How to treat one's mother - Considerations about the relationship between man and environment in the Andes

Throughout nearly 10,000 years, Andean peoples created an agricultural civi lization that was able to respond adequately to most constraints that an ex tremely difficult natural environment imposed on them. Despite the destruct ion of original political (macro)systems by colonization, a good deal of th eir tradition and knowledge has survived until our days. Rituals related to "mother earth" still play an important role. For this reason several Europ ean and Andean authors consider that indigenous Andean farmers live in harm ony with nature, and especially with agricultural soil. On the other hand, ecosystem destruction, with soil erosion as a major problem, is obvious all over the Andes. The author argues that indigenous peoples, since they depe nd in a very direct form on nature's productivity, can not conceive nature as a value per se. Only a productive landscape is "beautiful" from their po int of view. Ecologically well adapted traditional agricultural techniques have developed through a long process of trial and error. If they were the result of an attitude of respect towards nature, peasants would be able, or at least trying to find ecologically sound responses to changing condition s, as e.g. population growth. This, obviously, is not the case. It is sugge sted that "mother earth" does not refer to soil, but to a female deity that gives fertility to soil. To achieve its good will, rituals are required, b ut not terraces, manuring or crop rotations. To promote sustainable agricul tural practices, ecological or historical arguments seem to be very week. O nly direct economic benefit from this kind of practice will be convincing f or farmers.