Abstract
The Espinhaço mountain range in Minas Gerais is characterized not only by its great biodiversity but also by its closely associated cultural diversity. Inhabited by groups of humans for over 12,000 years, the Espinhaço Range underwent significant change with European colonization, particularly due to the eighteenth century search for gold and diamonds, and Africans enslaved for this purpose. As a result of this process of occupation and interaction, several traditional rural communities were formed which inherited ecological knowledge and built highly complex ecosystem management systems. The interactions between these communities and rocky fields play a central role in the environmental history of the region. Being located at higher elevations these fields were generally used for grazing animals, plant extraction, and even agricultural crops and housing. The cultural and biological importance of the region due to existing socio-ecological processes have contributed to the formation of a diversity of people and forests which was made even more valuable with the creation of the Espinhaço Biosphere Reserve, in 2005. However, the current context of territorial disputes over this mountain range reflects the different meanings and social projects in the region. The advances of large capitalist enterprises based in the region contributes to a scenario of territorial and environmental conflicts where culturally differentiated communities try to defend their traditionally occupied lands against the advances of real estate speculation, overlapping full protection conservation units, eucalyptus monocultures and implementations of big industrial mining projects. In this context, the objective of this chapter is to describe the historical and political dimensions of the biocultural diversity of the Espinhaço mountain range, focusing especially on areas of rocky fields. The chapter critically reflects upon the naturalization of the political and economic processes that have come to threaten the cultural diversity and environment of this region due to ethnoecological and ecological policy.
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Notes
- 1.
“The vegetation that covers the region is represented by rocky fields and high-altitude grasslands, savannas and mainly semideciduous forests. The occurrence of a particular vegetation type is strongly influenced by climatic and morphological conditions. […] There is a mosaic of vegetation and floristic landscapes along the mountain range and which is one of its greatest fascinations and is reflected in its western and eastern parts that define roughly altitudinal transitions, sometimes between rocky grasslands and savannas (San Francisco Basin), sometimes between rocky fields and Atlantic Forests (eastern basins) and sometimes between high-altitude grassland and savanna (lower latitudes). Interfaces with the Atlantic Forest, by the way, happen when the denser vegetation penetrates the eastern slope and persists along watercourses (riparian or gallery forests), and also in geological depressions and geomorphologically favorable mountain range tops (forest patches). The limestone outcrops, however, that occur in transition zones with the São Francisco Depression, on limestone rocks of the Bambuí Group, dominate the dry forest areas) (Gontijo 2008, pp. 10–11).
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- 3.
The part of the Espinhaço range in Minas Gerais State is where most previous studies, especially geological, took place, emphasizing the importance of strengthening the understanding about its biota. In this sense, scientists and environmental NGOs, focused on biodiversity conservation research, with the support of government environmental agencies which gather information and perform studies on the Espinhaço Range and have already confirmed the existence of more than six thousand species in their biota.
- 4.
According to the Federal Decree 6.040/2007, Traditional Peoples and Communities are culturally differentiated groups who recognize themselves as such, which have their own forms of social organization, which occupy and use territories and natural resources as a condition for their cultural, social, religious, ancestral and economic way, using knowledge, innovations and practices generated and transmitted by tradition.
- 5.
Ribeiro (2005) states that the origin of the term sertã, from etymological studies, is derived from desertão (large desert) and possibly express this notion in European expansionism throughout the planet, to establish itself as a center that radiates civilization for several “wildernesses” to be conquered. The term was already used in Portugal, certainly since the fourteenth century, to refer to areas within its territory and far from Lisbon.
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Space set of right order and territorial greatness under certain morphoclimatic and phytogeographical domain. These characteristics refer to the concept of core area—where the physiographic and biogeographic conditions form a relatively homogeneous and extensive complex (Ab’Sáber 2003).
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- 8.
The tradition here is not seen as the past surviving until the present, but as the past, which in the present, builds the possibilities of the future (Woortmann 1990).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the traditional communities of Espinhaço collaboration with our research. His study received financial support from the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development; research grant no. 563304/2010-3.
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Almada, E.D., Anaya, F.C., Monteiro, F.T. (2016). The People of the Mountains: The Biocultural Heritage of the Espinhaço Range in Minas Gerais State, Brazil. In: Fernandes, G. (eds) Ecology and Conservation of Mountaintop grasslands in Brazil. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29808-5_20
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