BIOLOGICAL, INDIGENOUS, AND COLONIAL

INTRODUCTION

The Amazon and its peoples remain a mystery to most outsiders, and the impressions that the latter hold are often more fiction than fact (Slater 2002). Understanding the Amazon’s diversity— geological, geographic, biological, historical, cultural, linguistic, and political— is a major key for unlocking its secrets. Another is the philosophy, religion, science, technology, and culture of the indigenous and other people who reside in this environment. Seldom are their views considered, although anthropologists have tried to convey them to the outside world for decades. What is more important, the peoples of the Amazon are increasingly speaking out for themselves (Le Breton 1993, Slater 2002). Here the Amazon will be described successively in terms of its biological, indigenous, and colonial ecologies. These three ecologies provide different but complementary approaches for understanding the environment and nature of this awesome region.

BIOLOGICAL ECOLOGY

Tropical rain forests are the most ancient, diverse, complex, and productive ecosystems on the terrestrial surface of the Earth. About one third of the world's forests are tropical rain forests. Although they cover only about 6-8% of this planet's land surface, they contain about half of all life, whether this is measured by the number of species (biological diversity) or organic weight (biomass). Tropical rain forests form a discontinuous green belt around the equatorial regions of the planet, concentrated within ten degrees latitude north and south of the equator, but in many areas extending to about latitude 23.5 degrees north and south within the tropical zone.

About half of the world's tropical rain forest is in the Amazon region, the largest reservoir of biological diversity in the world. Typically within just a few square miles of forest live more than a thousand species of plants and hundreds of species each of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles.

The Amazon is a vast region comprising about 4% of the terrestrial surface of the planet. It is about the size of the continental United States. The Amazon is bordered by the Andes mountains, Guyana Highlands, Brazilian Highlands, and the Atlantic Ocean. Portions of the Amazon region are included within the territories of nine South American countries: French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. However, about 80% of the Amazon is in Brazil.

The Amazon River, the longest in the world (6,700km), drains about 40% of the continent of South America, and carries 20% of all of the river water in the entire world. Distinctions are made between the flood plain (fluvial zone) and the interior (inter-fluvial zone). The latter are also referred to as terra firme. Some forests are permanently flooded, others only seasonally, and still others not at all.

In general most of the Amazon region is some variant of tropical rain forest, but there is no single type of ecosystem in the region. For instance, there are biotic communities dominated by one or more species of plants such as moriche palms. In addition, cloud forests occur in mountain regions associated with special climatic conditions and consequently distinctive types of plants and plant communities. Also there are anthropogenic forests, the net result of decades or centuries of human use and management selecting for combinations of useful plant species. Furthermore, areas of savannas (grasslands) occur, sometimes as islands within otherwise continuous forest, but more commonly on the margins of forest.

The climate in tropical rain forest areas is the closest to optimum conditions for plant growth anywhere on planet Earth with temperature, rainfall, and humidity all high. Tropical rain forest is the norm for plant growth on this planet and every other kind of plant community is some deviation from that norm in response to one or more kinds of stress such as lower rainfall and/or temperatures. The area is frost free. The relatively constant high temperatures and plentiful rainfall mean that there is usually no synchronous dormant period in plant growth, unlike drier and colder regions.

The average yearly temperature is around 75F, while the average yearly rainfall is 2,000 mm or more. The greatest temperature fluctuations are diurnal, rather than seasonal. Variations in rainfall instead of temperature usually mark the seasons. Tropical rain forest is not static but a dynamic ecosystem. In the Amazon this is mostly related to variations in the amount and distribution of water in time and space.

It rains almost daily in the wet season, and usually at least one day or more each week in the dry season. About 50% of the water in the diurnal water cycle is recycled locally through the evaporation and transpiration of water from the plant community. Less than 35% of the rainfall hitting the top of the forest or canopy actually reaches the floor of the forest, most is filtered out by the overlapping layers of vegetation. Changes in the distribution of water cause changes in the distribution and local abundance of fish and game.

Amazonia has been characterized as a “counterfeit paradise” by Betty Meggers (1996). The paradise is the tremendously rich plant community while the counterfeit is the soil. In many areas the soil is almost sterile and provides little more than physical support for the plant community. Many soils tend to be of poor quality; that is, low in mineral content and deficient in phosphorus, potassium, aluminum, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and/or hydrogen. This is the result of some 60 million years of chemical weathering and leaching of nutrients from the parent material with rapid rates of chemical reactions correlated with high temperature, rainfall, and humidity. This process has been called demineralization. Indeed, the Amazon region contains some of the oldest landscapes on the planet. This characterization holds for much of the interior of the Amazon, the so-called terra firme, but it does not necessarily hold everywhere.

The varzea (flood plain) is a different situation because annual flooding tends to rejuvenate the soils by providing a fresh layer of sediments as the water speed decreases. However, the richness of these sediments in nutrients depends on the water type and in turn on the parent material or geological source. The Andes provide the sediments richest in mineral nutrients because they are relatively young mountains. The Guyana and Brazilian Highlands are extremely ancient geological remnants from several cycles of erosion over a period of some 60 million years, and they provide sediments that are very poor in nutrients. On the other hand, volcanoes are a new source of rich nutrients, but they are not very important in the Amazon (McClain, et al. 2001, Sioli 1984, Smith 1999). There are areas of extraordinarily rich soils like the black anthropogenic soils which in Brazil are called in Portuguese terra preta do indio (Smith 1980).

Beyond the exceptions of the flood plains, volcanoes, and anthropogenic soils, the nutrients that sustain the tropical rain forest ecosystem are not in the soil but instead in the vegetation itself. Especially on poor soils like white sands in the Rio Negro region the nutrient cycle is essentially a closed system. There tree roots tend to be near or on the ground where nutrients are found in the shallow layer of litter, organic debris that fall from the trees (fruit, leaves, branches, and so on). Mycorrhizal fungi capture and conserve nutrients. They are fungi that have a mutualistic relationship with tiny rootlets in the litter on the forest floor, and these rootlets actually grow up into the litter rather than down into the soil.
Water plays an extremely important role in the variation and dynamics of ecosystems of the tropical rain forest, as is implied by the term rain forest. In the Amazon water is common in one form or another such as rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, pools, and swamps. The region was characterized as an inland sea by the famous geologist Louis Agassiz, and, indeed, it is during the rainy or wet season when vast areas of the flood plains are inundated. Water levels between the height of the wet season and low of the dry season may vary more than 20 meters. Flooding occurs along many of the more than 1,100 tributaries of the Amazon as well as along the main river. Nevertheless, the flood plains compose less than 10% of the Amazon. Therefore, most of the Amazon is interior forest which is not flooded. Flooding of sections of the forest during the wet season allows the widespread dispersal of fish when up to 80% of their food is derived from debris that drop from the trees such as fruits, nuts, and insects.

Although water seems to be everywhere in one form or another, it is not the same everywhere. There are at least three major types of water in the Amazon--- clear, white, and black, and variations in between. They reflect very different geographical, geological, chemical, physical, and biological characteristics. Black waters are associated with white sands, tea colored, high in acidity, and low in nutrients, productivity, and diversity.

It has been estimated that at least 30,000 species of vascular plants exist in the Amazon, although the number may be many times higher (Prance 2001). The plant community of the tropical rain forest is characterized by its height, luxuriance, and diversity. Giant trees with few if any branches in their lower levels stand like columns in a grand cathedral. Vines or lianas may connect several trees. Epiphytes are plants that grow on top of others. The forest is more or less stratified with several layers that reflect vertical zonation in the microclimate and associated plants and animals.

Tropical forest ecosystems are more than trees, they also contain animals that are an important component of their structure, function, composition, and dynamics. However, animals are relatively scarce in most ecosystems of the Amazon. While species diversity is high for animals, their population density is low and individuals within a population are patchy in spatial distribution. Moreover, most faunal species are arboreal, small in body size, solitary, camouflaged, and nocturnal. Also animals only comprise a fraction of the biomass of the forest, and most of that is invertebrates. The net result is that, although the tropical rain forest contains a great diversity of animal species, they are not readily apparent or available, either for the hunter, zoologist, or tourist (Emmons and Feer 1997, Kricher 1999, Sponsel 1986).

The major exception to the above generalizations about the characteristics of animals is the peccary or wild pig which is terrestrial, large in body size, large in group size, diurnal, noisy, and leaves obvious trails. Thus, wild pigs are usually the most important prey by weight in the predation record for most indigenous hunters (Sponsel 1986, 1997a).

The apparent poverty of animal life applies more to the Amazon than to other areas of tropical rain forest, and within the Amazon it applies most to the black water and white sand ecosystems. Nevertheless, the Amazon as a whole has the richest freshwater fish fauna in the world with some 3,000 species. Also fish are the primary protein source for millions of people in the Amazon. However, fish and other aquatic species have been relatively neglected in research on tropical rain forest ecology (Goulding 1980, 1993, Goulding, Smith, and Mahar 1996).

In the forest the animal community tends to be stratified in accordance with layers of the plant community. From the floor to the top of the forest there is a gradation in microclimates from relatively cool, more humid, and little air movement to hotter, drier, and more windy. Microenvironments correspond to these microclimates in this continuum. Some animal species are specialists in the canopy like the harpy eagle, others frequent the trunk of the tree like marmosets, and still others live on or in the ground like armadillos. However, many species may frequent more than one layer, at least as transients.

Food scarcity is a reflection of the fact that within the tree biomass, 98% is wood, and it is inedible for most animals, except for termites which are abundant and a few other species that are specialists. The remaining 2% is leaves, but much of this is filled with toxic chemicals as a predator defense. Howler monkeys appear to be finicky and wasteful in discarding a lot of food that they barely taste, but actually they are selecting plant parts and growth stages with fewer toxins. Fruit is often seasonal, and like everything else, tends to be low in density and patchy in distribution.

Because little wind penetrates into the lower layers of the forest, animals are particularly important in seed dispersal. Bats, birds, monkeys, and rodents are agents of seed dispersal as are also fish in the flooded forest. Bats, birds, monkeys, and insects are important in pollination as well (Kricher 1999). When humans over-hunt, usually for commercial purposes, they can deplete animal species locally and thereby reduce or eliminate their role in local seed dispersal and pollination with serious effects on the forest ecology (Redford and Padoch 1992, Redford and Robinson 1987, Stearman 1992, Vickers 1991).

There are about ten times as many species in an area of tropical rain forest as in an equivalent area of temperate forest. Moreover, because there are so many species in the tropical rain forest ecosystems there are also many times more possibilities for interactions (symbioses). For instance, some tree species are inhabited by stinging ants that feed off of tree nectar and protect the trees from grazing herbivores. As another example, mixed groups of several species may occur temporarily, like capuchin monkeys that during feeding on fruit stir up insects which in turn are pursued by squirrel monkeys. Niche differentiation reduces direct competition among similar species by emphasizing different foraging schedules, foods, and/or layers in the forest.

A couple of decades ago it was thought that these forests were primeval, pristine, and static. It was believed that they had not been influenced by climatic changes during the Pleistocene (“Ice Age”). Now it is apparent that forest distribution has alternately contracted and expanded with oscillations in rainfall abundance and distribution over the last million years. Furthermore, Amazonian climate is also influenced by the alternating phenomena of El Nino and La Nina (Colinvaux 1989, Meggers 1995).

INDIGENOUS ECOLOGY

The ecosystems of the Amazon are not necessarily pristine, virgin, or primary, meaning wilderness untouched by human activities. Estimates of human antiquity in the Amazon range to more than 11,000 years ago, and that figure will probably be extended back further with future discoveries. Pottery dated from as early as 6,000 to 7,500 years ago has been recovered at various sites in the Amazon by archaeologist Anna Roosevelt and others. Pottery is associated with relatively permanent settlements and farming. Roosevelt asserts that by 1,000 years ago chiefdoms were flourishing along the larger flood plains. However, these chiefdoms disappear by the end of the 17th century with European contact and associated diseases, warfare, and slaving. The realization of the extent of human antiquity, farming, and population settlement and density in the Amazon has led to increased attention to anthropogenic environmental influences (see articles by Roosevelt).

Today some 800,000 people live in 379 distinct indigenous cultures in the Amazon (Lizarralde 2001).
On the surface it would appear that the environmental impact of indigenous societies is negligible because of their relatively low population and lack of Western technology such as chainsaws, bulldozers, and the like. However, collectively through space and cumulatively over time their environmental impact can be substantial. Nevertheless, most of this impact is within the levels and processes of natural disturbances. For instance, a swidden garden plot is comparable to a large tree fall from a storm or landslide. The annual clearing and the vegetation dynamics created by cutting the trees and brush in a small circular area of forest for a garden is usually around one to two hectares. The slash is allowed to dry out during one or more months of the dry season and then burned. The fire transforms the nutrients that are otherwise stored in the vegetation into fertilizer on the surface of the soil. Then as the rainy season begins the crops are planted and within a few months harvesting begins. The garden is only intensively used for two to three years, and then it is gradually abandoned, although it may still be visited even decades later to harvest fruit or other useful plants and to hunt. Under the traditional conditions of a subsistence economy— low population density, sufficient fallow period for “abandoned” gardens, and plenty of forest in reserve for future gardens— usually this rotational system of farming is sustainable and avoids irreversible resource depletion and environmental degradation. In many areas there are fallow forests which may be decades or even centuries old. They are often indistinguishable from primary forests, except to either the indigenous or Western expert.

Through time the numerous swiddens in various phases from farming to forest regeneration collectively create a mosaic of plant and associated animal communities at different stages of development or ecological succession (e.g., see Andrade and Rubio-Torgler 1994, Boster 1983). Purposefully or inadvertently indigenes often concentrate in mature swiddens fruit tree and other plant species that are attractive to game for subsequent hunting. The latter has been labeled “garden hunting” by anthropologists. Moreover, animals that temporarily visit swiddens transport seeds from the surrounding forest which in turn facilitates forest regeneration. In these and other ways swiddens may enhance the biodiversity of the forests (Sponsel 1992). It has been estimated that from 10-40% of the terra firme forest is anthropogenic, the product of human influence and manipulation of the species of plants in the ecosystems (Balee 1989, 1994, Gomez-Pompa and Krauss 1992).

In her earlier writings in the 1950's, archaeologist Meggers leaned heavily in the direction of environmental determinism to explain cultural diversity in the Amazon. Her basic argument is that the infertility of most forest soils limited agricultural potential, in turn that limited population growth and density including settlement size and permanence, and in turn that limited cultural complexity and cultural evolution (Meggers 1954, 1996). In contrast, Roosevelt argues that the large settlements along the rivers witnessed by the early European explorers during the 16th century in the Amazon are evidenced in the archaeological record and not faulty impressions. She suggests that possibly some populations were as large as 100,000.

One problem with Meggers’ argument is over generalization in considering the tropical rain forest as a uniform environment, basically differentiated as fluvial and inter-fluvial zones (also see Lathrap 1968, T.P. Myers 1992). She tends to neglect the very attribute that is the key to these ecosystems; that is, diversity. This diversity applies between and within different types of tropical rain forest, and it includes soils, plants, and animals. Some ecosystems are relatively rich in nutrients and productivity (eutrophic) while others are relatively poor (oligotrophic). Emilio Moran's research strategy of disaggregation needs to be pursued to examine such questions on a smaller scale in local environments. This strategy refers to analyzing environmental variation and variability in detail rather than obscuring it through general divisions like flood plain and interior forest (Moran 1993, 1995).

By now substantial evidence has accumulated to demonstrate the existence and efficacy of indigenous philosophy, science, technology, and medicine in the Amazon. Cultural ecology and its more recent rubric, ecological anthropology, focus on how culture influences the interaction between a human population and the ecosystems within its habitat (Steward and Faron 1959, Wilson 1999). Since the 1950s, studies of cultural ecology have accumulated that reveal that most of the traditional indigenous populations of the Amazon enjoy relatively good nutrition, health, and quality of life (Bodley 1999). The descendants of the original colonizers of the Amazon created societies that were usually to some degree ecologically and socially sustainable. These societies, especially in the interior forests away from major rivers, were most often characterized by a population with low density and high mobility combined with a rotational system of land and resource use and management for farming and foraging (hunting, fishing, gathering). This rotational system usually effectively avoided irreversible natural resource depletion and environmental degradation.

The Yanomami, for example, whose ancient national territory overlaps the modern borders of the states of Brazil and Venezuela, traditionally live in communities of 40 to 150 people with an average size of only 60 individuals. However, Yanomami spend as much as 60% of the year away from their village on treks which involve camping and foraging for weeks at various places in the forest. While they also farm in the vicinity of their village, this is secondary to their prolonged treks deep in the surrounding forests (Colchester 1984, Good 1995a,b, Lizot 1993, Smole 1976).

The relative degree of equilibrium between the human population and the natural resources of its habitat in many (but not all) of such indigenous societies was usually reinforced by a world view, cosmology, attitudes, values, customs, and rituals emphasizing harmony or balance between humans and nature. For instance, the Desana of the Colombian portion of the northwestern Amazon created an elaborate system of myths, rituals, and symbols that appear to contribute to the regulation of the dynamics of their own human population in relation to prey species that they depend on for subsistence. The shaman, a part-time religious practitioner in each community, monitors the condition of the human predators and their animal prey to maintain balance between society and nature. When resource depletion becomes apparent the shaman may institute temporary prohibitions on hunting or fishing in certain areas or for particular species that in effect relieves predation pressure and allows prey population recovery. The Desana believe that breaking such taboos may lead to sickness or even death. Thus, they view the health of their society and of their ecosystems as interconnected (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1971, 1976, 1996; cf. Wilbert 1993).

Throughout the Amazon the different indigenous cultures each have a somewhat distinctive combination of faunal species that are the subject of food taboos, either as general prohibitions for the entire society or as specific ones for groups or individuals under particular circumstances, such as for a pregnant woman or a husband for a period after his wife has given birth. These different taboo systems mean that in some areas one species is relieved of human predation pressure thereby providing a refuge for its reproduction, whereas in other areas different species assume this role (MacDonald 1977, Ross 1978). Collectively throughout Amazonia these taboos comprise in effect a transcultural system of game reserves or wildlife sanctuaries. The surplus population of an animal species from one “reserve” may disperse into adjacent areas where they are subjected to hunting by other cultures who do not consider them taboo. Furthermore, this “system” may have conservation significance cumulatively over centuries or even millennia.

A rich source of reliable and detailed information about the natural history of the species and ecosystems of the Amazon is the local human community of long term residents (Posey 2002). People who depend for their survival on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild foods in this ecosystem must have reliable and detailed ecological knowledge. They must also have reliable expertise and skills simply to travel safely through the forests and along the waterways. The more than 1,000 rivers in the Amazon serve as highways. They are important for transportation and trade as well as for water, fishing, and hunting waterfowl and other riverine game (e.g., Gragson 1992).

Through intimate daily observations and experiences in interacting with their habitat during individual lifetimes and through generations, indigenous people have acquired extensive, detailed, and reliable knowledge about the animals, plants, soils, waters, and other aspects of the ecosystems in their territory. While often referred to as simply traditional environmental knowledge, it would be more accurate to recognize this as indigenous science and technology, although Western ethnocentric and racist views usually prevent that. Those who emphasize environmental constraints on human behavior and culture in tropical rain forests like the Amazon often neglect this tremendous knowledge that facilitates indigenous adaptations (e.g., see Bailey and Headland 1991, Gross 1975).

The Amazonian countries with the largest number of endemic languages are Brazil (185), Peru (75), and Colombia (55) (Maffi 1999). Such languages include extensive vocabularies of words for plants, animals, environments, and other natural phenomena of the ecosystems in the local and regional habitats of the different cultures (Balee 2003). This indigenous science is not recorded in writing for posterity, unfortunately, except through the research of Western scientists, principally anthropologists. This is the field called ethnoecology. It focuses on the environmental world view, knowledge, vocabulary, taxonomy, and values of indigenous societies, usually concentrating on a particular domain of nature such as garden soils, medicinal plants, or mammalian prey.

The accumulating record of publications in ethnoecology demonstrates that indigenes possess an impressive wealth of accumulated knowledge on the ecology of the various ecosystems in their habitat. As a specific example, the investigations of William Balee have revealed that the Ka`apor recognize at least 768 species of plants and they know each species from the stages of seed through reproductive adult. Beyond mere taxonomic identification, the Ka`apor have the intelligence, knowledge, technology, skills, and ingenuity to use these plants for their subsistence, economic, social, medicinal, ritual, and aesthetic activities. At least 112 of the plants known to the Ka`apor have various medicinal uses (Balee 1989, 1994).

Amazonians classify not only different species in their habitat, but also different kinds of environments. In the Peruvian Amazon, for example, the Matsigenka distinguish 69 different environments based on vegetation, seven based on fauna, and an additional 29 based on various abiotic factors. They also recognize ten different types of soils (Shepard, et al., 2001). Another indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon, the Matses, identify as many as 178 different environments (Fleck and Harder 2000). In addition, various cultures have detailed and effective local classifications for land forms, river conditions, weather patterns and seasonality, astronomical phenomena, and so on.

All of this ecology is complicated, however, by the reality that many Amazonian cultures do not segregate the material and mental, the natural and supernatural, and the material and mental, unlike Westerners. Certainly dualistic thinking can be valid and useful in some analyses, but in others it can be arbitrary and even misleading. Western dualities such as animal and human are challenged in the Amazon. For instance, many residents from diverse cultures and religions believe that shape-shifters exist; that is, animals that might assume human form and vice versa. Usually shape-shifters are animals species that are unique, mysterious, and powerful from a human perspective, such as jaguars, anacondas, otters, and dolphins. For example, the dolphins are aquatic and shaped like fish, but recognizable as a kind of mammal in their nursing of young (see Slater 1994). Often there are taboos on hunting and eating such species (Smith 1996).

The above indicates that there is far more to the Amazon environment from an indigenous perspective than the mere material realm of the biophysical (e.g., Rival 1993, Wilbert and Simoneau 1990). This is the province of the shaman in particular, a part-time religious specialist and healer who may communicate with and even travel in the spiritual realm, usually with the assistance of psychotropic or hallucinogenic plant preparations or other ritual vehicles.

COLONIAL ECOLOGY

Beyond the indigenes, the descendants of the first or original colonizers of the Amazon, millions of other people have migrated into the region in the last few centuries since its “discovery” by Europeans. The total human population of the Amazon is more than 25 million today. Most of these people are the peasants of the region, living in rural areas with a mixture of subsistence and market economies. Also they are in various ways and degrees a biological, cultural, religious, linguistic, and ecological mixture of Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians, as reflected in the Spanish word mestizo.

Until recent decades the peasants of the Amazon have been neglected by Western researchers as well as government and economic development agencies. However, heroic charismatic leaders of non-governmental organizations such as labor unions like the rubber-tapper Chico Mendes have attracted attention to these rural societies, their cultures, economies, needs, struggles, and rights (Revkin 2004, Schwartz 1989). These peasant societies also have rich and fascinating histories, cultures, ecologies, sciences, philosophies, and religions.

During nearly twenty years of intermittent fieldwork with riverine peasants (caboclos) in the Brazilian Amazon, Nigel Smith (1996) collected myths, folktales, and legends about spirits. Many peasants, like indigenes, believe in areas of the forests and waters that are enchanted (lugares encantados in Spanish). These places may be associated with drowning, ghosts, mysterious lights, and other extraordinary phenomena. They are thought to be frequented by potentially dangerous spirits and therefore avoided. These are in effect nature reserves. Smith refers to such beliefs and customs as subliminal messages about environmental conservation. He asserts that these beliefs influence the way resources and places are used and that this helps to preserve the biotic productivity of species of game, fish, and plants. The spiritual ecologies of Amazonians provide cultural checks on overexploitation of natural resources (cf. Slater 2002).

Since Europeans first started exploring the Amazon in the mid-16th century, this region has probably attracted more attention than any other including for literary and graphic artists (Gheerbrant 1992, Smith 1990, Wassman 1991). This environment provides something like a natural analog of the Rorschach inkblot test for Westerners with an independent agenda— economic, political, religious, artistic, or scientific. Furthermore, the ambivalence of Western civilization toward the “jungle” is reflected in numerous binary oppositions like paradise/hell, rich/poor, domesticated/wild, culture/nature, harmony/chaos, peace/war, good/evil, and so on. Thus, the Amazon has been viewed by Westerners alternatively as jungle (green hell) or paradise (garden of eden)(Heinzman 1990, Putz and Holbrook 1988, Slater 2002, 2003).

Such contradictory and contested images are also reflected in the scientific literature, although usually more subtly, such as in Meggers' characterization of the Amazon as a "counterfeit paradise." The reality of the Amazon is not a simple matter of either-or, always-or-never, or all-or-nothing. Instead it is a mixture of positive and negative elements, and the relative weight given to either depends on the approach, experience, and biases of the observer. Furthermore, it is important to systematically and critically analyze images of this region because they may influence government and economic development policies and their implementation for better or worse. In essence, those with a positive image are more likely to want to conserve the environment, whereas those with a negative one are more likely to want to conquer and even destroy it for some supposed greater good. In part it is the role of Western science to help resolve contradictory and contested images by putting them to the test of empirical observations and critical analyses (e.g., Slater 2002).

At the same time, both the positive and negative images usually view the “jungle” as wilderness, nature in its fullest expression independent of human influence. However, in various places, ways, and degrees the idea of wilderness has been challenged increasingly in recent years, and some, like Balee, have argued that a significant portion of the terra firme forest in Amazonia is actually anthropogenic.

Likewise, the native or indigenous peoples of the Amazon have been viewed ambivalently by Western civilization as either "noble savages" (via Jean Jacques Rousseau) or "ignoble savages" (via Thomas Hobbes). This polarity can be seen in a comparison of the ethnographic representations of the Desana as noble and the Yanomami as ignoble by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff (1971) and Napleon A. Chagnon (1997), respectively.

Recently, the so-called "myth of the ecologically noble savage” as natural conservationist has been challenged and debated. This “myth” is the idea that traditional indigenous societies are usually sustainable as they live in some kind of balance with nature. Opponents of this strawman argument have tried to use rare and extreme cases of natural resource depletion and/or environmental degradation by indigenes to refute the “myth.” But this is analogous to the proverbial matter of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Furthermore, while the challenges are supposedly scientific, actually they have a hidden agenda that is clearly political, even if sometimes inadvertently rather than purposefully so (Hagan 1980,Sponsel 1992).

Usually the "truth" lies in the middle, rather than at either extreme. Furthermore, the attackers confuse the victim for the villain. In Amazonia, most traditional indigenous societies tended to be sustainable with the population below the carrying capacity of the environment (ecological equilibrium), especially in the terra firme areas. However, even along major rivers during the first phase of European contact explorers observed almost continuous settlements for tens of kilometers or more with populations estimated at tens of thousands or more, yet wildlife was still abundant. With contact and change any degree of ecological equilibrium can become seriously disrupted, sometimes to the point of resource depletion and environmental degradation.

In modern times, this is partly because under new circumstances the locals have no economic choice, if they are to survive and to enjoy some of the benefits (e.g., medicines) and conveniences (e.g., outboard motors for boats) of Western society. If any indigenes and other locals become environmental “villains” of sorts, then usually it is because they have become victims of Western colonization or “development” (e.g., see Stearman 1990). At least part of the answer to this dilemma may be in providing sustainable economic alternatives and recognizing human rights (including land rights and self-determination). The sustainable harvesting of non-timber forest products is one possible alternative in many situations today, and it can build on traditional practices at the interface of farm and forest, namely agroforestry.

The immediate causes of environmental and social degradation and destruction are the superficial symptoms of much deeper or ultimate causes. The latter are essentially problems of economic and social justice, and in turn human rights (Hecht and Cockburn 1989). The poor would not invade the Amazon as gold miners and other exploiters and destroyers if the national government and international agencies were successful in dealing with poverty and related problems in the non-Amazon portions of their countries. At the other extreme, the multinational corporations and development banks that transcend the powers of national and international governmental organizations are also an ultimate cause, motivated by profit, or more bluntly— socially-sanctioned greed, and at any expense (environmental and social). The ultimate causes are much more complex and difficult to try to resolve.

The indigenous peoples of the Amazon have contributed much to the rest of the world, although this is seldom recognized, let alone appreciated. For example, the root crop manioc or casava, was probably domesticated in the Amazon sometimes between 7,000 and 9,000 years ago. In the tropics it grows well in even the poorest of soils and is resistant to pests and drought. Conveniently the starchy roots are naturally stored in the ground until there is a need to harvest them for food. Because of such distinct advantages, since European colonization manioc has spread throughout the tropics until today it ranks as the fourth most important source of food energy in the world. Other foods now consumed in many parts of the world that were originally domesticated by ancient Amazonians include the cashew nut, guava, papaya, peanut, and pineapple (Balee 2003, Bruhns 1994, Crosby 1972).

Among numerous native Amazonian technological innovations discovered and developed from nature are the drug curare used to tip arrows and blowpipe darts for hunting monkeys; the poison rotenone from vines and other plants used to stun fish in sections of waterways; and the rubber latex used for water proofing containers and foot ware. In the West, curare is used for anesthesia, rotenone as an insecticide, and rubber for tires and a multitude of other purposes (Bruhns 1994).

The science, technology, and medicine of the residents of the Amazon are encyclopedic in scope and depth. However, with contact this and other aspects of culture are usually degraded or even destroyed, often as people are subjected to the forces of ecocide, ethnocide, and/or genocide (Bodley 1999). This ongoing holocaust in the Amazon is not only a terrible human tragedy, but a great loss for the biodiversity of the Amazon as well as for humanity in general (Lizarralde 2001, Wilcox and Duin 1995).

In recent centuries, and especially the last few decades, experiments in “economic development” by Westerners in the Amazon have repeatedly failed with grave economic, social, and ecological consequences. The accumulated historical record of these many embarrassing failures clearly demonstrates that to this day Westerners do not yet know how to develop the Amazon without degrading and even destroying it (Stone 1993). A different combination of causal factors is responsible for environmental destruction in different places and times in the Amazon, but among the principal ones are cattle ranching, logging, mineral and oil extraction, hydroelectric dams, and transmigration (government colonization programs).

There has been considerable investigation and documentation of Amazonian systems of natural resource use, management, and even conservation. However, most Westerners have not recognized that, prior to European “discovery,” the Amazon had already been discovered, colonized, and even developed by indigenes for millennia (e.g., Denevan 2001). Westerners have no monopoly on economic development. The assumption that they do is only their convenient rationalization for intervention and exploitation (Agrawal 1995, Posey, et al., 1984). If they would recognize and appreciate the intelligence, creativity, philosophy, science, technology, and medicine of traditional indigenous and other societies in the Amazon, then they might learn sustainable, non-consumptive uses of the forest and associated ecosystems. Fortunately, there are some efforts to collaborate with local communities in developing protected areas (McNeely 1995, Pardo 1994, Stevens 1997).

Most attempts to appeal for conservation ignore the human prehistory and history of a region, including previous and current land and resource use, management, conservation, and development as well as indigenous environmental impact in general. Conservationists try to sell forest preservation based on the assumption that the forest is wilderness and based on the economic value of forest products, timber and non-timber, especially pharmaceuticals to cure dreaded diseases with which everyone can identify. In other words, the extrinsic or utilitarian value of the forest is the selling point for environmental conservation (N. Myers 1992, Peters, Gentry, and Mendelsohn 1989).

In Western science, environmentalism, and conservation, the human/nature duality is particularly important. Often Westerners insist that to be valued nature must be pristine wilderness devoid of any human impact (Guha 1997). However, this has been increasingly challenged in recent decades through research in historical ecology, political ecology, and other approaches. Furthermore, more attention and recognition need to be afforded to alternative views of the Amazon by the residents, many of whom do not consider humans and nature to be in opposition.

Western ethnocentric and racist prejudices about indigenous people as uncivilized, economically undeveloped, uneducated and illiterate, superstitious, and even irrational have helped to rationalize the colonization, oppression, exploitation, and destruction of their societies (Bodley 1999, Bryant and Bailey 1997, Maybury-Lewis 2002, Schmink and Wood 1987, 1992). Fortunately, some progress in cross-cultural knowledge, understanding, and appreciation has been made in recent decades revealing the remarkable intelligence, creativity, and worlds of Amazonians. Moreover, they themselves are becoming increasingly organized, vocal, and assertive in defense of their land, resource, and other rights.

CONCLUSIONS

The keys for outsiders to unlock the mysteries of the Amazon include attention to diversity in all its manifestations; to the worlds, perspectives, and concerns of the residents; and to scrutiny of history and colonization. Among other things, this article has suggested that the Amazon was discovered, colonized, and developed long before the arrival of Westerners, and that the latter have much to learn from its long term residents.

Ecological anthropology has pursued mainly basic research focused on systems of land and resource use by traditional indigenous societies (Little 1999). This has been largely motivated by a salvage ethnography or urgent anthropology concern with the underlying assumption that assimilation and integration if not even extinction are inevitable. Past research in the Amazon has examined and debated issues such as the classification of the environments of the Amazon; the role of environmental factors in cultural adaptation and evolution; whether or not traditional indigenous societies are environmental conservationists; the causes, consequences, and solutions of deforestation; and alternatives for sustainable natural resource use in the future in the context of economic development.

Given the accelerating gravity and urgency of the environmental and social degradation and destruction of in Amazonia, it is questionable whether this basic science approach is sufficient or even ethical. It can be argued that a radical ecological anthropology is now required in the Amazon. It would seek to integrate basic and applied research with advocacy and action. It would be concerned primarily with promoting the self-determination and other basic human rights of the residents of the Amazon and with their empowerment through providing strategic information (Borofsky 2005, Ramos 1995, Sponsel 1995b).

The Amazon environment is no longer an undiscovered frontier awaiting Western colonization and economic development. Like never before, it is an economic war zone characterized by suffering from injustice and destruction. The peoples and the environments of the Amazon are endangered. Coming decades will reveal whether or not outsiders have the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to treat the Amazon and its peoples in a more reasonable and just manner than previously. However, if there is any hope for the future of the Amazon, then it lies mostly with the people who actually live there.

Leslie E. Sponsel
University of Hawai`I

NOTES

1. Unless otherwise noted, this section is summarized mainly from Emmons and Feer 1997, Goulding, et al., 2003, Kricher 1999, Prance 2001, Prance and Lovejoy 1985, Reading, et al., 1995, and Whitmore 1998.

2. See Clark and Uhl 1987, Coomes 1992, Moran 1993, and Sponsel and Loya 1993.

3. General sources on the cultures, history, and human ecology of the Amazon include Faron and Steward 1959, Hames and Vickers 1983, Hill 1988, 1996, Roosevelt 1994, Salomon and Schwartz 1999, Sponsel 1995a, Viveiros de Castro 1996, Wilbert 1991, and Wilson 1999.

4. See Dufour 1990, Good 1995a, Hames and Vickers 1983, Sponsel 1986, 1995a, and Werner 1978.

5. Chaumeil 1992, Davis 1996, Luna and White 2000, Perkins and Chumpi 2001, Plotkin 1993, and Schultes and Raffauf 2004. On Amazonian religion in general see Roe 1982, Sullivan 1988, 1989, 2002.

6. General sources on Western colonialism include Bodley 1999, Crosby 1972, Hemming 1978, Maybury-Lewis 2002, and Salomon and Schwartz 1999.

7. Hiraoka 1985, Nugent 1993, 1997, 2003, Nugent and Harris 2004, Pace 1998, Padoch and Pinedo-Vaquez 2001, Slater 2002, and Smith 1996.

8. Challengers include Alvard 1993, Buege 1996, Denevan 1992, Diamond 1992, Ellen 1986, Grande 1999, Hames 1991, Headland 1997, Johnson 1989, Redford 1990, 1991, Redford and Stearman 1993, Smith and Wishnie 2000, Stearman 1994). Those who tend toward the other side include Descola 1993, 1996, Posey 2002, Reichel-Dolmatoff 1971, 1976, 1996, and Smith 1996. Also see Conklin and Graham 1995, Hagan 1980, Jackson 1995, and Turner 1995.

9. See Anderson 1990, Denevan and Padoch 1988, Holloway 1993, Orlove and Brush 1996, Peters 2000, Plotkin and Famolare 1992, and Turner 1995.

10. See Alvarez 2003, Barbosa 2000, Berwick 1992, Broswimmer 2002, Browder and Godfrey 1977, Cleary 1990, Colby and Dennett 1995, Colchester 1997, Fearnside 2002, Kimberling 1991, MacMillan 1999, N. Myers 1992, O’Connor 1997, Rabben 1998, Revkin 2004, Sponsel 1994, 1997b, Sponsel, et al., 1996, Tidwell 1996, Williams 2003, Wood and Porro 2002, and Ziegler-Otero 2004.

11. See Clay 1988, Denevan and Padoch 1988, Peters 2000, Pichon, et al. 1999, Posey, et al., 1984, and Posey and Balee 1989.

12. For examples see Balee 1989, 1994, Budowsky 1976, Fisher 1996, Foesta 1991, Murray 1990, and Peres and Zimmerman 2001.

13. See Balee 1989, 1994, 1995, Callicott and Nelson 1998, Cleary 2001, Cronon 1996, Little 1999, McNeil 1986, Oelschlaeger 1991, Raffles 1999, 2002, Robbins 2004, and Soule and Lease 1995.

14. See Collisson 1996, Fisher 1994, Graeve 1989, Heckenberger 2004, Hildyard 1989, Kane 1995, Little 1999, 2001, O’Connor 1997, Picchi 2000, Revkin 2004, Rival 2002, Tierney 2001, Turner 1995, and Ziegler-Otero 2004.

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