Transformation of the Biocultural Heritage in the Chiloe Archipelago: A Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System

Abstract

Peasant family farming is characterized by its resilience to change, although it is exposed to drivers of socio-environmental transformation. We study the historical and contemporary drivers of change that have influenced the loss of biocultural heritage in the Rilán peninsula, a rural space in the Chiloe archipelago, in southern Chile that has been recognized by FAO as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). Between September 2020 and October 2021, through a literature review, farm characterization sheets, and semi-structured interviews, eighteen family farms were visited, and individual conversations were held with a local historian and a rural extensionist in the agricultural field. The results show that, in the Chiloe archipelago, family farming continues to be a fundamental activity in terms of both identity and production, where, despite the changes in rural lifestyles in recent decades, a broad complex of knowledge, practices, and beliefs persists that have withstood rapid processes of agricultural modernization and multiple territorial transformations.