ABSTRACT
After discussing the crafting of an ethnobiological research agreement (ERA) in Southern Colombia in section 1, the chapter tells a story of the emetic Yoco (Paullinia Yoco) and how this Amazonian vine prepares humans to live well with the forest—including learning an ecological form of law: the law of the place (section 2). Expanding learning beyond the human, the third and last section surveys neurobiologist Francisco Varela’s relational approach to cognition. His approach is crucial to understanding how normative systems such as law and ethics are grounded in the everyday experience of human and nonhuman organisms. The section studies how to expand these systems beyond disembodied norms sanctioned by the state or social convention. In doing so, the chapter lays the groundwork for a non-dualist and post-anthropocentric framework of environmental decision-making that challenges top-down and dualist conservation governance approaches at present. Both Paullinia Yoco—our plant teacher—and Varela provide important guidance for this kind of framework.
