. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .

Marianela Jarroud, Inter Press Service News Agency (reprinted by permission)

Terrace farming as practiced from time immemorial by native peoples in the Andes mountains contributes to food security as a strategy of adaptation in an environment where the geography and other conditions make the production of nutritional foods a complex undertaking.

Terraces built by Atacameño Indians in the village of Caspana in Alto Loa, in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta. This ageold farming technique represents an adaptation to the climate, and ensures the right to food of these Andes highlands people. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS
Click on photo to enlarge

This ancient prehispanic technique, still practiced in vast areas of the Andes highlands, including Chile, “is very important from the point of view of adaptation to the climate and the ecosystem,” said Fabiola Aránguiz.

“By using terraces, water, which is increasingly scarce in the northern part of the country, is utilised in a more efficient manner,” Aránguiz, a junior professional officer on family farming with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IPS from the agency’s regional headquarters in Santiago, some 1,400 km south of the town of Caspana in Chile’s Atacama desert.

In this country’s Andes highands, terrace farming has mainly been practiced by the Atacameño and Quechua indigenous peoples, who have inhabited the Atacama desert in the north for around 9,000 years.

Principally living in oases, gorges and valleys of Alto Loa, in the region of Antofagasta, these peoples learned about terrace farming from the Inca, who taught them how to make the best use of scant water resources to grow food on the limited fertile land at such high altitudes.

The terraces are “like flowerbeds that have been made over the years, where the existing soil is removed and replaced by fertile soil brought in from elsewhere, in order to be able to grow food,” the Agriculture Ministry’s secretary in Antofagasta, Jaime Pinto, told IPS.

“This has made it possible for them to farm, because in these gorges where they terrace, microclimates are created that enable the cultivation of different crops,” Pinto, the highest level government representative in agriculture in the region, said from the regional capital, Antofagasta.

The official said that although water is scarce in this area, “it is of good quality, which makes it possible, in the case of the town of Caspana, to cite one example, to produce garlic or fruit like apricots or apples on a large scale.”

According to official figures, in the region of Antofagasta alone there are some 14 highlands communities who preserve the tradition of terrace farming, which contributes to local food security as well as the generation of income, improving the quality of life.

Communiities like Caspana, population 400, and the nearby Río Grande, with around 100 inhabitants, depend on agriculture, and thanks to terrace farming they not only feed their families but grow surplus crops for sale.

But people in other villages and towns in Alto Loa, like Toconce, with a population of about 100, are basically subsistence farmers, despite abundant terraces and fertile land. The reason for this is the heavy rural migration to cities, which has left the land without people to farm it, Pinto explained.

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Question for this article

Indigenous peoples, Are they the true guardians of nature?

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“Ours is fertile land,” Liliana Terán, a 45-year-old mother of four and grandmother of four who belongs to the Atacameño indigenous community, told IPS. One of her income-generating activities is farming on the small terrace she inherited from her mother in Caspana.

“Whatever you plant here, grows,” she added proudly.

The name of her indigenous village, Caspana, means “children of the valley” in the Kunza tongue, which died out in the late 19th century. The village is located 3,300 metres above sea level in a low-lying part of the valley.

Caspana is “a village of farmers and shepherds” reads a sign carved into stone at the entrance to the village, which is inhabited by Atacameño or Kunza Indians, who today live in northwest Argentina and northern Chile.

Each family here has their terrace, which they carefully maintain and use for growing crops. The land is handed down from generation to generation.

Each village has a “juez del agua”, the official responsible for supplying or cutting off the supply of water, to ensure equitable distribution to the entire village.

“The water flows down through vertical waterways between the terraces, from the highest point of the river, and is distributed in a controlled mmaner,” said Aránguiz.

“With this system, better use is made of both irrigation and rainwater, and more water is retained, meaning more moisture in the soil, which helps ease things in the dry periods,” she added. “And the drainage of water is improved, to avoid erosion and protect the soil.”

All of these aspects, said the FAO representative, make terrace farming an efficient system for fighting the effects of climate change.

“Well-built and well-maintained terraces can improve the stability of the slopes, preventing mudslides during extreme rain events,” she said, stressing “the cultural importance of this ancestral technique, which strengthens the economic and social dynamics of family agriculture.”

Aránguiz pointed out that indigenous people in the Andes highlands have kept alive till today this tradition which bolsters food security. She specifically mentioned countries like Bolivia and Peru, noting that terrace farming is used in the latter on more than 500,000 hectares of land.

Luisa Terán, 43, who has an adopted daughter and is Liliana’s cousin, works the land on her mother’s terrace.

When IPS was in the village the day before the traditional ceremony when the local farmers come together to clean the waterways that irrígate the terraces, Luisa was hard at work making empanadas or stuffed pastries for the celebration.

“This ceremony is very important for us,” as it marks the preparation of the land for the next harvest, she said.

Pinto underlined that “maintaining these cultivation systems is a responsibility that we have, as government.”

He said that through the government’s Institute of Agricultural Development, the aim is to implement a programme for the recovery and maintenance of terraces that were damaged in the most recent heavy storms in northern Chile.

In addition, projects are being designed “to help young people see agricultural development as an economic alternative.”

This goes hand in hand with the fight against inequality, Pinto said.

“We are working on creating the conditions for food autonomy and it is this kind of cultivation that can generate contributions to agricultural production to feed the region,” he added.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from the Latin American Herald Tribune

The presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela agreed to speak for “Pachamama,” or Mother Earth, and civil society at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP21, in Paris this December.

Presidents Correa, Morales and Maduro. Foto: ABI

Bolivian President Evo Morales, along with Rafael Correa and Nicolas Maduro, his counterparts from Ecuador and Venezuela, respectively, emphasized on Monday the role of society in defending the environment, at the closing of the II World People’s Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia’s Cochabamba.

The three-day forum, during which social organizations, trade unions and indigenous groups from several countries met to discuss climate issues, concluded with a series of proposals, which the presidents assured will be presented at the Paris summit.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also attended the first two days of the conference and was optimistic about a sound and credible global agreement on climate change at COP21.

Civil society representatives proposed the creation of an environmental justice court, recognition of indigenous ancestral knowledge, and demanded developed countries should recognize their climate debt as a legal and moral obligation.

Correa advocated applying the so-called “environmental justice” as a solution to climate change, so the “most polluting countries recognize the damage” they have caused in other nations through exploitation of natural resources and pollution.

He also suggested technology and know-how to fight climate change should be declared “global public assets” to ensure all countries have free access to them, and stressed the need for a “Universal Declaration of Nature’s Rights.”

“Our peoples are wise, they know exactly what they want, and what the path to follow is,” Morales said, expressing confidence in ancestral knowledge of indigenous people.

While Maduro made a call for being alert against “cheating” during the Paris climate summit, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez warned, his country won’t accept any new agreement that dilutes rich and developed nations’ existing obligations.

Rodriguez also demanded rich countries provide financial aid as well as clean and green technologies to help fight climate change.

Other notable figures who participated in the forum included the 1980 Nobel Peace laureate from Argentina, Adolfo Perez Esquivel; former Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon and Spanish MEP Estefania Torres, representing the European United Left group.

(Click here for an article in Spanish on this subject.)

Sustainable Development Summits of States, What are the results?

What is the relation between the environment and peace?

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from a Mecate Corto, November 2013

“The reality changes very fast in Aguán,” it is said near the end of the documentary Fertile Ground, which in the time of two hours documents three years of fighting, losses and victories of the peasant movement for the reclaiming of stolen land in the Aguán Valley of Honduras.

Certainly, things change quickly. Too often, women and children say goodbye to their husbands and fathers at sunrise, and when they do not return at sunset, they realize that they have been killed. That’s part of the changing reality for thousands of landless peasants in Honduras, especially for farmers who three years ago began to claim the land that had been taken and monopolized by large landowners in the Lower Aguán Valley. The crisis has already claimed the lives of some 60 farmers.

“To show the world that there are human stories behind the numbers, that is what led me to make this documentary. A written report does not do justice to what is happening in Honduras especially with regard to occupation of the land”, says the director of the film, Jesse Freeston. Jesse has worked in journalism for many years and has covered the news in Honduras, but now he gives us a new genre about the reality hidden by the daily news.

“In Honduras there will never be peace if there is no land for the poorest,” says a peasant captured by the Freeston’s camera. And the causes are profound for the war that the taken the lives of thousands of Honduran men and women on a daily basis.

Freeston believes there is fertile land in Honduras, but much of it is owned by only a few rich families which makes the country one of the most unequal and violent in the world. We have to understand this, says Freeston, if we are to make changes in the reality of violence that is seen and discussed by the rest of the world.

“The documentary has the power to bring the audience to Aguán in order to hear what the people there have to teach us” says the filmmaker.

The documentary Fertile Ground was premiered in Honduras last month and tells the story of the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan, Muca; and the repression suffered by the farmers living in communities on land that they had recovered from the landowner Miguel Facussé. In this case, the attacks came from the armed guards hired by Facussé, but in other cases this repression was at the hands of the armed forces of the State and of the National Police.

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(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article.)

What is the relation between peasant movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

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Freeston managed to capture the brutality with which the peasants and children were evicted again and again, even though he had to travel to many different places. He caught and shows the raw images of peasants who have been killed, the cry of women who not only lost their husbands, but often, their children as well, in spontaneous abortions.

The film shows the strength of women leaders as the “Queen” of the community, El Elixir, who, despite the ever present threats, continues to believe that another Honduras is possible for future generations to live in dignity.

The director also shows us scenes of the big businessmen and politicians who promote a development that does not help the majority of the population. He leads us to understand that what happens in the Aguán is part of a state policy that focuses on delivering the country to the highest bidders, both local entrepreneurs and foreign governments and transnational entrepreneurs.

However, Freeston also shows us the victories that the farmers have obtained despite the obstacles.
“All the people you see in this documentary are suffering, but they are also advancing. Their emotions are mixed: loss, joy and sadness. We see the Aguán not only as a reservoir of sadness but also of victories.”

Among the victories are those of the Salama Cooperative, the Cooperative Prieta and the San Esteban Cooperative, which represent models of friendly production at the level of peasant life, and which provide the kind of dignified life that the State has failed to promote.

Freestone shows how the reality of Aguan is linked to the 2009 Honduran coup d’etat which caused a rupture in Honduran history. In the film Fertile Ground we can see how the coup brings the people to the streets in resistance and leads to a great social movement. We see how it is linked to the land conflicts in Aguan where the peasants are inspired to struggle.

In Honduras, the agrarian reform of 1960 ended 30 years later with the Law on Agricultural Modernization in which thousands of farmers sold their land because they had no access to the means of production. In the Aguán valley, people like Miguel Facussé were the big winners of this government law, but three years ago the peasants rose up to claim the injustice that 100,000 of them work on land that no longer belongs to them.

“We are not fish that live in the sea, or birds that live in the air, we are human who must live off the land”, this phrase not only opens the film Fertile Ground as the peasant’s slogan, but is also the demand that we hear in the desperate cries for justice, like seeds in the earth for the dream of a better Honduras.