Visiting South America it is clear that the natives really don't care what is what... they're chickens. Putting some sort of value on them is not a native idea. Europeans have placed value on them.
Hah! Well, I'm sure there aren't particularly many members of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy in South America. In fact, I'm not sure there are many of the regulars at our local feed store who are particularly concerned breed preservation. It doesn't mean there aren't people interested.
I know looking at publications written in (gasp!) a different language is hard (darn it! why can't they just publish their newspapers, tribal newsletters, academic papers, etc... in English....)
Here's are just a few broad scale overviews written in English for you to ponder.
Among other places, there are partner entities in
Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela....
The Asia Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty or APNFS is a regional network of social movements, farmers` organizations, women`s organizations and NGOs established to address the issues of increasing trade liberalization in agriculture, worsening food insecurity, massive dislocation of peasants, landlessness, erosion of agricultural biodiversity, and the suppression of peasants` democratic rights common to many countries in the region.
APNFS aims to promote and assert the people`s basic right to adequate, nutritious and safe food as well as their right to sustainable livelihoods. It advocates for the realization of the people`s aspirations for economic justice and democratization by actively resisting the incursion of WTO in the domain of food and agriculture. It rejects the neo-liberal agriculture and trade policies espoused by the WTO and the export-orientated model of agriculture it imposes upon developing countries.
APNFS demands the rights and control of poor peasants, artisanal fishers, indigenous peoples and rural women to land, water and other resources [including genetic resources] that will provide them sustainable livelihoods. APNFS also promotes the merits of sustainable development initiatives on the ground, specifically the experiences of NGOs and peoples` organizations [POs] in promoting sustainable farming technologies as well as agro-ecological models of food production and community-based practices in natural resource conservation and management.
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There are many many more nitty gritty local kinds of examples of what is happening but I'm wasting away a beautiful morning when I could be out with my birds. I'll post some of the indigenous newspaper articles I've saved sometime before long.
You could likely find some all on your own if you switch your language preference to sites written in Latin American Spanish. When you find something copy and paste it into google translator - my guess is you'll feel a little queasy when you realize how easily you fell into the idea that the whole of South America was devoid of preservationists. I know I was embarrassed. Then I was mad. Then, I was ashamed to have repeated the ugly history of de-valuing of these people and claiming something that is rightfully theirs under the auspices that I know better than they do.