www.centrosachamama.org | Welcome: Sachamama

Sachamama Center for BioCultural Regeneration (SCBR) is a non-profit organization in the Peruvian High Amazon in the town of Lamas, Department of San Martin, dedicated to the biocultural regeneration of the region in collaboration with the indigenous Kichwa-Lamistas, the descendants of pre-Columbian inhabitants, as well as with the local Education Board of the district of Lamas (Sp. acronym UGEL). SCBR was founded in 2009 by the anthropologist Frédérique Apffel-Marglin. SCBR shares a worldview in which the human, the non-human, as well as the community of spirits, are all kin to each other, treating nature as a Thou rather than an it. By ‘biocultural regeneration’ we mean to honor this integration of all life as well as the cyclicity of its rhythms. It is also meant to obviate the backward/advanced implications of more linear formulations.

SCBR is bringing together an expanding collective of scholars, activists, healers, artists, and shamans that cross the North-South divide. The Center’s mission is to integrate politics and spirituality, activism and scholarship, biocultural regeneration and fair economic practices, with the goal of nurturing intercultural dialogue. SCBR's mission is to strengthen the ancestral legacies and other practices of the Kichwa-Lamistas in dialogue with them as well as to regenerate the pre-Colombian Amazonian Black Earth of millenial fertility, collaborating with the local Education Board of Lamas to teach  this heritage of the pre-Colombian ancestors to the new generation in order to slow deforestation, improve the local agriculture and help solve the climate crisis.

SCBR is an educational, research, and experimental center that regenerates the Amazonian pre-Colombian black earth with biochar to achieve food sovereignty for the small farmers as well as for improving the climate crisis. SCBR also hopes to model a practice of a post-colonial, critical anthropology in horizontal, mutual, and inter-cultural collaboration with the Kichwa-Lamistas and the local Education Board. The Center operates out of the beautiful grounds of Casa La Sangapilla (www.casasangapilla.com), a complex of buildings and lush gardens designed collectively by the Sachamama team. The architectural vision of Casa La Sangapilla draws on eco-friendly, local indigenous design and technology. Casa La Sangapilla is located on the outskirts of Lamas on two acres of forested land, with panoramic views of the Cordillera Escalera mountain range, and an ecological swimming pool.

SCBR is registered in the US as a tax exempt 501 (C) (3) organization, as well as in Peru.  SCBR's address in the US is: 36 A Dana St. Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.