Indigenous peoples’ landscapes across the world demonstrate that healthy socio- ecological production landscapes provide people with the goods and services that form the basis for sustainable development. However, global environmental change is causing significant impact on these landscapes, hindering conservation and development opportunities for future generations. The Andes high mountain environments are among the most sensitive to climate change, where the widespread retreat of glaciers is affecting the availability of freshwater to the region’s population and to key biodiversity hotspots.
In this context, Asociación ANDES seeks to explore the organisation of the IPSI Steering Committee Meeting and Global Conference in 2015 in Cusco and in the Inca Trail as a way to engage IPSI members in reflection on some of these local problems. The main purpose is to foster IPSI as a strong network with shared values, a common agenda and deep understanding of and respect for biocultural diversity. These events will serve to advance the first two objectives of the IPSI Strategy, i.e. to increase knowledge and understanding of landscapes and ecological systems, and to tackle the loss of biodiversity and its causes. ANDES will also assess the feasibility of establishing a research institute dedicated to studying how indigenous socio-ecological production landscapes can be fostered as landscapes of the future. The implementation of the centre in Cusco for the study of indigenous landscapes will serve to fulfil all of the IPSI Strategic Objectives in the long- term: conducting research and assessment, spreading knowledge, addressing the causes of biodiversity loss, and increasing benefits from maintaining socio-ecological production landscapes.