Wednesday 3 March, 04:00 – 05:30 pm, Ziyun Hall
Mountain indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, as temperatures are rising at disproportionately higher rates at higher altitudes. While these changes are having increasingly serious impacts on mountain ecosystems and indigenous peoples, communities are responding and adapting in unique ways. Time-tested models of indigenous territorial management and stewardship practices, including the Biocultural Heritage Territory (BCHT) approach, are being promoted as local-to-global responses. The BCHT approach is characterized by a mosaic of land uses and highly productive, sustainable management practices. It is contributing to landscape level outcomes to conserve biodiversity, optimize ecosystem services, enhance agro-ecosystems and productivity, develop economic livelihoods, strengthen participatory decision making and landscape governance, as well as protect indigenous peoples’ rights through local to global collective action.
This session will present the experience of the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples (INMIP) in establishing a global network of Biocultural Territories in centers of crop diversity. Expert representatives from Peru, China and India will present case studies from those countries and discuss how mountain indigenous peoples are using their knowledge and innovation systems, local-global networks, and collaboration with scientists to develop innovations for resilient food systems and community development.
Discussion will also focus on the use of international learning exchanges as key to strategy for climate change adaptation and long-term community resilience. Relationships amongst indigenous peoples living in distinct bioculturally diverse mountain environments, addressing these relationships at the intersection of global environmental and development policy and local climate change impacts.
Chair: Alejandro Argumedo (INMIP) and Yiching Song (CCAP)
- Bicultural Territories (photo movie): introduction
- Alejandro Argumedo (INMIP): The potato park Ayllu system; The INMIP: the network of in-situ sites
- Yiching Song (CCAP): The stone village biocultural heritage landscape
- Yunyue Wang (Yunnan Agricultural University): Biodiversity for climate change adaptation: The case of Hani terraces
- Yiping Fang (IMHE): Economic wellbeing disparity of Chinese mountainous regions and institutional pathways toward social equity
Rapporteur: Andrew Stevenson (ICRAF)