Changes in the Amazon River have even led to conflicts between countries. Recently, Colombia and Peru clashed over islands that emerged due to the behavior of the river flow. Those who do not know it make mistakes. Only the ancestral wisdom of its inhabitants can account for the pulses and cycles of the most voluminous river in the world. Understanding that is living in harmony with nature, with the river, and it is being achieved. For now Indigenous calendar in the Amazon is not in sync with what’s happening.
The Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL) Amazonia campus, Florida International University and indigenous fishermen built a calendar that made it possible to find that the signals that mark the year in the Amazon —such as the rise and fall of the river, the migration of fish or the fall of fruits— stopped occurring in a synchronized way with the river, which affects fishing, food and daily life in these Amazonian wetlands near Leticia.
The central point of the analyses is the Yahuarcaca lakes, a complex and vital system of wetlands of 500 hectares, located very close to the urban area of Leticia, capital of the department of Amazonas. There, seven indigenous communities coexist, among them La Milagrosa, Castañal, San Antonio, and San Pedro, for which daily life, food and culture are dictated by the rhythms of the water.
Indigenous calendar in the Amazon is not in sync
According to a dispatch from the UNAL News Agency, to record how that dynamic is changing, the researchers did not use conventional measurement tools. They resorted to a seasonal calendar built with the knowledge of 25 local knowledge holders who have observed for decades the behavior of the river, the fish, and the forest. More than an almanac, this tool organizes the year according to the cycles of the water and its relationship with life in the territory.
That detailed map draws the four hydrological cycles of the year (rising waters, high waters, falling waters, and summer) and crosses them with key biological events, the press release adds. For example, it records when fruits that feed the fish fall, at what moment migrations or “subiendas” occur, and when cold spells arrive that lower the temperature. By bringing these elements together, the calendar allows for comparing how the ecosystem functioned according to the memory of the communities and how it is responding today to climate variations.
Through the Laboratory of Limnology and Tropical Wetlands, led by professor Santiago Duque, an expert in aquatic ecosystems, the university contributed its knowledge in the study of water and fish, fundamental to understanding the functioning of the lake system. But its greatest contribution was to act as a bridge of trust. Thanks to years of previous work in environmental education processes and land management with the Association of Indigenous Peasant Workers of the Yahuarcaca Lakes (ATICCA), the conditions were generated for the knowledge of the elders to be the axis of the process.
Those knowledge holders reconstructed the water cycles, the routes of the fish, and the changes observed in recent decades, turning their experience into an environmental monitoring tool. Anthropologist Lulu Victoria-Lacy, researcher at Florida International University and main author of the study, explained to the UNAL News Agency that the calendar became a baseline that shows how the ecosystem behaved more than 20 years ago, when the rises and falls of the river predicted the times of fish reproduction, the fall of fruits, and the fishing periods.
Changes with effects on food security
That is where the important point emerged: when contrasting that memory with the current situation, the study identified an imbalance between the signals of nature and the cycles of the river. Phenomena that previously occurred in a synchronized way (such as certain reproductive events of fish) now occur irregularly, which alters food availability and makes fishing more difficult, the UNAL News Agency adds.
The research also shows that these changes have direct effects on food security and on cultural practices, since in the Amazon fish are not only the basis of the diet. They are the axis of the planning of community activities, since in the Amazon the cycles of the water determine when to plant, when to fish, and how to organize daily life.
Visually, the calendar is a large canvas where the river, painted green in the center, represents the “Mother Boa,” the guardian figure of the water that symbolizes the interconnectivity of the ecosystem. Around it, the work documents the indicators that the communities recognize to identify the cycles of the water, such as high waters (Naru bai) or summer (Eane Tipa).