News for the life of the Andes

From the Western world and the many regions colonized by this system, voices arrive that speak of the so-called "sacrificial territories" or spaces converted into deposits of polluting waste in places where ancestral peoples live - that because they are removed from the neighborhoods and powerful sectors and because they have a historical lack of protection by laws and the state, they are victims of the poisoning of water, land, crops and the atmosphere. News loaded with urban soot, accumulation of garbage, extinct species, trees felled, fruits and food spoiled by acid rains, oil spills, fumigation with glyphosate, pests, drought; by the unconsciousness and greed of the powerful, by the apathy and blindness of the people …

We are clear that the West reaches the Andean world in many ways: extractive companies and many others that pollute the water, kill the life and vigour of the lands and their inhabitants. Also, by the extension (via educational system, mass media and social networks, among others) of a way of life made of a modernizing entanglement: predator of the earth, exploiter and carrier of the historical extermination of the connection with nature.

Fortunately, the Andean world still has many planetary lessons to give:

In the Cajamarcan countryside, constructions balanced with nature persist, using materials typical of the region, in accordance with environmental and climatic conditions.

Many of our Andean breeding communities do not enter the devastating circle of consumerism: buying, using, dumping.

They do not use plastic bags because they have their saddlebags, pullos, quipes and guayacas.

In their farms they cultivate and mix the plants that are the daily food on their tables.

Ollucos, ocas, sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, barley, quinoa, kiwicha, beans, among many other Andean foods survive.

They raise their animals.

They care and revere their puquios (water springs)

They revere and read their sacred mountains.

The South American Andes know of the life and the joy that the agricultural world has, simple and powerful, capable of saying and announcing that there are many paths to walk and retrace; that solidarity always gives us more, that being together will be better than acclaiming individuality, that the premise is to take care of our earth, to live in communion and in connection with all the beings that inhabit all the worlds.

Nathalia Quintero