The Inter-community Agreement is not only a step forward in designing a framework for benefit-sharing, but
also an example of inter-community decision making and the creation and strengthening of institutions for the
betterment of the biocultural system. To summarize, it has contributed to the endogenous construction of an
Indigenous governance model among the communities of the Park, identifying and resolving conflicts in the
process.
4.4 The Agreement’s foundation in customary norms and principles
ANDES researchers and the communities of the Potato Park examined customary laws by identifying their
underlying, guiding principles. In this process, traditional practices of the BCS - including distribution of seeds,
land inheritance, and transmission of knowledge at individual, communal, regional and general levels - were
studied. An economic analysis of customary principles was also undertaken, in order to identify rules for
benefit-sharing. A careful review of these (and other) practices with community members, combined with an
examination of the literature on Andean society and worldview, led to the identification of three main Andean
principles: reciprocity, equilibrium, and duality. These principles guide all aspects of the Andean cosmovision
and underpin the practice of natural resource management. From these principles, derivatives were developed
and used to flesh out the benefit-sharing framework in the Inter-community Agreement.
The agreement seeks to define the general mechanisms for the fair and equitable distribution of benefits derived
from the management and direct or indirect use of the collective biocultural heritage that is embodied in the
Potato Park. It is important to point out that, apart from Andean customary norms, national and international
policies on access to genetic resources and benefit sharing, traditional knowledge and Indigenous Peoples’
rights have informed the process (particularly those recognized by the CBD, the International Treaty of the
FAO, ILO Convention 169, and the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Therefore this agreement
represents an innovative approach to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, including access to
genetic resources, that prioritizes Indigenous epistemologies and norms while creating a model that is also
applicable at the national and international levels.
The Potato Park is managed under the customary norms of ayninakuy, yanantin, and rakinakuy and, therefore,
these also informed the inter-community agreement:
• Reciprocity (Ayninakuy): what is received must be paid back in equal measure.
• D
uality (Yanantin): means that the cosmos is always divided into two opposite but complementary
halves.
• Equilibrium (Rakinakuy): refers to proportion and harmony with nature (Pachamama, Mother Earth).
These principles or norms are applied to the sustainable use and conservation of biocultural systems. In this
regard, traditional knowledge is owned collectively, or rather the communities recognise themselves as the
custodians,4 and access to that knowledge by third parties requires the prior informed consent of the six
communities, as represented by the General Assembly of the Potato Park. In the text of the Inter-community
Agreement, the communities state that common goods and collective property are key elements in maintaining
traditional knowledge and practices. This reaffirms, through the functions assigned to the Association of the
Potato Park, the integrated and collective nature of rights in a biocultural system.
Recognising collective custodianship, the Inter-community Agreement maintains the free flow of knowledge
and resources among the communities and their members, as is the tradition of the communities of the
Potato Park.5 This customary norm encompasses both responsibilities and rights. On the one hand, everyone
has the right to freely access knowledge and resources and to use them according to traditional practices and
their own needs. On the other hand, they have the obligation to maintain the flow of knowledge and resources
among themselves and with neighbouring communities, to transmit knowledge to future generations to ensure
continuity, and to protect traditional knowledge and resources from third parties. This right has an exception
in the case of sacred knowledge. Only specific individuals within communities can access sacred knowledge
and resources, and they have a corresponding obligation to keep that knowledge and those resources secret.
Other community members have the complementary responsibility to refrain from attempting to gain access
to sacred knowledge and resources.
4 This is also explicitly recognized in national legislation on the cultural heritage of communities and Indigenous peoples with reference
to biodiversity (see Law No. 26839 for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and Law No. 27811 on the protection of
traditional knowledge), and in the sections of ILO Convention 169 concerning the ownership and possession of traditional lands and the
administration and management of natural resources contained therein.
5 A practice explicitly recognised by the Nagoya Protocol in Art. 12.4.
Community Biocultural Protocols
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