Photo top: Back in Northwest Arkansas, Reina Watanabe visits the Woolsey Wet Prairie Sanctuary in Fayetteville.

Watanabe measured the varying biodiversity levels for small and large cacao chakras and analyzed factors that increased their biodiversity.

The Amazon comprises over half of the Earth’s remaining tropical forests and remains the most biodiverse tract of forest in the world. Though a haven for countless species of flora and fauna, many of which are endemic to the region, the ecosystem faces a variety of severe threats.

Large-scale agricultural production has grown to meet export demands and cleared swathes of the forest. In countries such as Ecuador, expanding plantations that produce coffee, cacao and bananas also disrupt the agricultural practices for communities indigenous to the western Amazon.

Reina Watanabe, a senior honors student from Houston, Texas, studying environmental, soil and water science and Spanish, developed a passion for agroecology and food sovereignty while studying abroad in the region. During the fall of 2023, she completed a one-month independent study project in comparative ecology in Ecuador’s Napo province that became her honors thesis.

“I’ve been thinking about Ecuador since my freshman year,” Watanabe recalled. With a Spanish major in mind, she was drawn to various study-abroad opportunities in South America. She previously spent a semester studying in Montevideo, Uruguay. This unique experience with an international education has not gone unnoticed.

“To study abroad twice is impressive enough, but for both of those programs to be full semesters is truly impressive,” explained Chelsea Hodge, director of grants and research innovation at the Honors College, who advised Watanabe on securing study abroad grants. “Reina maximized her time and every available resource to make the most out of her university experience. I’m so proud of how she stretched herself with these programs and even pursued her honors research while abroad in Ecuador.”

Watanabe was specifically drawn to Ecuador for her second time abroad because of its unique perspective on sustainable agriculture and food security issues. In 2008, the concept of food sovereignty — the right to access healthy, culturally appropriate foods — was enshrined as a national goal within the country’s constitution.

“Ecuador is a really great place to study because of the large presence of environmental activism, and indigenous communities are at the forefront of conservation,” she noted.

Watanabe investigated the biodiversity present in the indigenous chakras, diverse agroforestry systems that have been practiced by the Kichwa community for thousands of years. Here, food crops like yuca and plantain are cultivated alongside timber trees that are used to build homes and medicinal plants to cure ailments. Additionally, commercial crops like cacao
are cultivated to provide income to farmers. She explained that chakras differ significantly from a monoculture farming approach where singular crops are sold for a profit.

“It’s a very diverse system that provides food as well as culturally significant crops to Kichwa communities on their own plots of land,” she said. Additionally, chakras help ensure food sovereignty and preserve the economic livelihoods for an already vulnerable community.

“By having these varieties of crops, households have their own sources of consumption without going out into markets,” she added.

Chakras are diverse agroforestry systems that have been practiced by Ecuador’s Kichwa community for thousands of years.

Partnering with the Kallari Cacao Cooperative, an association of cacao producers composed mainly of Kichwa families, Watanabe measured the varying biodiversity levels for small and large cacao chakras and analyzed factors that increased their biodiversity. Her findings suggested that while the larger chakras had more species, they did not necessarily contain more biodiversity. Rather, each family’s unique chakra management, along with environmental factors, indicated what species were present on a plot of land.

“Human decision making, the personal relationships between indigenous communities and plants — along with microclimates, elevation and soil composition — are much larger indicators of what species will be present,” Watanabe explained.

She observed that high biodiversity among chakras is both ecologically beneficial for ecosystems and crucial for sustaining the well-being of Kichwa communities. The system also provides a way to preserve traditional indigenous knowledge. Documenting the social impact of this agroforestry practice in indigenous communities became a focus of Watanabe’s research as the study progressed.

“I noticed specific questions coming to mind that I hadn’t thought of before around cultural preservation through the chakra,” she highlighted. “How can they maintain these practices as they lose their indigenous language or as outside markets have a greater presence? When people buy food from the supermarket or corner stores instead of growing their own food?”

With support from the Kallari Cacao Cooperative, Watanabe began collecting oral histories with members of the Kichwa community to construct a deeper history of the place and its people.

“Just by being present and working with them on the chakra, sharing meals, asking questions about their lives — you can learn so much about the history and modern context of the community,” she noted.

Before graduating, Watanabe hopes to continue studying the chakra system from an anthropological angle. She plans on conducting an ethnography back on the ground in Ecuador through an honors extended-travel research grant. More broadly, she is grateful for the confidence that conducting research while abroad has given her moving forward.

“It definitely threw me into the deep end of what research looks like and how difficult and challenging it can be,” she recalled. “But it also gave me the confidence to realize that I can do it, whether in a team or on my own.”

Watanabe partnered with the Kallari Cacao Cooperative to conduct her research in the Amazon.