In southern Colombia, Indigenous groups fish and farm with the floods

In southern Colombia, Indigenous groups fish and farm with the floods

Source: mongabay

12/8/2021

The Tikuna, Cocama and Yagua peoples in southern Colombia live on a two-pronged sustainable food system that involves artisanal fishing and communal planting synchronized with the different flooding seasons.
The food systems have allowed the 22 communities in the area to live sustainably without damaging the forest’s extremely high rates of biodiversity, according to a report from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The communities have faced some challenges in recent decades due to outside pressures to commercialize their activities, raising doubts about how to maintain sustainable practices.
This article is part of an eight-part series showcasing sustainable food systems covered in the most comprehensive report to date of the diets and food production practices of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs).

At the very southern tip of Colombia, Indigenous communities practice a sustainable food system that involves artisanal fishing and rotating crop structures within cycles of flooding periods. This has allowed them to live sustainably in an extremely biodiverse part of the Amazon that has remained largely untouched by commercial agriculture.

The Tikuna, Cocama and Yagua peoples of Puerto Nariño use handmade arrows, hooks and spurs to practice artisanal fishing in local rivers while also growing cassava, pineapple, corn, rice and chestnuts on communal land, according to a report from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The new report provides the most detailed and comprehensive account to date of the sustainable food systems of Indigenous peoples.