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Ancient Transformation, Current Conservation: Traditional Forest Management on the Iriri River, Brazilian Amazonia

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Abstract

Legislation governing strict-protection nature reserves in Brazil in principle precludes human habitation, but virtually all Amazon reserves are nonetheless inhabited. Historical ecology research reported herein assesses the impacts of occupation and resource use by beiradeiros (forest peasants) on the forests of a strictly designated nature reserve in the Iriri River basin (Brazilian Amazon). The hypothesis is that traditional beiradeiros activities are congruent with the aims of conservation of the reserve because their impacts are either neutral or enhance diversity of forest landscapes and biota. We designed the methodology underlying data collection to integrate forest inventory with archaeological techniques in two contrasting forest types (terra firme and seasonally inundated forest), faunal surveys, freelisting of tree terms by beiradeiros, and participant observation, in order to determine biological diversity indices, forest age and the parameters of traditional knowledge that encode such diversity in local vocabulary. Our research results lead us to reject the premise that traditional peasant activities lead to ecological degradation or impoverishment, and suggest that the rationale underpinning strictly protected nature reserves should be re-examined.

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  • 28 May 2021

    The original version of this paper was updated to present the correct family name of Dr. Vinicius Honorato de Oliveira.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge expert assistance provided by Juan David Tovar Durán and María Alejandra Buitrago Aristizabal in determination of many of the trees and lianas in the herbarium. Thanks are due to Juan Doblas for elaboration of the map in Fig. 1. We acknowledge Leandro Giacomin for help with securing access to the herbarium of the Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará (Ufopa) and for his assistance in finding key individuals to facilitate the research reported herein both in the field and in the herbarium. We thank José Alves Gomes and his family for assistance with logistics in the field; we are further grateful to Jony Martins Oliveira for assistance with tree and liana collections on the inventory sites discussed herein. We thankMarcelo Salazar of Instituto Socioambiental (ISA-Altamira) for advice on technology and logistical matters. Financial and logistical support for the project were offered by the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA – Altamira); we are indebted to Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) for major funding of the fieldwork (proposal number 7601098). The authors thank ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity Conservation), IPHAN (Institute of Historical and Artistic Patrimony), Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará (Ufopa) and Tulane University for administrative endorsement of the project.

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Correspondence to William Balée.

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Human subjects research reported in this article was approved by the Tulane University Institutional Review Board (reference no. 1101293); in Brazil, plant collections reported herein were approved by the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservaçāo da Biodiversidade (ICMBio) of the Ministério do Ambiente (MMA) (no. 59656–2); and the archaeological research reported herein was approved by the Instituto de Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (Iphan) by Portaria no. 35 of 13 July 2017 for Processo no. 01492.000380/2017–15, as amended by Portaria 0090314–60 of 23 October 2017. The field research reported herein was funded by Environmental Defense Fund (grant no. 76010980).

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Balée, W., Honorato de Oliveira, V., dos Santos, R. et al. Ancient Transformation, Current Conservation: Traditional Forest Management on the Iriri River, Brazilian Amazonia. Hum Ecol 48, 1–15 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00139-3

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