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Framing Cultural Ecosystem Services in the Andes: Utawallu As Sentinels of Values for Biocultural Heritage Conservation

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Framing Cultural Ecosystem Services in the Andes: Utawallu As Sentinels of Values for Biocultural Heritage Conservation Chapter 3 Framing cultural ecosystem services in the Andes: Utawallu as sentinels of values for biocultural heritage conservation Lead authors: Fausto O. Sarmiento1* and César Cotacachi2 1Neotropical Montology Collaboratory. Geography Department. University of Georgia. USA. 2Ethnostek. Calles Atahualpa y Obrajes, esquina. Comunidad de Peguche, Otavalo-Ecuador. Corresponding author: *[email protected] Abstract We describe the qualities of a cultural landscape kept within modernity by the local people of the Utawallu valley in Imbabura province of Northern Ecuador. Conservation efforts to incorporate cultural diversity alongside the biological diversity of the significant protected area in Western Ecuador are needed in order to improve protection of the traditional ancestral farmscape of the Imbakucha Basin. The different characteristics of the socio-ecological production landscape present in the site should lead to a successful initiation of a new wave of conservation in which Andean cultures are prioritized and cultural ecosystem services (re)valued. A plea is presented to invigorate the conservation of sacred sites as a necessary step towards the Imbakucha watershed being declared the first candidate in a list of several prospective category V sites in Ecuador. UNESCO has recognized the area as a sacred site and there is a move from within the community to enlist it as a GeoPark, due to the impressive geological and morphological features of the watershed and the waves of tourists seeking adventure tourism, and not only recreation, but also ethnotourism from the indigenous market place. We grapple with the dilemma of conservation and sustainable development within a syncretic mountainscape where European practices and indigenous traditions have melded, producing a uniquely Ecuadorian trademark attraction signalling a syncretic mountainscape. We confronted the dilemma of conservation and development with the question: How can we measure the cultural value of the services provided by the Imbakucha mountainscape, and how would the perception of climate change make ethnotourism practices enhance nature conservation from an indigenous perspective? We developed ethnographic research around the most important sacred sites identified by the community members and made a photographic survey of the biocultural elements that are part of the heritage of the Utawallu runakuna. For the first time, a map of the historic sites of religious significance was produced and an inventory of the major biodiversity components was prepared. Along with forest-páramo dynamics, we identified boundary layers for cultural ecosystem services and rectified criteria to consider the Benefits from Nature to People offered with cultural values in this biocultural heritage area. We will use the momentum and the Satoyama publication as a means to energize the declaration of Imbakucha watershed as National Intangible Cultural Heritage and specific areas as sacred biocultural heritage sites. Satoyama Initiative Thematic Review vol. 5 31 Chapter 3: Framing cultural ecosystem services in the Andes NOTE: Kichwa is the phonetic writing of ‘Quechua’ (in Peru) or ‘Quichua’ (in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina), which is the trade language (runa shimipi) of the Andean people. We avoid hegemony of Spanishized words, as we support the recovery of local identity and the invigoration of vernacular culture, including the use of the non-written language of the Inka. In this text, we use italics to highlight the phonetic Kichwa alphabet, while Spanish terms appear inside single quotation marks for emphasis. Keywords: Reification; syncretic landscape; Imbakucha; Otavalo; Andes; Ecuador Country Ecuador Province Imbabura District Otavalo and Cotacachi Size of geographical area 1 38,700 hectares Number of indirect beneficiaries 2 99,666 persons Dominant ethnicity Utawallu Figure 1. Map of the country and case study region 32 Satoyama Initiative Thematic Review vol. 5 Chapter 3: Framing cultural ecosystem services in the Andes Size of case study/project area 1 38,700 hectares Number of direct beneficiaries2 99,666 persons Geographic coordinates (longitude and latitude) 0°12’35’’ N 78°18’35’’ W Dominant ethnicity Kichwa Utawallu Figure 2. Land cover map of case study site. A map of the Imbakucha watershed’s main sacred sites and features, contained between the telluric guardians of Tayta Imbabura and mama Kutakachi volcanoes, with Imbakucha lake at the center of this epic mountainscape. Adapted from Google Earth and Cotacahi 2002). 1. Introduction ecosystem services to become the new guiding principle of new payment for environmental services (PES) policies; yet, The Utawallu are the most visible indigenous nation emphasis goes to provisioning, and regulating functions. We of Ecuador. Known worldwide by the Spanish name of argue that cultural ecosystem services (CES) are often less Otavalo, their fame in handcrafts, textile making, traditional served by current conservation and development strategies, medicine, music, sculpture, culinary and other forms of despite the fact that in many facets, Utawallu are cultural artistic representations have made them the most successful icons of local and indigenous knowledge. Not only the garb entrepreneurial indigenous nationality during the last they proudly exhibit, but also the deeply ethical connection decades, not only in Ecuador, but also in the whole of South with Mother Earth, or Pachamama, and the establishment America (Borsdorf & Stadel 2016). The Otavalo market, of sacred natural sites such as waterfalls, lakes, trees, for example, draws thousands of tourists each year to the caves, rocks, and others, have made them the stalwarts of area, having become the largest indigenous market on the biocultural heritage (Oviedo, Jeanrenaud & Otegui 2005). In continent. Within this vibrant influence of local culture and some cases, bringing back ancient practices, in other cases the pressure of globalization, nature conservation has been developing fusion alternatives within the prevailing Western challenged by the need for production of staple foods as culture, ‘Otavaleños’ are being empowered by environmental well as other labour options, and policies have favoured leadership and indigenous revival momentum. In a dynamic wilderness preservation instead of cultural landscape values socio-ecological production landscape (SEPL) that seeks (Sarmiento 2015). Curiously, the Otavalo have no translation to maintain biocultural heritage as way to conserve for “wilderness”, and their cosmological vision includes a biodiversity, Otavalo is leading in offering ethnotourism and nature-culture hybrid of respect and reciprocity, typical ethnomedicinal services of cultural value (Sarmiento 2016a). of Andean communities and a conundrum for mountain Cultural benefits from the Imbakucha watershed have research literature (Resler & Sarmiento 2016). However, in imprinted the Otavalo people with intangibles that define Ecuador, the commodification of nature has allowed for their identity markers, traditions and rites, sacred sites, Satoyama Initiative Thematic Review vol. 5 33 Chapter 3: Framing cultural ecosystem services in the Andes food and music that strengthen the Andean identity of the the inhabitants of Imbabura province, with a growth trend community, making those cultural values a very important of ca. 4% in the last census period (see Fig.1 and 2). About factor in conservation planning and sustainability. 70% reside in rural areas around the town of Otavalo with a young populace, with 48% of inhabitants under 20 years of Our study aims to highlight the contribution of the age (INEC 2011). original people’s cultural values in prioritizing biodiversity conservation amidst the pressures of modernity, in what Likewise occurring to many original peoples worldwide, the is known as ‘syncretic’ landscapes with hybrid cultural ‘Otavaleño’ identity has been threatened in recent decades manifestations of the indigenous and the greater Western by 1) increasing Western influences challenging indigenous tradition. Our main objective is to support the narrative values; 2) global marketing trends weakening their ancestral of biocultural heritage conservation as an option of customs; and 3) the destruction of unique landscape sustainable development in socio-ecological production features linked to traditional livelihoods (Whitten 2003). mountainscapes. We consider this shift of conservation We should be aware of these people’s ethnicity amidst the paradigm (from nature pristine to nature-culture hierarchies of modernity (Appadurai 1988, Knapp 2018) and manufacture) of significance if we were to curve the in light of the ever-growing homogenization of material tendency of biodiversity loss due to both deforestation as monetary values and market-oriented societies (De la Torre well as acculturation. 2006). The Kichwa Utawallu have received more attention from linguists and anthropologists at the national (e.g. Data on cultural assets and information on environmental Instituto Otavaleño de Antropología) and the international perceptions were gathered in several surveys on farmscape level (e.g. UNESCO, FAO and UNDP) than any other ethnic transformation, as well as Master’s thesis research group in Ecuador, because they are regarded as an exemplar (Cotacachi 2002, Catholic University of Ecuador, Ibarra), and of the “image” of indigenous groups from the Equatorial an honors thesis CURO research (Carter 2008, University of Andes that can be exhibited to the world.
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