Human Ecology https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00139-3 Ancient Transformation, Current Conservation: Traditional Forest Management on the Iriri River, Brazilian Amazonia William Balée1 & Vinicius Honorato de Oliveira2 & Raquel dos Santos3 & Márcio Amaral4 & Bruna Rocha2 & Natalia Guerrero3 & Stephan Schwartzman5 & Mauricio Torres6 & Juarez Pezzuti6 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 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. Keywords Historical ecology . Iriri River basin . Amazonian forests . Ecological degradation . Forest landscape diversity . Conservation . Traditional societies . beiradeiros (forest peasants) . Brazil Introduction northeastern Brazil in the last decade of the nineteenth century. We demonstrate through forest inventory and archaeological The de facto territory of forest peasants—who call themselves techniques in two contrasting forest types, faunal surveys, beiradeiros - living along the middle Iriri River, Pará state in freelisting of tree terms by beiradeiros and participant obser- the Brazilian Amazon, was included in a Brazilian govern- vation, that the human transformation of the forest on well- ment designated strict nature reserve, the Terra do Meio drained ground (terra firme) began before the oldest known Ecological Station (henceforth ESEC-TM), even though occupation by forest peasants and that it is an anthropogenic many beiradeiros can trace genealogies in the area back six landscape that is more utilized than an adjacent seasonally generations to the initial migration of rubber tappers from inundated forest. The principal finding is that current and his- torical forest peasant populations have not degraded the terri- tory, either terra firme or seasonally inundated forest, after * William Balée more than a century of occupation and use. Community- [email protected] managed tropical forests and indigenous territories may be more effective in halting deforestation and reducing fires than 1 Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, strictly enforced nature reserves (Nepstad et al. 2006; Nelson USA and Chomitz 2011; Porter-Bolland et al. 2012; cf. Terborgh 2 Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará, Santarém, Brazil 1999). Our research supports this view. We examine the length 3 of human occupation, the impact of traditional utilization of Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil 4 resources, and the implications of traditional knowledge (TK) Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá, Tefé, Brazil on diversity of plants and animals over time to evaluate the 5 Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, DC, USA effects – negative or positive – of traditional forest peasant 6 Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil occupation on the ecological integrity of the ESEC-TM. Hum Ecol The approximately 3.4 million hectare ESEC–TM was de- indigenous forest peasant communities south of the Cachoeira creed in 2005 (Brasil 2005) as part of a mosaic of protected Seca indigenous territory up to Mekragnoti Kayapô indige- areas in the Terra do Meio region (Fig. 1)(Schwartzmanet al. nous territory (Fig. 1) (Villas-Bôas et al. 2003). Extractive 2010). ESEC-TM is somewhat larger than Belgium, and reserves are, in contrast to the ESEC-TM, sustainable use covers much of the interfluvial forest between the Xingu and areas, established at the request of traditional local communi- Iriri rivers. It is mostly situated east of the right bank of the Rio ties (Santilli 2005). At present, there are 74 forest peasants Iriri (Fig. 1). The only activities allowed in the ESEC-TM by living inside the ESEC-TM along the Iriri River (ICMBio Brazilian environmental legislation are occupation by govern- 2015), for many others abandoned the area after the decree ment environmental agency staff and scientific researchers’ of 2005 (Alarcon and Torres 2014;Almeidaet al. 2018). To visits (Brasil 2000 also see Barreto Filho 2004), though in date, the region has been little studied scientifically, in part December 2018 in response to a technical report commis- because of its remoteness and difficulty of access. sioned by the Brazilian federal prosecutor’soffice (Ministério Público Federal) and prepared by an interdisci- Recent Human Occupation of the Area plinary research team (Almeida et al. 2018) government is- sued a temporary permit for the local forest peasants to remain Indigenous people historically in the area include Tupí- on the lands they have traditionally occupied inside the ESEC- Guaraní groups, macro-Tupian peoples, and Kayapó societies TM. (Nimuendaju 1948; 1980;Grenand1982; Viveiros de Castro The initial survey for the mosaic conducted by the Instituto 1992;Thieme1993); Rodrigues and Cabral 2012). Although Socioambiental (ISA) for the Environment Ministry proposed there has been no prior archaeological research on the middle the creation of an extractive reserve (Reserva Extrativista, and upper reaches of the Iriri, earlier work on the prehistory of hereafter “Resex”) on the Iriri River including all of the non- its lower course and within its principal tributary, the Curuá, Fig. 1 The mosaic of conservation units of the Xingu and Iriri River basins (map by Juan Doblas, courtesy Instituto Socioambiental, Altamira) Hum Ecol respectively, points to long term habitation (Perota 1979; fundamentally alters, by increase or decrease, species composi- Nimuendaju 2004;Rooseveltet al. 2009). In terms of ethnog- tionanddiversityinanarea,usuallywithmodificationofthe raphy, Von den Steinen in 1884 and Coudreau in 1896 inde- substrate, as in structural changes to the environmental gradi- pendently reached and recorded the mouth of the Iriri. ents of soil or elevation or both. Secondary landscape transfor- Coudreau’s visit coincided with a period of sharply rising mation includes “protection of useful plants,”“attraction of prices for Acre fino rubber. The Hevea brasiliensis found in non-human dispersers of useful plants,”“fire management,” the Xingu basin was considered close in quality to Acre fino “planting,” and “removal of plants not used or of those that (Wagley 2014: 85). In the 1890s, nonindigenous rubber tap- interfere with agroforestry traditions and practices,” such as pers began to populate the Iriri River margins and numbered removing lianas from Brazil nut trees (Levis et al. 2018). For more than 1000 by the beginning of the twentieth century example, when people spit out cacao beans into their household (Snethlage 2002). Contemporary beiradeiro communities of gardens after sucking off the sweet pulp around them they the Iriri basin are descended largely from these rubber tappers inadvertently sow seeds that, after the village moves to a new and their families who migrated from the Northeast (o site, may sprout to become fruiting trees that attract various Nordeste) of Brazil, although they have also acquired local game animals, including Cebus (organ-grinder) monkeys that, traditional knowledge (TK) through interactions with indige- in turn, spread the beans throughout the seemingly abandoned nous populations. village and surrounding fields—all of which becomes emergent The vocabulary of beiradeiros along the Rio Iriri today, forest resulting from secondary landscape transformation specifically in relation to the landscape and its biota, reflects (Balée 1994, 2013). these origins (Table 1), and distinguishes them historically, Rubber tappers were known to plant rubber trees along culturally, and linguistically from the forest peasants of the trails and at campsites (Schroth et al. 2003) that they used more central areas of the Amazon River region who are when they collected rubber (without destroying the trees) until known as “caboclos.” prices fell in the 1980s, when they abandoned that practice Since the collapse of an earlier patron-client system (Schwartzman et al. 2013). They may have felled some beiradeiros have been general extractivists and small-scale caucho trees (Castilla ulei) for white latex in an earlier period farmers (Wagley 2014). Diversity is central to their liveli- (e.g., Hecht 2013), but because the region had a valuable hoods. They collect and market forest resources including species of rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) in relative abundance, rubber, Brazil nuts, babaçu fruits (kernels and mesocarp), it