Abstract
Our research on Caiçara ethnoecology in the Juatinga Ecological Reserve, in Paraty, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, focuses on basket, canoe, and paddle making to understand Caiçara knowledge and stewardship of the landscape. Caiçara differentiate individual plants within a given species to select suitable specimens for a specific cultural product. Choices are based on a combination of attributes such as length of roots, quality of fibers, and tree size and health. Resources are found in multiple ecotopes within a diversity of forest types; not all ecotopes produce suitable individuals for particular cultural products. Hence, people need access to areas of Juatinga Ecological Reserve beyond their community for their material and cultural needs. Our findings are of international significance in suggesting ways to make conservation and sustainable use compatible, since many resource-dependent communities are losing their resource rights in the face of increasing conservation pressures.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the research participants from the Juatinga Ecological Reserve. We thank the funding agencies below. Dr. Pedro Fiaschi and Graziela Dias Blanco assisted with plant identification. Specimens were deposited in the Herbarium FLOR at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and the Herbarium EAFM of the Federal Institute of Science and Technology of Amazonas in Manaus.
Funding
This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001 (doctoral research award to DP), Organization of American States (OAS) for funding for fieldwork, CNPq (productivity grant for NH 309613/2015-9), the IDRC/CRC International Research Chairs Initiative (A. Begossi / F. Berkes), and the Canada Research Chairs Program (http://www.chairs.gc.ca).
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This project was approved by the Research Ethics Board of the University of Manitoba (JFREB J2012:155) and INEA (Research Permit INEA 051/2015). The ethics code protocols of the International Society for Ethnobiology were followed throughout the research process. Informed consent was obtained from research participants prior to data collection.
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Peterson, D., Berkes, F., Davidson-Hunt, I. et al. The Caiçara in Juatinga Ecological Reserve, Brazil: Landscape Ethnoecology of Cultural Products. Hum Ecol 47, 827–838 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-019-00126-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-019-00126-3