By Katherine Riebe, Alexandria Sedar, and Linda Xiong
The sun has yet to rise, and water is boiling to prepare guayusa1 tea. Generations of family sit side by side, drinking their tea, recounting their dreams, and preparing for the day ahead. In the twilight hours, the family leaves to tend to their chakras. Upon arrival, they harvest cacao and yucca, collect timber for the evening’s fire, and care for the various plants, vines, and trees that call the chakra home. As they tend to chakras, elders entrust youth with the knowledge of plants, an understanding of the inherent interdependence of all living things, and a means to ensure their land and culture survive for generations to come.
The 2019 Global Environmental Outlook noted that, “having evolved after years of observation and experience from a holistic relationship between people and nature, traditional knowledge sustains life and landscapes.”2 Not only do Indigenous people recognize a deeper connection to nature, but they are also disproportionately affected by transgressions against the environment. In her book Silent Snow, Marla Cone’s words ring true for many of the world’s Indigenous people: “With little power to defend themselves, they are at the mercy of others-governments and outsiders who have long ignored their needs-or worse, tried to wipe out their ancient traditions by assimilating them into modern society.”3 Indigenous people have routinely been dispossessed of their traditional hereditary assets, among these being agricultural practices. With climate change, land scarcity, and increased intrusion from the outside world, Indigenous growing methods are suffering. One such example is the decreased use of the chakra growing method among the Kichwa, one of several Indigenous people residing in the Napo Province of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Chakras are agroforestry plots where crops are intermixed with trees meant to mirror the nature around them. Many Kichwa are subsistence farmers who spend time tending their chakras, growing products that enhance food and nutrition security and promote traditional dietary practices.4,5 Fresh foods from chakras often provide a more robust spectrum of nutrients than the modern diet. Chakras also contribute to the biodiversity of the Ecuadorian Amazon. They support the soil bed through a mixture of trees, shrubs, and plants, and once abandoned, they quickly revert to a mature forest-like state.6 Additionally, they provide buffers around forest reserves and conservation areasand act as corridors of migration for different species.7 The Kichwa nourish the land and, in turn, are nourished by the land.
Beyond sustaining life for both the Kichwa, by contributing to food sovereignty and security, and the Amazon Rainforest, by providing various ecosystem goods and services8, chakras are a means to share cultural practices, foster intergenerational connections, and impart the wisdom that the land is not inherited from previous generations but borrowed from the next. The Kichwa’s relationship with their chakras, and the rainforest as a whole, is not one of ownership but belonging. Ownership is the entitlement to take; belonging is taking what you need and giving what is needed. Ownership is possessing something; belonging is being a part of something. Ownership bestows benefit and accountability on the owner or owners; belonging understands the individual and individual actions as connected to the collective.
The Kichwa’s relationship with their chakras starkly contrasts colonial and capitalist paradigms regarding land that shape land use and management policy in many places across the globe. Capitalism by definition, cannot exist without private property9, and it was private land ownership and the pursuit of profit from natural resources that largely fueled colonialism10. When land is viewed as a commodity, valued solely for its ability to generate profit, it can lead to the severing of identity from the land. This view of land may not only dispossess Indigenous people from their land, it often causes cultural upheaval. This sets into motion a vicious cycle: the more money to be made from the land, the more the land is seen as a commodity, and the more identity is severed from the land. In the case of the Kichwa, the commodification of land frequently leads to monocropping, extraction, and livestock grazing.
Some Kichwa farmers may give up their traditional farming methods and crops for monoculture in a bid to satisfy the markets and new trends. Traditional food products grown in chakras, like cacao, vanilla, and guayusa, are being commercialized for the international market. In the Tena area, “guayusa has started to move beyond the home gardens and chakras to intensive agriculture with trends towards monoculture. This trend of guayusa towards a cash-crop displays detrimental effects both from an environmental and from a sociocultural perspective.”11 Not only does monoculture decrease the biological diversity of the rainforest, it also puts some Kichwa in a situation where they sacrifice cultural aspects of the chakras for economic security.
The commodification of land also opens the door for extractive industries like oil, mining, timber, and large-scale agriculture. These industries frequently obtain property through land grabbing, and their work often results in deforestation, environmental degradation, and ultimately, continued dispossession of Indigenous people from their land. For instance, much of large-scale agriculture is centered on livestock and non-chakra style farming.12 In Ecuador, extractive industries also attract migrants from within Ecuador and other South American countries, who themselves face economic insecurity, and, consequently, increase urbanization of the Napo province.
While Indigenous peoples have a rightful claim to their ancestral lands, in order to compete with the increased intrusion on their land, they too must engage in private land ownership. However, some families or communities are unable to present a formal land title because they acquired land through means considered informal in a legal context. In Ecuador, the constitution has been modified to more strongly protect Indigenous land rights. However, while Ecuador’s constitution guarantees Indigenous land rights, there is a need for a procedure for titling Indigenous lands, a legal framework that involves the participation of Indigenous groups and a model for land management after lands are titled to them.13 In addition, the process of granting land titles is inconsistent, costly, and time-consuming which leaves some Indigenous people without necessary documentation.14
The commodification of Kichwa land through the commercialization of chakra products, the grabbing of land by extractive industries, and the complicated titling of Indigenous lands has a detrimental impact on the preservation of Kichwa culture and way of life. The Kichwa have been catapulted into a post-colonial, capitalist system where their livelihoods depend on money15 and generating income. Motivated by economic opportunities, many move to cities, resulting in less participation in cultural practices and traditions. Even those who strongly identify with Kichwa culture are forced to leave due to poverty, contributing to the declined chakra use as they cannot maintain them from afar.
Indigenous people like the Kichwa still fight to maintain their traditional practices and their right to self-determination but are often forced to do so within the constraints of a system that is contrary to their traditional values and practices. The Kichwa, and other indigenous people, sometimes have to participate in private land ownership and commodification of the natural world to survive. Yet indigenous people, knowledge, and practices are essential for the survival of the planet and all who call it home. The UN’s 2019 Global Environment Outlook showed that autonomous Indigenous land constitutes 22% of the world’s land surface and contains 80% of the planet’s biodiversity.16 Contemporary use of traditional indigenous practices, like chakras, has been powerful in confronting issues such as climate change, food insecurity, and resilience to extreme weather events.17
Traditional Indigenous practices can improve the health of the environment and heal our relationship with the land. Not only must we change how we view the Earth, Indigenous people, and Indigenous knowledge, we must also change how we value them. This requires a shift in mindset from a relationship based on ownership to one based on belonging – the understanding that we are intrinsically connected to the earth, the food we grow, and one another.
1 Guayusa is a tea made from leaves of the (plant) in the holly family traditionally consumed by the Kichwa people of what is called the Napo Province of Ecuador.
2 United Nations. (2019). Global Environment Outlook– GEO-6: Healthy Planet, Healthy People.
Nairobi, Kenya. Doi: 10.1017/9781108627146.
3 Cone, M. (2005). Silent snow: the slow poisoning of the Arctic. New York City, NY: Grove Press.
4 Lu, F. (2007). Integration into the market among indigenous people: a cross-cultural perspective from the Ecuadorian Amazon. Current Anthropology 48(4), 593-602. doi: 10.1086/519806
5 Sunderland, T., Powell, B., Ickowitz, A., Foli, S., Pinedo-Vasquez, M., Nasi, R., & Padoch, C. (2013). Food security and nutrition: The role of forests. Bogar Barat, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research. Retrieved from http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/WPapers/DPSunderland1301.pdf
6 Vera-Velez, R., Cota-Sánchez, J. H. & Grijalva, J. E. (2017). Biodiversity, dynamics, and impact of chakras on the Ecuadorian Amazon. Journal of Plant Ecology, 12(1), 34-44. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtx060
7 Weinstock, Marisa. (2019). Ecuador’s San Clemente: A Reflection of Shifted Indigenous Economies. Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy. Retrieved from https://foodfirst.org/ecuadors-san-clemente-a-reflection-of-shifted-indigenous-economies/
8 Ecosystems goods and services are important for continued life on Earth and slowing the race towards planetary boundary limits. Chakras are rich in ecosystem goods and services that impact the Kichwa and the world. For example, chakras are home to numerous species of native plants, insects and animals which provide food, meat, and medicine for local populations, but also contribute to soil formation and biodiversity. As an agroforestry method, they also preserve trees and bushes which serve a crucial role in carbon sequestration and, in turn, climate regulation.
9 Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Capitalism definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved April 8, 2023, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism
10 Ely, R. T. (1918). Private Colonization of Land (No. 1). University of Wisconsin.
11 Sidali, K. L., Morocho, P. Y., & Garrido-Pérez, E. I. (2016). Food tourism in indigenous settings as a strategy of sustainable development: The case of ilex guayusa loes in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Sustainability, 8(967), 1-17. doi: 10.3390/su8100967
12 Coq-Huelva, D., Higuchi, A., Alfalla-Luque, R., Burgos-Morán, R., & Arias-Gutiérrez, R. (2017). Co-evolution and bio-social construction: The Kichwa agroforestry systems (chakras) in the Ecuadorian Amazonia. Sustainability, 9(10), 1-19. doi: 10.3390/su9101920
13 Ortega, R. R. (2004). Models for recognizing Indigenous land rights in Latin America. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. Retrieved from https://acervo.socioambiental.org/sites/default/files/documents/C1D00045.pdf
14 de Koning, F., Aguinaga, A., Bravo, M., Chui, M., Lascano, M., Lozda, T., & Suarez, L. (2011). Bridging the gap between forest conservation and poverty alleviation: the Ecuadorian Socio Bosque program. Environmental Science & Policy, 14(5), 531-542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2011.04.007 15.
15 Weinstock, Marisa. (2019). Ecuador’s San Clemente: A Reflection of Shifted Indigenous Economies. Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy. Retrieved from https://foodfirst.org/ecuadors-san-clemente-a-reflection-of-shifted-indigenous-economies/
16 United Nations. (2019). Global Environment Outlook– GEO-6: Healthy Planet, Healthy People. Nairobi, Kenya. Doi: 10.1017/9781108627146.
17 Torres, B., Maza, O. J., Aguirre, P., Hinojosa, L., & Günter, S. (2015). The contribution of traditional agroforestry to climate change adaptation in the Ecuadorian Amazon: the chakra system. In Handbook of climate change adaptation (pp. 1973-1994). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Linda Xiong is the daughter of Hmong refugees and was born and raised in Indiana. She studied fashion design as an undergraduate at Indiana University where she became passionate about the stories and people behind the clothes we buy. This passion led her to pursue a Masters of Sustainable Peacebuilding from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she studied systems thinking and conflict transformation. She is currently the Impact Manager at Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute, leveraging evaluative thinking to drive the organization’s impact across Colorado.
Katherine Riebe is a Nigerian American. Born in Lincoln, NE she lived in Nigeria for 15 years and is thus familiar with many of the challenges that exist for those that live in the Global South. Katherine is pivoting to a career in international development after over 20 years of teaching English to speakers of other languages. She received a Masters of Sustainable Peacebuilding from UW-Milwaukee as well as a graduate certificate in public and population health. She considers herself a transdisciplinary practitioner and seeks to journey and collaborate with others to achieve improved livelihoods and well-being globally.
Alexandria Sedar is a storyteller, facilitator, and evaluator. From a young age, she understood how stories could build peace and the power of recognizing our innate relation to the land. This passion motivated her to pursue a BA in Global Studies at UW-Milwaukee and later a Masters of Sustainable Peacebuilding and a graduate certificate in public and population health at UW-Milwaukee. She has spent over ten years working on projects at the intersection of peacebuilding, public health, and environmental sustainability in Guatemala, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and the US.
