Main challenges of many Latin American region’s countries, especially of Peru, are linked to poverty, child malnutrition, poor education, loss of biodiversity and migration to cities which contributes to field abandonment, subsistence jeopardizing, unemployment and violence increase in cities.

One of the main reasons of educational crisis might be the mental model of governments, authorities and citizens which are often characterized by a linear, fragmented and short-term thinking which does not address properly and contextually real causes of serious concerns created by exclusion, ignorance, corruption, violence, climate change and ecosystem degradation.

The educational system does not work with a "good life" intercultural vision and tertiary educational institutions do not bet as they should to include Traditional Knowledge Systems contributions in their mainstream curricula; this leads to calamitous consequences on biodiversity protection, especially in the Andean-Amazon region. Lack of understanding and dialogue in the various social groups has generated terrorism problems and social unrest which alter peaceful coexistence and prevent convergence to a prosperous and inclusive Sustainable Development.

We have not yet become aware of how important investing in education (human development) is and how relevant the conservation of biodiversity as sources of individual and collective life is. Biodiversity Knowledge and productive practices are essential to address our current challenges; to name a few: rational use of resources to regenerate life, inequality prevention and, therefore, corruption prevention, violence and crime. We need samples of subsistence strategies of sustainable use of natural resources.

In line with Instituto Peruano del Pensamiento Complejo Edgar Morin (IPCEM) de la Universidad Ricardo Palma (URP) vocation, this project aims to encourage a transdisciplinary dialogue of knowledge Systems to promote actions that lead to a shared understanding based on listening and open exchange without prejudice, ideas, concepts and practices; this would encourage the recognition of diverse Knowledge Systems. Unfortunately, based on what they learned in university classrooms professionals and technicians tend to undervalue or ignore ancestral knowledge; this becomes an obstacle for appreciating local realities and cultures and prevents to integrate knowledge which may be useful to advance Sustainable Development.

This fact, a frequent one in other regions of the world where you can find populations from diverse origins and cultural experiences, means there is no Dialog of knowledge systems and there is a supremacy of so called scholar knowledge, considered “scientific” knowledge, which does not recognize the scientific characteristic in other community knowledge. 

Objective-General

Provide community leaders (especially women), teachers, technicians and professionals from Amazonian-Andean countries a space for a dialog of Knowledge Systems. This space would understand and value both scholar knowledge and ancestral knowledge related to biodiversity regeneration and sustainable use of it; strong emphasis would be put on nutrition and good regeneration practices of “good life”.

Objective-Specific

• Document Traditional Knowledge related to food consumption and nutrition.
• Sustainable use of regional biological and cultural diversity related to nutrition and conservation of biological and cultural diversity and subsistence practices.
• Identify good practices regarding health and nutrition.