III International Workshop: Leticia, Colombia, 2013

III International Workshop: Leticia, Colombia, 2013

The Third International Workshop of the Terra Preta Program took place in Leticia, Colombia, from May 27th to May 31st, 2013. The workshop was attended by 28 participants, and it was organized with support from the Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas (SINCHI) and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

The first days of the workshop were dedicated to presentations of the PhD. students, during which they presented the progress of their ongoing research and received feedback from the other participants. Plenty of time was allocated to meetings between the PhD. students, their supervisory team and the resource people, and also to discussions about the progress and problems encountered at the program level.

Within the framework of the workshop, an open symposium was organized at the campus of Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Several experts from different disciplines presented their work related with anthropogenic soils, including archaeologists, palaoecologists, geographers, anthropologists and soil and plant scientists. The symposium was attended by a wide audience, composed of researchers and students from the university.

Finally, the participants of the workshop also visited local indigenous communities where the PhD. candidate Clara Peña-Venegas was doing her fieldwork. The participants visited two communities (Tacana and San Martín de Amacayacu) from different ethnic groups (Uitoto and Tikuna), where they had the opportunity to interact with the local residents, see the diversity of agroecosystems and soils that they manage, and experience a bit the local culture, their delicious foods and drinks.