Knowledge exchange on ancestral protection strategies at ACIMVIP's headquarters

On 21 and 22 July 2021, at the ACIMVIP headquarters, the first knowledge-exchange meeting was held under the project to strengthen the Wasikamas as a figure of territorial authority and environmental defence of the Ancestral Territory of the Inga People of Villagarzón, with the support of the Norwegian Human Rights Fund. The meeting was devoted to ancestral protection strategies and included mapping work by community; 54 people took part, according to the attendance list.

Its results were compiled in the document «Ancestral strategies for the protection and care of the territory», dated January 2022, which groups the strategies that the Inga People of Villagarzón apply to care for their territory into three lines: the mingas of resistance, harmonization ceremonies and spiritual work, and good living through everyday practices of territorial care and control. The document frames the process around three perspectives: personal and collective protection guarantees for defenders, training in traditional knowledge and technical expertise for environmental defence, and the empowerment of the Warmis Wasikamas, Inga women who are guardians, defenders and transmitters of the language, culture and spirituality.

Among the lessons learned, the document points to the need to strengthen the network of allies and to take complaints to the international level when rights are violated in the context of the mingas, to have an archive and a human rights observatory of the Indigenous Peoples of Putumayo, to train minga participants in their rights, and to strengthen the traditional chagra as the centre of food sovereignty and the transmission of knowledge.