Underground Explorers

As an underground explorer, Nkwi aims to pilot an Indigenous R&D governance framework and Indigenous research methodology, elucidating the relationship between the stewardship of native mycorrhizal communities in bioculture-designed Andean agroecology systems and who gets to ask research questions and define research findings. This pilot research is conducted at Kinray Hub, Living Systems Lab, within the Chichupampa Clan territory in the Cotacachi Andes, Imbabura, Ecuador. Through this work, we seek to develop an evolved form of the dichotomies of 'conservation' vs. adaptation and mitigation by strengthening the scientific agency and processes of Indigenous communities to safeguard and improve their bioculture-designed agroecology systems and soil health stewardship, challenging current "hyper-object" creation of "Traditional Ecology Knowledge on Western conservation.