Abstract
Recent discussions of local knowledge emphasize its dynamic nature invoking local peoples’ ability to effectively integrate traditional or local with science-based or “modern” knowledges. The smallholder timber industry of the Amazon’s estuarine floodplain provides an outstanding example of local patterns of resource management and economic activities transformed from within by smallholder farmers who participated in the industrial timber boom of the 1970s and 1980s. These farmers of eastern Amazonia have developed a vertically integrated local industry based on expertise reflecting profound locally developed knowledge of specific forests and management of ecological processes, individual observation and experimentation, as well as concepts and practices derived from temporary employment by large-scale industrial timber firms. At each stage of the smallholder forestry process—from managing natural regeneration to running small sawmills and marketing lumber—local managers apply an innovative set of practices reflecting their diverse experiences. This combination of technical, market, and ecological knowledge results in forests, timber markets, and economic patterns that do not correspond to many of the widely-held generalizations concerning either local or industrial tropical timber exploitation. This article uses data from 7 years of research in the Amazon floodplain.
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Notes
The research methods and detailed results from that field research are presented in Pinedo-Vasquez et al. (2001), in Human Ecology 29:2 (219–239).
Fictitious names are used here.
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Acknowledgements
An early version of this paper was presented simultaneously at the “Innovative Wisdom: the Contribution of Local Knowledge to Science, Conservation and Development” workshop, Rome, Italy, and the International Society for Ethnobiology, Atlanta, Georgia, October 2000. The authors would like to thank Gary Martin and Carol Colfer for comments on earlier drafts of the paper, which also benefited from comments at the two meetings, and three anonymous reviewers. This material is based upon work supported by the Overbrook Foundation, the National Science Foundation under Grants BCS-0203488 and BCS-0527578, the Land Insitute, Kansas, USA, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) support to the PLEC program.
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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10745-007-9150-5
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Sears, R.R., Padoch, C. & Pinedo-Vasquez, M. Amazon Forestry Tranformed: Integrating Knowledge for Smallholder Timber Managemet in Eastern Brazil. Hum Ecol 35, 697–707 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-006-9109-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-006-9109-y