source management systems, the crops involved sustainable development, and food sovereignty.

With respect to land rights, territory and indigenous peoples,37 this issue is recognized to varying degrees by national constitutions38 (Colchester, 2001) in the region as well as by international conventions39 and international case law on human rights. For indigenous peoples, land and territory are closely tied to autonomy and self-determination (Via Campesina 2006, Van Dam, 1999), for which reason policy should be established to promote commercial or business undertakings that respect property rights over time.

In this respect, future agrarian reforms should have a clearer profile within the strategy of land distribution, especially when access to land must be created for vulnerable social groups such as indigenous peasants.

It must also be noted that, under current conditions, local indigenous communities must become more competitive in generating income as through the sustainable exploitation of natural resources. Yet there are many legal barriers that prevent communities from making better use of their communal lands, for example, and in any case their organizations can see no way to avoid the fragmentation of their property into “minifundios.” This situation calls for policies that will give communities the ability to enter the land market so as to grant concessions and to attract investment on the basis of rules and conditions established by the indigenous communities themselves. To this end, incentives could be established so that those who are no longer making use of the land can dispose of it and in this way help to reorder the size of properties.

The land and territory of indigenous peoples shows a tendency to shrink because of factors related to extractive economic activities, linked to the capitalist form of development supported by liberal and neoliberal policies of the LAC region (Deruyttere, 1997; Toledo et al., 2001). Under these conditions what is needed is to establish policies to defend these territories or in any case to foster negotiations to pay for the environmental services that indigenous communities provide in the course of conserving their ecosystems and cultures. The important point in this process of globalization and exploitation of natural resources is to find economic med denizens to recognize payment to those groups that act as the custodians of biodiversity in the various ecosystems.

Even so, depending on their level of organization and strength, autonomous processes (with or without external financial support) can be observed in various parts of the LAC region for restoring local peasant/indigenous agriculture as part of a process of decolonization and cultural affirmation (See Chapter 1: Figure 1-1).

37 This issue is part of the “ethnic question” (Stavenhagen 1990) or the “indigenous problem” (Quijano 2005). The situation calls into question the capacity of the state and of Latin American democracy to resolve satisfactorily the issue of land, territory, and self-determination of indigenous peoples
38 For further detail see Colchester, 2001.
39 Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ILO Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries.

Yet a great number of small farmers in the region are striving to restore their agricultures as part of their systems for managing local natural resources and as part of the process of decolonization and cultural affirmation (Grillo, 1998), as alternatives to the dominant society, culture, agriculture and AKST system. All of this suggests that a relevant policy issue from the development and culture viewpoint is to promote the strengthening of local cultures and knowhow in rural communities, particularly those of indigenous origin, including the provision of financing to expand their contributions to strengthening regional and national AKST, from a democratic perspective, in the direction of promoting this component in the transition towards sustainable protective systems.

5.3 Policies for the Participation of Public and Private Stakeholders in the Development of AKST
Participation, understood as a democratic value that encourages citizens to collaborate in formulating and implementing public action, allows decisions to be taken on matters of collective interest (Kondo, 1996; Bañon, 2006), and
the quality of that participation will depend on whether a suitable institutional, social and cultural conditions exist. A suitable legal framework, mechanisms for participation, and an appropriate degree of decentralization are the best institutional conditions for promoting participation. The history of the community, the types of leadership, its economic resources, political culture, local capacities and educational levels are the social and cultural conditions that will determine the degree of collective participation (Cartagena et al., 2005; Colomer, 2006).

Participation and decision making take place in different levels or spheres, in which stakeholders will have different perceptions, capacities, influence and roles. In the international sphere, the representatives of governments, multinational agencies and international NGOs work with macro information and take policy decisions that will affect the other levels; in the national sphere, governmental and private sector players and national leaders will take political decisions that affect the other two spheres, but especially the local level; and in the local sphere, communities and families work with information and decide on their resources, with direct influence on the application of policies taken at the other levels, especially at the national level.

One of the fundamental rules of national governments is to facilitate the relationship between the different levels of decision takers. While there may be a series of relationships between the public and private sectors, one challenge will be to move beyond the old schemes of vertical and hierarchical relations between government and society and to make networking a new form of relationship based on interchange and cooperation, thereby strengthening stakeholder participation in decision-making.

Bifarello (2002) explains that the concept of the “associative network” is useful for understanding the publicprivate societies in Latin America, and how stakeholders relate to each other through formal and informal societies.
Associative networks are distinctive not only because they connect people around the taking of decisions, but also because of their multiplicity and their efficiency, and the fact