l Decolonising action-research: the Potato Park biocultural protocol for benefit-sharing 99
• activities undertaken in the park, such as
research, ecotourism and other related
services (e.g. restaurant, lodging facilities);
• repatriation of seeds, especially those
derived from an agreement with the International Potato Centre;
• donations, projects or similar activities;
and
• agreements with third parties outside of
the above-mentioned categories and
related directly or indirectly to the use of
biocultural resources.
The earnings are redistributed in an
equitable manner to park communities at
the end of the year. In principle, the Association is in charge of the distribution and
redistribution of benefits and goods to
community members, although the park
is currently being assisted by ANDES. The
distribution takes place through a special
commission created for this purpose (the
Benefits Allocation and Oversight
Committee). The BCP guides the distribution of monetary benefits. The park’s
economic collectives contribute ten
percent of their earnings as a measure of
reciprocity and as a contribution towards
the maintenance of the park’s collective
biocultural heritage.
The BCP ensures that the distribution
and redistribution of benefits is based on a
set of criteria that is fair and proportionate
to the needs, capabilities, responsibilities,
contributions and efforts of the communities and their members. Each year, the
Association establishes these criteria for
rating community participation in activities that contribute to the maintenance of
biocultural resources and promotion of the
park. The criteria are organised into an
abacus-like matrix (yupana in Quechua)
where the leadership of the communities
applies a simple numeric formula to rank
themselves. The benefits are distributed
among the communities accordingly. The
surplus is used to construct and maintain a
social safety net for the poor (e.g. widows,
orphans), in line with traditional Quechua
solidarity-building principles.
Lessons and conclusions
The BCP represents an innovative
approach to ABS that prioritises indigenous epistemologies and norms. As such it
contributes to a process of decolonisation
from western discursive and legal frameworks and the resulting cultural and legal
domination. It represents a broader
approach to ABS which includes not only
benefits derived from access to genetic
resources and TK, but also those from all
activities related to direct and indirect use
of biocultural resources. The BCP is envisioned as a model benefit-sharing
framework that can be used by other
indigenous and local communities in the
Andean region. The process to develop the
BCP has strengthened cohesion between
the park's communities and strengthened
recognition of customary laws that
promote conservation and equity, which
are now formally adopted by the communities through the agreement. It has also
enhanced the partk's capacity for ABS
negotiation.
The project used an innovative methodological approach combining participatory,
emancipatory/decolonising and indigenous
approaches orientated towards community
leadership: not only in the implementation
of the methodology, but in its design as
well. High participation rates and leadership and control of the process by
indigenous communities were achieved
through such approaches. However, the
scope and general theme of the framework
were pre-defined. This proved a limiting
factor for community leadership of the
process. Though the process of obtaining
FPIC and the collaborative methodology
development helped to mitigate this, the
methodology could be improved if the
over-all project aims could be defined by
communities in a bottom-up process, e.g.
using visioning activities at the community
and inter-community level followed by
dialogue and collaborative project design
based on the shared interests of communities.