2. Asociación ANDES and the Potato Park
2.1 Asociación ANDES
Asociación ANDES is an Indigenous NGO located in Cusco, Peru. ANDES is governed by, and collaborates with,
community-level organizations in the development of strategies for the adaptive management of Indigenous
Biocultural Heritage – strategies which affirm the rights and responsibilities of communities and prioritize food
sovereignty, health, and local livelihoods.
ANDES builds local capacity and adaptive responses to the effects of globalization and other challenges, such
as climate change, and strengthens the basic socio-economic, cultural, political, and ecological well-being of
communities. ANDES focuses on: ameliorating poverty and fighting the causes of future impoverishment; the
development and dissemination of models for culturally-based management of biodiversity and landscapes;
the recognition and strengthening of traditional resource rights; and, the promotion of institutional and policy
reforms relevant to environmental protection and self-determined development or buen vivir.
Placing these activities in their wider context, ANDES promotes the development of an endogenous development
model that can achieve resilience for indigenous peoples and their territorialities at a regional scale. This
model is based on the “Ayllu” system, a traditional concept of balance amongst three elements: humans and
the domesticated environment, the wild environment and the spiritual world. Balance between these three
leads to “Sumaq Causay”, or holistic living. Sumaq Causay presents a holistic vision that considers diverse
elements of the human condition, where material goods are not the only determining factors, but rather
other values, knowledge, and practices also influence the quality of life, and where the right to life applies to
humans and nature alike. Sumaq Causay represents a viable local framework for development, integrating
important elements of well-being, conservation, spirituality, traditional knowledge and governance systems.
It also supports the right of people to control their own resources, economies and livelihoods, and to choose
what cultural values they will embrace.
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Territorial development under this model underlines the multidimensionality of indigenous identity and biological
diversity and gives a holistic value to indigenous territoriality (not its commodification), re-establishing and
enhancing old and new biocultural networks. One element of this has been the exploitation of the economic
value of some aspects of the links between biological and cultural diversity; creating a variety of landscape
goods and services and traditional knowledge-based local novel products - particularly derived from the local
agricultural biodiversity.
The Ayllu based model has, in common with most indigenous belief systems, not traditionally been recognised
in national or international policy. ANDES works to develop bottom-up legal and policy proposals that create
enabling conditions that support traditional processes of food production, build resilience in agricultural
landscapes and strengthen indigenous rights. ANDES has chosen to focus on the development of local rather
than national policies because the national institutions which are capable of implementing effective policy
are either openly against indigenous peoples’ interests or do not yet exist. However, such institutions exist
at the local level and are highly sensitive to local realities with institutions that guarantee compliance and
effectiveness.
2.2 The Potato Park
Located in Pisaq, in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, between 3,400 and 4,500 meters above sea level, the
Potato Park spans some 10,000 hectares of land. It was established in 1998, by Asociación ANDES-IIED and
six Quechua communities in Pisaq, Cusco, Peru, as an Agrobiodiversity Conservation Area. The organisation
of the Potato Park is founded upon a series of agreements, chief among which is the ‘Inter-community
Agreement’. The Potato Park is dedicated to the protection of the native potato via indigenous territoriality
traditions and is emblematic of ANDES’ approach to self-determined development.
Protecting Community Rights over Traditional Knowledge: Implications of customary laws and practices