PREFACE
The drafting of this White/Wiphala Paper was coordinated by the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems and edited by a Technical Editorial Committee that summarised the main points received. The White/Wiphala Paper on Indigenous Peoples’ food systems is the result of collective work by indigenous and non-indigenous experts, scientists and researchers. The initial draft received over 60 direct contributions from indigenous organizations, indigenous experts and institutions from six socio-cultural regions. We owe our thanks to all who contributed, and whose names can be found at the beginning of the paper.
This White/Wiphala Paper offers a constructive, evidence-based contribution to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit. The contributors and co-authors of the paper look to the leadership of the UN Food Systems Summit to incorporate the principles and values of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems in the Summit’s agenda, and in the policy discussions and programmes beyond the Summit.
This paper articulates the importance of respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples to ensure the protection and preservation of their foods systems, and the value this can add to tackle emerging global challenges. Furthermore, it advocates that lessons learned from Indigenous Peoples’ approach to food will contribute to the resilience and sustainability of other food systems worldwide. In this vein, the paper provides evidence on the sustainability of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, including the ways in which they have proven resilient over time.
To date, the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit has not paid sufficient attention to the food and knowledge systems of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples challenge the Summit’s current conceptualisation of food systems, which is not representative of their realities, beliefs, livelihoods and food systems.
The paper also challenges some widely accepted ideas and paradigms about food, food systems, sustainability, biodiversity conservation and territorial management. This is intended. Indeed, reassessment of such paradigms is needed to fully grasp Indigenous Peoples’ views and the possible contributions they can make to food systems’ thinking and approaches. Whilst there has been widespread acceptance of Indigenous Peoples’ capacity to preserve biodiversity, there has been only incipient understanding of the important ways that biodiversity conservation intersects with indigenous cultural diversity, language diversity, spirituality, cosmogony and food systems.
This paper highlights the risks of not taking on board the time-tested contributions that Indigenous Peoples have and continue to make for sustainability and territorial management, amongst other dimensions. It also addresses the ongoing policy contradictions and limitations in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN Climate Change Conference of Parties’ (COP) debates and international agreements about sustainability. The White/Wiphala Paper authors expect Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge systems to be recognised, respected and valued with equal consideration and integration by the scientific and academic communities informing the Summit, and beyond.
Whilst we hope and expect that this paper will invoke greater respect for Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge, a number of important considerations must be taken into account.
First, we must be mindful of the ways in which this knowledge is used. There are important differences between scientific formalised knowledge and Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems, but also points of complementarity. Researchers have often been extractive in their use of Indigenous Peoples’ traditional ix knowledge. We advocate for the creation of platforms upon which Indigenous Peoples and scientists can work together to co-design sustainable and resilient food systems in support of wellbeing of people and ecosystems.
Second, the multiple and different contributions from Indigenous Peoples across the world manifest a way of understanding reality and communicating that is predominantly oral. The transcription of oral thoughts and knowledge into written form is often a challenge. As much as possible, we sought to retain the diversity and richness of the contributions received, whilst acknowledging that we could not reflect many of the subtleties of the comments within the limited pages of the paper. The contributions received from Indigenous Peoples often covered an intersection of topics, including cosmogony, territorial management, food, and rights to their lands, resources and territories. The Editorial Committee has in many cases presented a selection of the concepts and ideas in minimising repetition and structuring contributions into the paper’s final format.
Third, Indigenous Peoples and their perception of their food systems and their traditional knowledge is fundamentally systemic. Indigenous Peoples look at the overall, observing the total plus the relationships and interactions between the elements in the food system. When communicating, they give as much importance to the balance and harmony in the system as to elements that compose it. This systemic approach is now being actively sought by scientists to analyse other food systems. Indigenous Peoples have it intrinsically due to their understanding of food, spirituality, nature and relations.
Fourth, whilst scientists base their analysis in modelling and experimentation, Indigenous Peoples refine their knowledge systems through accumulated constant observation of the environment, adjusting their responses over time. This has enabled Indigenous Peoples not only to understand natural cycles, weather patterns and wildlife behaviour but also to develop a day-to-day practical de facto experimentation based on this observation. The accumulated knowledge created during the constant observation is passed on orally through the inter- and intra-generational transmission of knowledge. This way of analysing reality and the phenomena is already a unique contribution by Indigenous Peoples to the scientific community and the world.
To support the process leading up to the UN Food Systems Summit, the White/Wiphala Paper puts forward proposals under each of the five Action Tracks pursued by the UN Food Systems Summit. This silo-creation and piecemeal approach created by the five Action Tracks when analysing food systems is not the way in which Indigenous Peoples would have approached the analysis, opting instead for a more holistic and systemic look.
The term “white” paper is used broadly to refer to frame documents and papers that, at the global level, establish important conceptual references for discussions and debates. Because this paper was written by Indigenous Peoples with Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge, it was suggested it be called the White/Wiphala Paper. “Wiphala” refers to the colourful flag of Indigenous Peoples in the Andes that portrays an idea of the diversity of knowledge and views that have been included in the drafting process. Therefore, the White/Wiphala Paper on Indigenous Peoples’ food systems does make reference to its characteristic as a frame paper that will inform global discussions yet maintains the diversity of knowledge and peoples that have informed its drafting process, both of which are integrated into this paper.
We invite readers to reflect on the millions of people around the world who feed their families through food systems that are different from the urban, commercial and value chain food systems with which they may be more familiar. Often these unfamiliar food systems are grouped together as “traditional” food systems. However, as this paper shows, traditional food systems are not all alike, and Indigenous Peoples’ food systems present characteristics that render them unique and must be better understood.
Download the Paper here.
Source: FAO
