of the peoples of the South constitute the world largest reservoir of knowledege of the diverse species of plant and animal life on earth. For many centuries, their indigenous agricultural systems have utilized practices and techniques which embody, what  one scientist has called «Principles of Permanence»- principles that permit continuous cropping all year around without the use of chemicals wich degrade the environment. Furthermore, not only do they not deplete the earth’s natural resources but they often replenish them. Ecological agriculture, organic agriculture, and conservation agriculture are the names employed by  modern science to describe the methods, techniques, and practices which the indigenous peoples of the South have applieded for many centuries. Ecological agriculture, or to use its original name, indigenous agricultural knowledge, is recognized by a growing number of scientists as the most effective method of promoting sustainable development. A new term should be coined to give recognition to that important, but little known,  fact. I would suggest the term eco-indigenous knowledge - one that I propose to use throughout this evening’s address. 

Industry, conventional agriculture, deforestation and transport are the four major sources of greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. The International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has proposed Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as an effective method of removing carbon gases from the atmosphere, a proposal adopted by the Copenhagen Conference. However, recent research findings show that ecological agriculture sequesters carbon from the atmosphere more cheaply and more effectively than CCS. Thus,  eco-indigenous knowledge should possibly be considered the essential factor in solutions for the problems of preserving biodiversity, promoting sustainable development, and mitigating climate change. Those three problems, arguably, constitute the most important challenges  that confront mankind today.

The term «indigenous» means local or native to the country, the people or the society concerned. However, shortly after the beginning of the European colonial adventure, that term gradually assumed a derogatory connotation. In the course of time, it came to be applied exclusively to non-European peoples, who were, and to some extent, still are considered inferior to those of the North. That distorted usage of the term has been so systematic and persistent that most peoples in the South subconciously came to associate «indigenous» with «inferior». Regrettably, that insidious association appears to have influenced our attitudes, our life styles and, more importantly, our choice of development techniques, policies, models, and strategies.

The assimilation of the «indigenous » to the «inferior» influenced and possibly still does, our choice of development experts and expertise. In the early 1980s, Unesco was chosen to be the Executing Agency for the technical assistance component of a large development loan project in a Caricom country. Normally, the executing agency would submit, for the government’s approval, a prioritised list of  three or four experts for each project post. I was involved with that project in a coordinating role and, in that capacity, I received  a list of countries from which the government wanted the experts to be selected. None was from the Global South, although Unesco’s roster of experts contained excellent African and Indian experts whose experence might have been more relevant than those eventually chosen. Instead of choosing experts on their merit, the Caricom country in question decided instead to choose countries on their perceived merit.
The vast majority of plant and animal species are to be found in the world’s tropical zones. Tropical America accounts for over half of the estimated closed tropical forest in the world, with Brazil being the single richest country in overall species diversity. The second richest is Colombia, home to some ten per cent of all species of terrestrial plants and animals. According to one estimate, there are some 120,000 different species of plant life in Brazil alone, many of which the indigenous inhabitants have utilised, from time immemorial for medicinal and other purposes. Their eco-indigenous knowledge of the medicinal properties of the region’s flora was considered so very valuable that a scientific expedition was sent from Europe, in 1630, to make a methodical description of the plants which the indigenous peoples of Brazil utilised for medical purposes. That indigenous knowledge was, apparently, so considerable that the scientists took twenty-four years to collect and catalogue it. In 1847, more than two hundred years later, another European scientific expedition went to Brazil for the very same reasons. That expedition  analyzed the medical properties of six thousand local plants, the results of which were published in one hundred and fifty scientific papers.

Trinidad and Tobago is yet another example of the much greater biodiversity  to be found in the world’s tropical zones, as well as their enormous potential for development purposes.  A search for antibacterial agents in the extracts of 44 different types of fern  found in Trinidad, for example, showed positive results in 77 % of the extracts. (Richard E. Schultes and Albert Hoffman, Les plantes des dieux: Les plantes hallucinogènes, Botanique et Ethnologique, 1981). That could be a rich source for the discovery of future antibiotics. Despite its size, Trinidad and Tobago has a far greater variety of tree plants than North America. A study, undertaken in the mid-1960s, of the forest composition in one square mile of Trinidad identified nearly 3,000 distinct species of trees. (Preston E. James & Hibbard V.B. Kline, A Geography of Man, 1966). By contrast, the whole of North America,  above the Mexican-US border, contains only 1000 tree species.

FAO estimates that there are roughly a quarter of a million plant varieties available for agriculture, less than three percent of which are currently utilized. Modern agriculture’s concentration on a small number of plant varieties, specially designed for intensive farming, has dramatically reduced the diversity of plants available for research and development. The world’s food supply depends on about 150 plant species, of which just 12 provide three-quarters of the world’s food supplies. Agricultural scientists at CIRAD (International Center for Agronomic Research for Development) in France, have estimated that the environmental degradation caused by the Green Revolution, which has resulted in the levelling off of cereal yields in several Asian countries, is less serious than the fact that the restricted number of plant varieties in wheat and rice monocultures has led to a loss of biodiversity through the disappearance of traditional varieties. CIRAD considers that although they may have been less productive, their preservation would have offered better food security. (Les Agronomes Pronent une Révolution Verte Durable, Le Monde, 1 March 1997).

In that respect, eco-indigenous agriculture presents a striking contrast to modern agriculture. It is designed to preserve biodiversity, not to destroy it and, by so doing, it promotes food security instead of undermiming it.  The Aymara Indians of Bolivia, who are excellent agricultural experimenters, have developed the cultivation and taxonomy of the genus solanum, the plant family of the potato, further perhaps than modern science has done. The Aymara have names in their language for over 250 potato varieties. However, the threat to food security is not the only danger posed by the loss of biodiversity in modern agricultural systems. Such loss also has a damging effect on the atmospheric environment. Recent experiments conducted by the Center for Population Biology at the Imperial College in London, have shown that the absorption of carbon is higher in systems with high biodiversity, than in those with medium or low biodiversity. Thus, the eco-indigenous agriculture of the Aymara make a greater contribution to food security, promotes more biodiversity, and preserves the environment better than modern conventional agriculture.
The Aymara are by no means unique, in that respect. The Gurani people of Argentina and Paraguay possess a well-conceived classification system which, in many ways, is similar to modern scientific nomenclature. Their nomenclature was not haphazard. The Gurani classified groups and sub-groups with great precision. So did the Tewa Indians of New Mexico whose taxonomy revealed their profound technical knowledge of their biological environment. In an article published, in 1916, in the bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, a team of  American scientists paid the following stunning compliment to the eco-indigenous knowledge of the Tewa: “It would be possible to translate a treatise on botany into Tewa....” (W. W. Robbins et al, Ethobotany of the Tewa Indians, Bulletin No.55, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D.C., 1916).

During the late colonial period, the few European agricultural scientists who carried out comparative experiments between indigenous and imported agricultural production methods employed in Africa, generally found the indigenous methods more productive, more reliable, and more effective at reducing risks. They were impressed by the extent of the agroecological knowledge of the indigenous farmers. In a report written in the 1950s, a  British colonial official offered the following comment on the Masai: "The pastoralists know their grasslands. They are, one might say, authorities on grasses….They recognize ecological associations…and can assess their value and stock-carrying capacity at different times of year." (William Allen, The African Husbandsman, 1967.

As two agricultural scientists suggested in a book entitled Biodiversity: Culture. Conservation.and Ecodevelopment: “Much of the world's biological diversity is in the custody of farmers who follow age-old farming and land use practices. These ecologically complex agricultural systems associated with centers of crop genetic diversity include not only the traditional cultivars or 'landraces'  that constitute an essential part of our world crop genetic heritage, but also wild plant and animal species that serve humanity as biological resources" (Margery L. Oldfield and Janis B. Alcorn  "Conservation of Traditional Agroecosystems" in Oldfield and Alcorn (eds) Biodiversity: Culture. Conservation.and Ecodevelopment,l991).
It is not only for the preservation of biodiversity that eco-indigenous knowledge is invaluable. It is also invaluable for its enormous development potential. It was the French anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, who revealed to the world that the Americans had learnt a very effective food preservation technique from the Aymara, a technique that was of critical importance to them during World War II. The American army copied the Aymara's technique for dehydrating food, which enabled it to reduce the volume of its soldiers’ rations of powdered potatoes to a degree which permitted the equivalent of a hundred meals to fit into container the size of a shoe box. (Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, 1972). That is a most remarkable achievement of  Michael Altieri, the American agronomist, has suggested that the validity of many indigenous agreological techniques practiced in the South have lessons for the industrialized countries. They can, for example, provide valuable insights on sustainable development. “Successful production strategies (multiple cropping, agroforestry, mulching etc.) in peasant fields of the Third World can suggest new, and sustainable ways of managing agricultural resources for U.S. farmers.” (Miguel A. Altieri, Rethinking the Role of U.S. Development  Asistance in Third World Agriculture, Agriculture and Human Values, Vol.VI, No.3, Summer 1989). Indeed, the growing recognition in the North of the validity of many such technologies has already resulted in the beginnings of a two-way flow of technology.

Northern knowledge systems, techniques and models of development have been environmentally destructive for virtually all tropical-zone countries of the South, precisely because valuable eco-indigenous knowledge was either ignored or dismissed. In that respect, they have been particularly disastrous for Africa. I shall cite just one of many recorded examples in support of that comment. Some four million square miles of Africa (an area  larger than the United States)  are infected by the tse-tse fly, which is a major obstacle to livestock farming. Yet, in pre-colonial East Africa, there were large herds of healthy cattle in areas now considered unsuitable for animal farming because of the tse-tse fly.
Contemporary European travellers to the region reported that African cattle stock were, qualitatively, just as good as the best English and Northern European stock. African cattle herders knew how to neutralize the tse-tse threat. Indigenous African ecosystem management, based on an intimate  knowledge of the connection between wild animals and the tse-tse fly, permitted African herders to maintain large, healthy cattle herds by isolating them from the wild animals that harboured the tse-tse fly vector. In its 1888 edition, the Encyclopaedia Britannica acknowledged the effectiveness of the African eco-indigenous solution to the tse tse fly problem. But that crucially important knowledge was dismissed by Western scientists, colonial, and post-colonial regimes, alike. In his book, Ecology Control and Economic Development in East African History: The case of Tanganyika 1850-1950, 1996, Helge Kjekshus had the following comment:

"The pre-colonial [East African] economies developed within an ecological control situation a relationship between man and his environment which had grown out of centuries of civilising work of clearing the ground, introducing managed vegetations, and controlling the fauna. The relationship resulted in an ‘agro-horticultural prophylaxis’ where the dangers of tse-tse fly and trypanosomiasis were neutralised and ‘Africa’s bane’ was made a largely irrelevant consideration for economic prosperity. The contrast to the twentieth century, when the tse-tse fly has been ‘one of the major obstacles to economic development’, is clear."
The enormous damage done to Africa's development by having almost two-thirds of its potential food-producing areas denied to animal husbandry because of the rejection of eco-indigenous African knowledge of how to deal with the problem, is incalculable. I shall cite three examples, taken from experiences over the past five or six decades, of specific knowledge embedded in indigenous cultures in three different continents of the South which, when "discovered" by Western science, had a major development impact on Western societies, in two of the cases, and would have had a similar  impact, in the third if it had been known. I shall begin with an example from our own Latin American  and Caribbean region.
The contraceptive pill owes its existence to the eco-indigenous knowledge of peasant women in the Mexican state of Veracruz  and to the chance discovery by Russel Marker, an American chemist, of the specific use they made of a variety of wild yam for contraceptive purposes. Marker subsequently demonstrated in laboratory experiments that diosgenin, the compound extracted from the yams, could be efficiently synthesized into progesterone, the principal active ingredient in the contraceptive pill. That epochal Western "discovery" was directly reponsible for perhaps the most important social revolution of modern  times - the sexual revolution. By giving women control of their own sexuality, the pill fundamentally transformed male-female relationships forever. That  Western ‘discovery’ also, arguably, was the spark that ignited the "second-wave" of the Feminist Movement in the United States.
Rauwolfia Serpentina, an Indian rootplant, had been used for centuries, by Indians, to treat mental illness and insomnia. Its potential as a drug was not taken seriously by modern medicine until 1952 when its active ingredient, an alkaloid called reserpine, was discovered to produce profound and prolonged tranquillizing effect. It was also effective for treating a variety of psychiatric disorders. India’s indigenous remedy for mental illness was the basis of the first major tranquillizer, which revolutionized the treatment of the mentally ill and introduced a whole new area of psychiatric treatment - psychopharmacology. Violent patients in Western psychiatric hospitals no longer had to kept in straightjackets.  Powerful tranquillizers, derived from that invaluable eco-indigenous knowledge had replaced them. .
Foot and Mouth Disease is dreaded by every country with an important livestock industry. In 2001, the British economy suffered a serious loss of twelve billion euros as a result of a foot and mouth epidemic, which required the slaughter of seven million farm animals. A large area of the country was placed under quarantine for several weeks, seriously affecting the tourism industry and economic activity in that part of England. It was only after the 1981 epidemic of  foot and mouth Disease, in France and Britain, that Western veterinary scientists discovered that the virus could be spread by the wind.  Previously, Western scientists were convinced that the  disease could be spread only by direct contact with infected animals. But, as Western veterinary scientists now acknowledge, Fulani cattle herders in West Africa had possessed that knowledge for generations, and perhaps centuries before. (Constance M. McCorkle et al (eds), Ethnoveterinary Research & Development, 1996). Fulani herders used that knowledge to protect their animals from the disease by keeping healthy herds upwind of an infected one or by giving the latter partial immunity to the disease by placing them downwind of an infected herd for a very brief period. That remarkable eco-indigenous African knowledge could have been of great economic benefit to Europe, if Western veterinary experts had bothered to find out why the incidence of foot and mouth disease in areas inhabited by the Fulani was lower than other places.
In its primary sense, the term, "sustainable", means capable of being sustained. Sustainable development is possible only if the creative capacities of the society are engaged in the development process, and for that to occur, development action must be rooted in the culture of the country concerned. Development, which is cut off from the sources of creativity of the society concerned, cannot be sustainable. Those sources of creativity are essentially cultural. It is a society‘s indigenous culture and creative resources which provide the inspiration, the dynamism, the capacity to adapt, initiate, innovate, invent and re-invent.The creativity in a developing society, especially one with a large traditional sector, is to be found in, and is manifested by, its cultural traditions, its eco-indigenous knowledge and techniques, in the ways in which that society has traditionally dealt with the challenges posed by its physical environment, and in its social, political and economic arrangements.
The crucial importance of rooting development action in a society's indigenous culture was recognized by the the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit, in its 1995 evaluation of the U.N. New Agenda for  Development of Africa in the 1990s. Taking note of that programme's failure to achieve its goal's, the Inspection Unit arrived at the following conclusion:
"While the indigenous institutions [in Africa] are vibrant and gaining ground in many countries, the institutions born of modernisation (as now included) appear to be running aground, incapable of internal regeneration. This fact confirms that Africa’s development process, as now conceived and implemented, does not seem to strike a responsive chord in the majority of the African population because the process is not taprooted in their indigenous system of rationality and creative impluses." (Evaluation of the United Nations Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s,  1995)
Unfortunately, that very percipient analysis of the fundamental reasons why international development policies have failed to produce the desired results in Africa, and elsewhere in th developing world has been totally ignored by the international community, with predictable results.
When the development process is "taprooted in [a given country's] indigenous system of rationality and creative impluses", the soulutions that will emerge from such a process would, more often that not, be quite different from those that other countries would have adopted..
Karl Polanyi, the distinguished Austrian-born thinker  posited that, historically, a country’s economic arrangements were "embedded" in its culture and social relationships. (The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, 1944).
Eighteenth-century Dahomey was one of several examples which Polanyi used to validate his theory. He demonstrated how centrally-important Dahomey's indigenous culture and traditions were in the design of its unique system of political management and public administration, and in the high level of excellence they achieved. 18th-century Dahomey drew upon its traditional culture in its choice of a dual structure of state administration and, also, in the manner in which checks and controls on administrative power were institutionalized. The ideal structure of every group in the divine world of the people of Dahomey was a set of twins of mixed sex, which provided the inspiration for its original system of public administration. (Dahomey and the Slave Trade: An Analysis of an Archaic Economy, 1965).
Every male official in the kingdom had a female counterpart whose duty was to familarize herself with the work of her male counterpart and to keep a close check on his work and performance. Polanyi noted that Dahomey's public administration system ensured "institutional checks of a rare effectiveness". Although Polanyi did not mention it specifically, it is clear that Dahomey's dual administrative system also ensured gender equality. Despite the cumbersome bureaucratic structure which such a system implied, contemporary foreign observers all acknowledged Dahomey's outstanding efficiency in public affairs.
Putting the sexes on an equal footing was not only far in advance of prevailing practice in Western countries at that period, but it also places 18th-century Dahomey well in advance of all countries in the 21st century, none of which has yet succeeded in ensuring genuine gender equality in the work place. It is interesting to note that it was the female who occupied the position of "controller" vis-à-vis the male in the country's public administration. The remarkable success of Dahomey's innovative, culturally-rooted and precociously advanced system of gender pairing, is also illustrated in its achievement of the highest standards of public probity, as reflected in the following comment of Polanyi's:"The administration of Dahomey attained excellence in the way of honesty," What a striking contrast to the country's present system, which is modelled on that of France.
If Dahomey's system of public administration had been adopted by any other country, it would probably have led to adminstrative chaos. The conclusion to be drawn from Polany's effective demonstration of his theory is that excellence in development can be achieved only if such development is rooted in the eco-indigenous knowledge, values, and socio-economic system of the country concerned. That conclusion is even more applicable to sustainable development.
In Western countries, decisions on management policy are taken at the top. In Japan, it is the exact opposite. Decisions are taken by consensus and the process begins at the bottom. Modern Japanese decision-making is directly patterned on the traditional village meeting (yoriai), which made preliminary consultation (nemawashi) an essential requirement. When an informal consensus is finally reached, the whole group is convened to formally adopt it. Modern Japanese decision-making is rooted in that indigenous practice, one that has influenced the style of Japanese leadership. Indeed, a leading Japanese sociologist has pointed out that there is no word for leadership in Japanese. (Chie Nakane, Japanese Society, 1972)
Contrary to Western practice, the role of a Japanese leader is essentially to oversee the implementation of "collective" decisions which emerge from below, following an organization-wide consultation. That system of consultation is known as ringisei or ringi, which is the Japanese name for the seal or stamp which the Chief Executive of a corporation or a government minister puts on the document containing the collective consensus on a given issue, when it reaches him. (Kiyoaki Tsuji, "Decision-Making in the Japanese Government: A Study of Ringisei", in Robert E. Ward (ed), Political Development in Modern Japan, 1968).  In other words, the Japanese CEO or Minister, literally rubber stamps it. I do not think that that  system  would work in Trinidad and Tobago or anywhere else in the world.
Raul Prebisch, the distinguished Argentinian economist, concluded from his study of Maynard Keynes' General Theory, that “One of the conspicuous deficiencies of general economic theory, from the point of view of the periphery (of countries in the South)  is its false sense of universality.”(Edgar Dosman, The Life and Times of Raul Prebisch 1901-1986, 2008). Unfortunately, that false belief in the universal applicability of Northern concepts is widespread in the South. Many concepts that we have come to accept as universal were formulated in a way that predetermines the choices and solutions available.
One such example is the concept of sustainable development. In the international discourse, that concept tends to be discussed only in terms of ecological sustainability. However, for the vast majority of countries in the South, development should be sustainable in both economic and ecological terms. It is one of many examples where concepts, which have been  formulated in the industrialized North, need to be adapted to the necessarily different conditions of countries in the South.
Because those concepts were formulated in response to particular sets or combinations of circumstances they are both limited and limiting, in the sense that they can neither  accommodate or envisage possibilities, problems, or solutions which fall outside their own paradigms. The various concepts of development, formulated in the North, do not envisage and cannot accommodate forms of development  that are not environmentally destructive or which do not deplete the earth's natural resources at an excessive rate. They are all based on exploitative, ever-increasing growth. A concept of sustainable development which neither  destroys, or depletes the earth’s natural resource base fell outside of Northern paradigms. Thus, the only solution for the problem posed by the over-rapid depletion of the Earth's natural resource base  that was available within Northern paradigms, was a reversal of the process of development, itself. Hence  the theories of Zero growth and Degrowth.
Few today could possibly imagine how productive were the ancient agricultural systems created by the indigenous peoples of tropical South America. A considerable area of South America's tropical savannas are subject to seasonal flooding for periods of up to several months a year. Because of their low soil fertility, those waterlogged savannas are now considered marginal farm lands. However, for many centuries those same lands had produced a wide variety of crops under highly productive, eco-indigenous raised-field agricultural systems. Nonetheless, a large part of the Lake Titicaca plain, where extensive raised-field remnants testify to intensive agricultural production in the pre-Columbian past, is deemed unsuitable for cultivation by modern resource surveys, because it cannot be cultivated economically with modern methods. The eco-indigenous agricultural system which had made those flood plains so highly productive fall outside the paradigms of modern agricultural science.
The indigenous cultures of the South possess the world’s greatest reservoir of environmentally-friendly development techniques, methods, and practices. With a paradigm change taking place in Northern discourses concerning the need to shift from a philosophy of economic growth to one of environmental sustainability, it is to the countries of the South that the North would need to look for lessons on how that could be achieved.
The central role of Agriculture in achieving sustainable development.
Agriculture is central to sustainable development. If considered together with deforestation, which often accompanies agricultural expansion, conventional agriculture is the single most important source of toxic gases that help generate climate change. That is the downside. The upside is that eco-indigenous or organic agriculture not only does not deplete the Earth's natural resources but it also reduces greenhouse emissions instead of contributing to them. It appears, therefore, that the most effective policy for promoting sustainable development is a global shift to ecological or eco-indigenousl agriculture.

The Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, USA, has conducted the longest-running U.S. comparative field trials on organic and conventional agriculture. Two of the Institute’s researchers published a paper in 2008 describing the benefits of an integrated approach to farming that uses regenerative, organic practices, including cover crops, composting, and crop rotation. Those techniques, which are all standard features of eco-indigenous agricultural systems, reduce atmospheric carbon  by removing it from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil as carbon. Rodale's agricultural field trials demonstrated that while the chemical fertilizers and pesticides, utilized in conventional agriculture, release carbon into the air, organic agriculture sequesters carbon, removes it from the atmosphere, and returns it to the soil. The authors of the paper had the following observation:
"Agriculture is an undervalued and underestimated climate change tool that could be one of the most powerful strategies in the fight against global warming. Nearly 30 years of Rodale Institute soil carbon data show conclusively that improved global terrestrial stewardship--that specifically includes 21st Century regenerative agricultural practices--can be the most effective currently available strategy for mitigating CO2 emissions. Agricultural carbon sequestration has the potential to substantially mitigate global warming impacts. When using biologically based regenerative practices, this dramatic benefit can be accomplished with no decrease in yields or farmer profits. Even though climate and soil type affect sequestration capacities, these multiple research efforts verify that regenerative agriculture, if practiced on the planet’s 3.5 billion tillable acres, could sequester up to 40 percent of current  CO2 emissions." Timothy LaSalle & Paul Hepperly, Regenerative 21st Century Farming: A Solution to Global Warming, 2008
A number of American universitiesand research centers have corroborated the findings of the Rodale Institute. According to a Greenpeace report which contains similar findings, "The most important finding is the fact that agriculture has the potential to change from being one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters to a net carbon sink." (Pete Smith, Cool Farming: Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential,  School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, January 2008). The paper details a variety of farming practices that can reduce agriculture’s contribution to climate change, which are easy and inexpensive to implement.

A team of China’s leading climatologists and agronomists has independently reached similar conclusions about the carbon sequestration capacity of ecological agriculture. Those conclusions were published in October, 2008, in a  report entitled Climate Change and Food Security in China. In the light of the Rodale Institute’s findings, four European countries - the U K, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark changed their emission-reduction targets, under the Kyoto Protocol, to take account of the carbon sequestration capacity of their country’s organic agriculture. Furthermore, research on carbon forestry has shown that low latitude tropical forests sequester far more carbon than northern latitude temperate forests.
Neither the LiILIENDAAL DECLARATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE  AND DEVELOPMENT,  adopted by Caricom Heads of Government in July 2009, or the Declaration on Climate Change issued in September 2009 by the Alliance of Small Island States AOSIS), of which all but one Caricom state are members, made any mention at all of the agricultural carbon sequestration potential of ecological agriculture. For countries with a significant agricultural sector, like several innCaricom, agricultural carbon sequestration would appear to be a cheaper and more appropriate method of promoting sustainable development by reducing atmospheric carbon than the Carbon Capture and Storage method (CCS). Moreover, unlike CCS, the cost of agricultural carbon sequestration is minimal and there is a bonus in that the sequestered carbon also fertilizes the soil.

Nonetheless, AOSIS gave its full support to CCS in its Declaration. Article 6  states: "We further recognize that the inclusion of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is potentially an important mitigation option for achieving the ambitious emission reduction targets being supported by AOSIS and urge the development of a program of work on Carbon Capture and Storage in order to resolve related issues."

Organic or eco-indigenous agriculture would produce several other benefits of considerable value to Caricom countries. The Rodale Institute's field trials demonstrated that organically managed soils can convert carbon dioxide from a greenhouse gas into a food-producing asset, which would be no small benefit, considering that a substantial drop in food production, high food prices, and food scarcity are widely predicted as a consequence of climate change. Organic agriculture would also reduce soil erosion and prevent loss of fertility, while discontinuing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides will lead to cleaner waterways. For countries like Caricom, it will also mean cleaner coastal waters, cleaner beaches, and healthier coral reefs - an asset of inestimable value for countries with an important tourism sector. Another important factor underlined in the Rodale Institute’s research paper, is the rapidity and the low cost of switching to organic agriculture, which puts it well in within the reach of almost all farmers.

FAO has also come out very strongly in favour of eco-indigenous agriculture, which it calls Conservation Agriculture (CA). FAO asserts that conservation agriculture is a way to combine profitable agricultural production with environmental concerns and sustainability, and that it has been proven to work in a variety of agroecological zones and farming systems. According to FAO, conservation agriculture would also improve the livelihoods of farmers.
Haiti and Cuba present starkly constrasting examples of agricultural development policy decisions, taken in a context of fairly rapid climate change. Early this year Haiti faced the task of rebuilding its rural economy from scratch after it was largely destroyed by the combination of January's earthquake and last year's four devastating hurricanes. When the government formulated its Emergency Food Production programme to meet the needs of its rural population and those who had fled the towns for the countryside after the earthquake, it had the opportunity to abandon its unsustainable conventional agricultural model in favour of an ecological one. Haiti chose instead to continue relying on conventional agriculture, despite the considerable environmental degradation that method of agriculture had produced in the past. Instead of increasing food security, stimulating agricultural development, and reversing the process of environmental degradation - stated objectives of the Emergency Programme, it appears quite likely that the programmewould produce exactly the opposite.
Cuba's conventional, large-scale, monocultural agriculture system with its high-cost, energy-intensive, external inputs, was converted into smaller-scale, organic and semi-organic farming systems which utilized low-cost, environmentally-friendly inputs.  Agroecological techniques and processes were substituted for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, sufficient quantities of which the country could no longer afford to import. Almost overnight, fertilizer and pesticide imports fell dramatically.
According to the Society for Conservation Biology, an international NGO concerned with the conservation and study of biological diversity, Cuba's coral reefs are the healthiest in the Caribbean, which a direct result of the sharp reduction in chemical fertilizer use, following the country's adoption of agroecologial practices. The WWF has concluded that Cuba is the only country in the world to have met internationally established criteria in respect of both the ecological footprint and high human development. (Living Planet Report, 2006). The World Wildelife Fund (WWF) has established the following two criteria for assessing a country's progress towards achieving sustainable development - the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI),  as an indicator of well-being; and the ecological footprint The Ecological Footprint (EF) is a measure of the consumption of renewable natural resources by a  country's population.
One of the most effective systems of raised-field agriculture is the chinampas, which were first developed by the Ancient Maya and subsequently adopted by other Amerindian peoples in Mexico and Central America. Chinampas have been under continuous cultivation in Mexico for at least two and, perhaps, three thousand years. (G. C. Wilken, Good Farmers: Traditional Agricultural Resource Management in Mexico and Central America, 1987). The Chinampa system of agriculture has been described as one of the most productive in the Western Hemisphere, past or present, in terms of output per unit of land. Chinampas have  been under continuous cultivation in Mexico for at least two and, perhaps, three thousand years. (G. C. Wilken, Good Farmers: Traditional Agricultural Resource Management in Mexico and Central America, 1987).

The ecological interactions that  are set in motion by the chinampa system,  produce very high maize yields and a marked reduction in soil-borne diseases. Moreover, the chinampa system not only produces high agricultural yields all-year round but it requires no fossil-energy inputs, no fertilizer, no pesticides, and no herbicides. (H. David Thurston & Joanne M. Parker, «Raised Beds and Plant Disease Management», in D. Michael Warren et al, (eds), The Cultural Dimension of Development, 1995).
Mexican scientists at the Institute for the Study of Biological Resources (INIREB) in Jalapa, consider chinampa a low-input agricultural system that possesses the capacity to meet local food needs. (Malcolm Hadley & Kathrin Schreckenberg, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Unesco‘s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, Agriculture and Human Values, Summer 1989).
The waru waru, a similar traditional system of agriculture, which evolved in the Andean altiplano about 3,000 years ago, is based on the combination of raised beds and canals which, according to Michael Altieri, “have proven to have remarkably sophisticated environmental effects." (Where the Rhetoric of Sustainability Ends, Agro-Ecology Begins, CERES, March/April 1992). So highly productive and environmentally protective is the waru waru system that Peruvian NGOs and state agencies have created an interinstitutional project, in order to assist farmers in reconstructing the ancient system.
Agricultural scientists  found that the waru waru system reduces the impact of temperature extremes (which is a very important advantage in a period of rapid climate change) while at the same time maintaining, and even improving, soil fertility. It was the environmental effects induced by the waru waru which determined its high productivity, as compared with that of chemically fertilised Pampas soils: «This ancient Inca technology is proving so productive and inexpensive that it is being actively promoted throughout the Altiplano in preference to modern agriculture. It requires no modern tools or fertiliser. The main expense is labour.....to dig canals and build platforms » (Altieri, 1992).

In 2008, Jesús León Santos, a Mexican farmer, won an international environmental prize for his work on land renewal and agricultural development in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states, by employing the ancient eco-indigenous milpa system to successfully restore the regional ecosystem.  Conventional agricultural methods and intensive use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides had caused serious soil erosion in Mixteca, decreased soil fertility, and reduced crop yields. to such an extent that many small farmers abandoned their lands because they could no longer make a living from cultivating their lands. Milpa, the eco-indigenous agricultural system reintroduced by Santos, transformed the barren, highly eroded area into rich, arable land and it also helped to efill the region's acquifers.

The milpa system, which fixes nutrients in the soil and creates natural barriers to pests and disease, produces large food crops yields without the use of artificial pesticides or fertilizers. An agronomist at the University of Massachusetts, who has studied the milpa system, declared that “The milpa is one of the most successful human inventions ever created.” (Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, pp.197-198, 2005.
The Milpa system might be ideal for small farmers in the Caribbean, particularly those who farm marginal or less fertile lands. It is easily accessible, requires no external imputs, and can be used for continuous cropping. Agricultural departments, both university and government, in Caricom countries might wish to investigate the possibility of introducing the system on a trial basis. By providing small farmers with the means to earn  a decent  livelihood from  the land, the milpa system would foster rural development, combat rural poverty, promote greater equity between the rural and urban sectors, and contribute to food security.
Michael Adas suggests that the demise of indigenous knowledge systems through official neglect or by the rejection of indigenous knowledge and techniques, because of the perceived superiority of modern scientific knowledge, would mean "….the neglect or loss of values, understandings and methods that might have enriched and modified the course of development dominated by Western science and technology." (Machines as the Measure of Man: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance, p.15, 1989).

In a paper on sustainable development, two Nigerian agronomists concluded that “Indigenous knowledge is the single largest knowledge resource not yet mobilized in the development enterprise.” (Adetokun O. Phillips & S. Oguntunji Titiola, Sustainable  Development and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Nigeria, 1995. In his paper, Power Imbalances and Development Knowledge (2007), Norman Girvan implicitly concurred with that statement. He underlined the critical importance of local knowledge (eco-indigenous knowledge under another name), emphasizing the need to turn knowledge hierarchies "on their head" so that local actors, including actors at the community level, become the principal sources of knowledge for development purposes as well as the prime movers of development:
“…we propose that local knowledge (should be) the critical resource in development policy making, and that local actors should be the primary agents of diagnosis and prescription. Local actors are not only governments but also include the private sector, civil society and people at the community level. Local knowledge includes that which is embedded in cultural traditions, values and social processes. Use of community-based knowledge as a development resource is rooted in the traditions of South peasant-based social movements and rural and community development strategies. In Asia, Africa and Latin America a wide variety of similar initiatives are now being undertaken.”
Girvan's paper was prepared for the project, Southern Perspectives on Reform of the International Development Architecture. I would suggest that such reform include the redefinition or reconceptualization of certain universally-accepted development concepts which render that architecture completely askew. I have already discussed that idea in respect of sustainable development. The cultural heritage is another concept of vital importance that urgently needs to be redefined, if the considerable development  potential of eco-indindigenous knowledge is to be realized

The Cultural Heritage as a Development Resource

Caricom and other countries in the South should urge the international community to redefine the concept of the cultural heritage so as to include eco-indigenous knowledge as a key development resource. The current international strategy to promote development through culture, which focus on the physical heritage, is conceived from a Northern perspective. The industrialized countries have long ago absorbed, and incorporated, their traditional knowledge and techniques  into their modernization processes. There is virtually no residual indigenous knowledge, in those countries, with a development potential.
The notion of the cultural heritage, bereft of its most dynamic component, is now largely confined to the physical cultural heritage, such as monuments, historic buildings and ancient ruins, with the result that the conservation and preservation of that heritage has become the principal concern in those countries. When that concern is applied to the South, physical cultural heritage conservation becomes the focus of development activities rather than the upgrading, modernization, and development activities which a dynamic exploitation of eco-indigenous knowledge systems would require.
Most countries in the South unquestioningly go along with that Northern-conceived policy. By concentrating almost exclusively on the physical cultural heritage while almost totally ignoring the non-physical heritage, countries of the South deprive themselves of the enormous developmental potential of the latter.

What is required, therefore, is a redefinition of the international community’s working definition of culture to include eco-indigenous knowledge. With such a redefinition, the parameters within which international or national action is taken would be adjusted accordingly. Because eco-indigenous knowledge is passed down orally, from generation to generation, it risks being lost forever if it is not transcribed or recorded for posterity. Preserving that extremely important fragile knowledge from extinction deserves, at the very least, the same amount of resources and energy currently being invested in the protection, restoration and conservation of monuments.
I would suggest that an initiative be taken at the international level, in that  respect. Such an initiative  could be a important contribution that Trinidad and Tobago or the Caricom community could make to the International Year for Biodiversity, given the crucial importance of eco-indigenous knowledge in biodiversity preservation. Such an initiative, if successful (and I do not see why it should not be) would do more, in my opinion, to promote the cause of biodiversity than any I have so far seen proposed or undertaken by the international community.