# Appendix B: Bicultural design and co-authorship The water bucket biodiversity protocol described in this chapter traces back to a metabarcoding paper by Danish and German scientists [(Klepke et al. 2022)](https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=18749383\&pre=\&suf=\&sa=0), which inspired a trial protocol for agroforestry systems — recommended to a bee startup in Germany by an eDNA startupin Switzerland run by a US expat with cross-market comparison data — described to Italian scientists working on an alternate protocol who freed up research grant money from a Canadian-funded charity in Peru, and by an MD-turned-planetary-scientist from a biogeochemistry course and a PhD trained in neuroethology and conservation, among smallfarmers already enrolled in the project. It is not standardized. It is barely science. And it is already stopping deforestation by characterizing restoration biodiversity credits on experimental markets. It was tested by Indigenous and smallfarming Savimbo ground staff based in Putumayo, Colombia. With a 10% annual deforestation rate eating up your ecosystem [(Global Forest Watch 2024)](https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=16941248\&pre=\&suf=\&sa=0), and a planetary boundary crossing its tipping point [(Flores et al. 2024)](https://sciwheel.com/work/citation?ids=16243519\&pre=\&suf=\&sa=0) — would you wait? This chain of collaboration — crossing disciplines, institutions, continents, and epistemologies in months rather than the years a conventional research pipeline would require — is itself evidence for the chapter's central argument. Postcolonial co-design isn't merely an ethical preference. It is operationally faster, more resource-efficient, and more contextually accurate than top-down protocol development. The Water Bucket Protocol exists because people with radically different training and structural incentives trusted each other enough to share and test unfinished ideas. #### **Figure X. Savimbo team and scientific collaborators doing eDNA sampling in the Colombian Amazon.** --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://sexytrees.savimbo.com/appendices/appendix-b-bicultural-design-and-co-authorship.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.