2023 MPA Nominee – Apus Aventuras
Involving the ancestral community to conserve natural and cultural heritage
Snapshot
A project driven by the loss of great natural and cultural wealth, little or almost no waste management and the abandonment of local communities from their ancestral territories in a community of the Province of Salta, Argentina. The vision is to cultivate the importance of conserving the natural and cultural heritage in the community, through involving it, raising awareness and to ultimately achieve territorial self-management that will allow the development of the community, and the rooting in a context of conservation of biodiversity and native forest.
View of UIAA MPA Assessor
The potential of this project’s impact is significant as the project vision encompasses not only the preservation of ancestral heritage, culture, and knowledge, but also the conservation of biodiversity of the area. By working closely with the communities from the beginning of the project to shape clear, concrete goals with the project’s resources at hand, there is potential for the results to become long-term and, most ideally sustainable. To reach a greater impact, the project could benefit from collaborating with authorities at a wider level than just the communities and will need to elaborate the concept in more detail before diving straight in.
Vision, goals and aim of the project:
More details on the project + project status as per May 2023
Apus Aventuras is a project that was born as an initiative to keep ancestral culture of the Kolla community in the Department of Santa Victoria, Province of Salta, Argentina alive.
This project is driven by the loss of great natural wealth, such as forests, native flora and fauna that is made up of species such as the jaguar, the Andean bear, among others that our ancestors sighted and that are in danger of extinction, as well as the 60 % of bird species in Argentina and cultural wealth, little or almost no waste management and the abandonment of local communities from their ancestral territories.
Based on the premise “You cannot take care of what you do not know”, it is vital to cultivate in the community, the importance of conserving the natural and cultural heritage, for those there now and for future generations.
That is why Apus Aventuras sets a tone to develop a baseline to strengthen the link between the community and the territory, promoting research, conservation, management and sustainable human development. An idea still in concept stage, and to unfold in August 2023 to for the span of a year, its goal is to firstly, investigate and develop a program for the conservation of biodiversity and ancestral culture in conjunction with the local community and technical professionals. And secondly, to develop a base to raise awareness from and accompany environmental education, which allows building a model of sustainable, ecological and community tourism development.
The plan is to accomplish these goals in three stages:
(1) Assessment of environmental care and educational workshops oriented to the community;
(2) Assessment and recovery of cultural and ancestral knowledge, by performing interviews with the main connoisseurs of the community.
(3) Development of sustainable and quality ecotourism products in conjunction with the communities, with training on the activity and educational workshops.
All stages shall be documented audiovisually.
Through working with the local communities the vision is to achieve territorial self-management that will allow the development of the community, and the rooting in a context of conservation of biodiversity and native forest.
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Please note that the content published in this article is courtesy of the Award nominee. The UIAA has made minor revisions to the original submission. To discover more about the UIAA Mountain Protection Award please click here.