Local Knowledge of Natural Remedies and Its Transformations in the Andean Highlands

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Bern Open Repository and Information System (BORIS) Hum Ecol (2012) 40:909–930 DOI 10.1007/s10745-012-9520-5 Are the Young Less Knowledgeable? Local Knowledge of Natural Remedies and Its Transformations in the Andean Highlands Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel & Regine Brandt & Susanne Lachmuth & Stephan Rist Published online: 5 October 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract A widespread concern among ethnobiologists is Keywords Ethnobiology . Indigenous environmental the rapid process of erosion of indigenous environmental knowledge . Traditional medicine . Bolivia . Peru . Andes knowledge observed worldwide. This paper examines the ongoing transformations of knowledge about natural remedies in the Quechua-speaking Andes. Freelisting exercises Introduction and interviews were conducted with 36 households at Boli- vian and Peruvian study sites. (Generalized) linear mixed- “Will tribal knowledge survive the millennium?,” asked Paul effects models were used to analyze the effects of age on Alan Cox in an essay published at the turn of the century (Cox knowledge about medicinal plants, animals, minerals, and 2000). The rapid process of erosion of indigenous environ- their uses. Our study demonstrates that younger participants mental knowledge observed worldwide is a widespread con- knew as much about natural remedies as their elders. How- cern among ethnobiologists, anthropologists, and scholars ever, proportional knowledge about some medicinal use from related disciplines. Indigenous environmental knowl- categories of natural remedies varied with age. We conclude edge is amongst the key features of “biocultural diversity” that knowledge about natural remedies is generally not (Maffi 2005; Pretty et al. 2009), a new field that has emerged being lost at the study sites. Nevertheless, it is undergoing during the last two decades as a response to the growing transformations in terms of specific medicinal uses. A care- concern over the extinction crisis that is threatening biologi- ful understanding of these complex transformation process- cal, linguistic, and cultural diversity (Harmon 1996). es is needed to better orient initiatives for the conservation Since the 1980s, concern for and interest in indigenous of biocultural diversity in the Andes and elsewhere. environmental knowledge have gradually spread outside the academic community to enter the circles of sustainable development and conservation. Both the Brundtland Report of 1987 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Develop- : S.-L. Mathez-Stiefel (*) S. Rist ment of 1992 “specifically identify indigenous knowledge as a Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, critical resource for achieving sustainable development” Hallerstrasse 10, (Alexiades 2009: 73), and the 1992 Convention on Biological 3012 Bern, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] Diversity recognizes its significance for the preservation of biological diversity. Indigenous environmental knowledge S. Rist e-mail: [email protected] encompasses knowledge of plants, animals, soils, and other : natural components of the environment (Ellen and Harris R. Brandt S. Lachmuth 2003). An important part of this knowledge relates to the Department of Biology, Institute of Geobotany and Botanical “use of natural and biological resources in the maintenance Garden, Martin-Luther-University, ” Am Kirchtor 1, and restoration of normal functioning of human health, 06108 Halle, Germany which, together with their related cultural practices, constitute R. Brandt the subject of study of medical ethnobiology (Berlin and e-mail: [email protected] Berlin 2005:235). S. Lachmuth Interest in indigenous environmental knowledge and its e-mail: [email protected] potential contribution to conservation and development is 910 Hum Ecol (2012) 40:909–930 especially relevant in the context of the Andes. Not only is knowledge about natural remedies (Voeks and Leony 2004; the Andean region home to significant levels of biocultural Giovannini et al. 2011). Hence, comparing the knowledge diversity, as is the case in mountain areas globally (Stepp et of younger and older participants at a given time may or al. 2005); a process of reaffirmation, strengthening and may not reveal a process of knowledge erosion (Quinlan and redefinition of collective identities has also developed Quinlan 2007). The results of such an approach should thus among indigenous Andean peoples in the course of recent be triangulated with data obtained by other methods. history (De La Cadena 2010; Chartock 2011). However, In this study, we first evaluated existing knowledge about several studies affirm that Andean environmental knowl- natural remedies and their uses at the research sites and then edge is currently under great threat as a consequence of determined whether there was a relation between age and rapid modernization and its impact on Andean society (Alba this particular type of indigenous environmental knowledge Fernandez 1996; Galvin 2004; Ishizawa and Rengifo 2009). by means of statistical tools. The results from this quantita- The present study is part of the BioAndes project, an tive analysis were then interpreted in light of ethnographic international cooperation program for conservation of data and existing literature on the study areas. biocultural diversity in the Bolivian, Peruvian, and Ecuadorian highlands (AGRUCO et al. 2011). The program was designed based on the assumption that Research Setting Andean environmental knowledge is an important local resource for more sustainable development that never- Research was conducted in two rural Quechua-speaking theless is also undergoing a process of erosion. Against areas of the Andes: the sub-central Waca Playa (17°27′30″ this background, and recognizing the importance of S; 66°29′21″W), located at 3,950 m.a.s.l. in Cochabamba ethnomedical knowledge for local livelihoods, this re- Department in the Bolivian Eastern Cordillera, and the search examines the ongoing transformations of knowl- district of Pitumarca (13°58′48″S; 71°25′W), located at edge about natural remedies at two Quechua-speaking 3,580 m.a.s.l. in Cusco Department in the Southern Peru- study sites in the Andean highlands. vian Andes. A map of the study sites is provided in Mathez- Ideally, research on the transformation of knowledge Stiefel and Vandebroek (2012: Fig. 1). The two case study about natural remedies, and in particular the verification of sites were selected from among the BioAndes program’s a presumed loss of knowledge, should be realized by means seven implementation areas, owing to their similarities in of a diachronic assessment that compares the levels of terms of cultural and ecological characteristics, despite their knowledge at the same study site, and with the same meth- geographical distance from each other. odology, at two specific times in history. These types of The two sites are located in similar altitudinal belts and studies are unfortunately infrequent, due to the lack of ecoregions, namely the “Central Andean Puna” for Waca previous comparable research or because conditions for Playa, and the “Central Andean Wet Puna” for Pitumarca; carrying out long-term research in a specific area are rarely both are home to the “montane grassland and shrubland” met. According to Zent (2001), one way of indirectly assess- biome (Olson et al. 2001). However, human pressure and ing loss of knowledge about natural remedies in synchronic resulting degradation of vegetation cover, soil erosion, and studies is to look at present patterns of intracultural variabil- destruction of natural habitats have seriously affected the ity and then to connect these patterns with social variables natural fauna and flora. Nowadays, the two areas feature that are indicators of changing conditions, such as age, very diverse anthropogenic landscapes, with irrigated crop- education, or language. For instance, a positive correlation lands in the lowlands, shrubs and rain-fed croplands on the between age and medicinal plant knowledge has often been slopes, and grasslands in the highlands. interpreted as an indicator of loss of knowledge among Both sites also have very comparable sociocultural set- youth and thus of an ongoing process of knowledge erosion tings, with over 95 % of the population being indigenous between generations (Phillips and Gentry 1993; Zent 2001; Quechua-speakers. Both areas were under Inka rule (four- Ladio and Lozada 2003; Voeks and Leony 2004; Estomba et teenth to fifteenth centuries in Waca Playa and thirteenth to al. 2005). Other scholars, however, have warned that this fifteenth in Pitumarca), followed by Spanish colonization positive association with age does not necessarily imply a (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). Local people are now loss of knowledge over time. It can, for instance, simply organized in peasant communities which were created after reflect the fact that older people had more time to acquire the agrarian reforms (in 1953 in Bolivia and from 1968 to knowledge during their lifetime or that they are more likely 1975 in Peru) that led to the redistribution of the land that to become ill and thus have a greater interest in acquiring constituted the haciendas (large land-holdings of colonial Hum Ecol (2012) 40:909–930 911 descendants) to their former indigenous workers. These and 3,450 m.a.s.l. in Waca Playa and 3,680 and communities

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