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Fires are one of the main sources of disturbance in fire-sensitive ecosystems such as the Amazon. Any attempt to characterize their impacts and establish actions aimed at combating these events presupposes the correct identification of the affected areas. However, accurate mapping of burned areas in humid tropical forest regions remains a challenging task. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of four operational BA products (MCD64A1, Fire_cci, GABAM and MapBiomas Fogo) on a regional scale in the southwestern Amazon and propose a new approach to BA mapping using fraction images extracted from data cubes of the Brazilian orbital sensors CBERS-4/WFI and CBERS-4A/WFI. The methodology for detecting burned areas consisted of applying the Linear Spectral Mixture Model to the images from the CBERS-4/WFI and CBERS-4A/WFI data cubes to generate shadow fraction images, which were then segmented and classified using the ISOSEG non-supervised algorithm. Regression and similarity analyses based on regular grid cells were carried out to compare the BA mappings. The results showed large discrepancies between the mappings in terms of total area burned, land use and land cover affected (forest and non-forest) and spatial location of the burned area. The global products MCD64A1, GABAM and Fire_cci tended to underestimate the area burned in the region, with Fire_cci underestimating BA by 88%, while the regional product MapBiomas Fogo was the closest to the reference, underestimating by only 7%. The burned area estimated by the method proposed in this work (337.5 km2) was 12% higher than the reference and showed a small difference in relation to the MapBiomas Fogo product (18% more BA). These differences can be explained by the different datasets and methods used to detect burned areas. The adoption of global products in regional studies can be critical in underestimating the total area burned in sensitive regions. Our study highlights the need to develop approaches aimed at improving the accuracy of current global products, and the development of regional burned area products may be more suitable for this purpose. Our proposed approach based on WFI data cubes has shown high potential for generating more accurate regional burned area maps, which can refine BA estimates in the Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to present an analysis of public policies and the universal supply of drinking water in the municipality of Itaituba, in the state of Pará, Brazil. The methodology used was exploratory research, made possible through a bibliographic survey and interviews. In 2017, information from IBGE indicated that 46.53% of households in Itaituba were served with treated water supply services by the state (COSANPA) and municipal (CASITA) agencies. The survey found that 4,140 homes are supplied by CASITA, with untreated water. It was concluded that, in the municipality of Itaituba, public policies are still at a much lower level of execution, estimating that around 50% of the households in Itaituba do not receive drinking water from either agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy sustainability indicators are essential for evaluating and measuring energy systems' environmental, social, and economic impact. These indicators can be used to assess the sustainability of different energy sources, such as renewable or fossil fuels, as well as the performance of energy systems in various regions or countries. The goal of this paper is to propose a new energy sustainability index based on fuzzy logic for the Amazon region. The fuzzy inference system enabled the operationalization of subjective sustainability concepts, resulting in a final index that can evaluate the performance of the states in the Legal Amazon and compare them to each other. The results indicated that Mato Grosso had the highest ranking, followed by Tocantins, Amapá, Roraima, Rondônia, Pará, Acre, Maranhão, and Amazonas in the last position. These findings demonstrate that the selected indicators and the final index are effective tools for evaluating the energy sustainability of the Amazon region and can aid public managers in making decisions and proposing sustainable regional development policies for the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the stigma associated with cutaneous leishmaniasis, a vector-transmitted parasitic disease, focuses on aesthetic appearance affectation as the leading cause of stigmatisation. However, Indigenous populations in the hinterland of Amazonian Ecuador trigger stigma expressions by recognising (muco)cutaneous leishmaniasis, primarily through atypical smell, followed by the odd voice sound, appearance and taste. This empirical way of recognising symptoms relies on embodied forms of identifying a disease, contrasting the Western supremacy of visuality and demanding to be understood via multi-sensorial anthropology. Through ethnographic research and data retrieved from eighty-three semistructured interviews and fifteen focus groups in seven Ecuadorian ethnic groups – including six Indigenous groups in the Amazon region – this paper analyses how the sensorium is a health thermometer. Findings reveal that differentiated cultural responses to a sense of peril, contagion and social (self)rejection, understood as stigma expressions, are linked to the holistic approach to health (or well-being) shared by Indigenous populations. In forest societies, well-being is explained through successful (non-)human relationships, and disease permeates through bodies that lack balanced relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates International Development Cooperation projects carried out in the Brazilian Amazon in recent decades, analyzing also the involved agents and resources. To achieve this, we referred to information published by the Brazilian Agency of Cooperation and international funding providers. The results indicate the formation of a complex ecosystem comprising interrelated and independent actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the media industry in the US by analyzing Big Tech's entrance into film and television production and the rise of streaming distribution technology. Through a case study of Prime Video, Amazon's prize streaming platform, this study explores how streaming technology has disrupted film and television from multiple perspectives, subjecting the industry to new logics of internet distribution, rooted in platforms, artificial intelligence, digital delivery systems, and big data. In the Big Tech worldview, disruption is an inherently progressive development. However, an analysis of Prime Video reveals how disruption is only the latest manifestation of conglomeration and convergence in the film and television industries. By uncovering the industry logics that govern the era of streaming, this paper analyzes the streaming industry of the present while taking into consideration the cable period in the past to account for the rapid technological development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian Amazon is marked by attempts at infrastructure-driven development. The construction of the Belo Monte dam, the third-largest in the world, brought chaotical and rapid urbanization to surrounding cities. This paper answered whether the Belo Monte dam impacted the level of violent crime in the region after Altamira was ranked as the most violent city in Brazil in 2015. Following a difference-in-difference approach, I explore the timing of the Belo Monte dam construction and the distance from the construction site to identify the causal effect of unplanned urbanization on homicide rate. In two exogenous shocks, the beginning (2011) and the end of the construction (2015), I estimated a significant rise in the homicide rate in closer cities. The results are driven by criminal activity, with drug trafficking being one of the channels behind the rising homicide rate during construction. The homicide victims are mainly the young male population causing a significant loss of human capital. The increasing homicide rate after the end of the construction indicates that the Belo Monte dam may have a long-term effect on the violence level in the region. Violence imposes high social costs and may jeopardize future growth in the Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the way of the modern lexicon culture and civilization in the historical-ethnographic thought of José Veríssimo (1857-1916). Thus, it was argued that miscegenation is the reading key Veríssimo ponders the amazonian society as a comprehensive way of life between civilization and barbarism. This key faced the issue of the formation of nationality, by proposing the Amazonian point of view in the coordinates of Brazilian miscegenation: tapuio as a national element in the Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying urban patterns in the cities in the Brazilian Amazon can help to understand the impact of human actions on the environment, to protect local cultures, and secure the cultural heritage of the region. The objective of this study is to produce a classification of intra-urban patterns in Amazonian cities. Concretely, we produce a set of Urban and Socio-Environmental Patterns (USEPs) in the cities of Santarém and Cametá in Pará, Brazilian Amazon. The contributions of this study are as follows: (1) we use a reproducible research framework based on remote sensing data and machine learning techniques; (2) we integrate spatial data from various sources into a cellular grid, separating the variables into environmental, urban morphological, and socioeconomic dimensions; (3) we generate variables specific to the Amazonian context; and (4) we validate these variables by means of a field visit to Cametá and comparison with patterns described in other works. Machine learning-based clustering is useful to identify seven urban patterns in Santarém and eight urban patterns in Cametá. The urban patterns are semantically explainable and are consistent with the existing scientific literature. The paper provides reproducible and open research that uses only open software and publicly available data sources, making the data product and code available for modification and further contributions to spatial data science analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainability of livelihoods and food security by small-scale colonists in the Amazon have been associated with the dynamics of land use and land cover as well as the ability of combining distinct sources of income and welfare. However, few studies have discussed theoretically how these changes co-evolve, over distinct stages of frontier development and for the same colonist cohort, with the composition and size of farm households. This paper, based on the revision of the extant literature, proposes a Demo-livelihoods theoretical framework that combines and synthetizes three theoretical approaches — the household and land use life cycle approach, the livelihoods and capabilities approach, and the revisited theory of multiphasic responses. The objective is to provide theoretical groundings for empirical studies that unveil how microdemographics (individual and farm household) cohort dynamics in frontier settings such as the Amazon mediate livelihoods (including land use) strategies over distinct development stages. It shows how demographic factors may be significant to define livelihoods at earlier frontier stages and release explanatory power at later stages, when market integration increases and households increasingly adopt diversified livelihoods. Furthermore, demographic dynamics at each frontier stage may be associated with distinct livelihood strategies, including mobility, land use, and deforestation, and thus define the extent and nature of settler´s welfare and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the narrative of vice-chief Meireles Karitiana, with the participation of chief-shaman Cizino Karitiana, who discusses the Karitiana people's origin myth, particularly in relation to the tension between God and Orá, his brother - a tension between good and evil. The paper describes what can be understood of ancestral life, and the value of connecting life and earth today, especially the forest. It highlights some aspects of the myth related particularly to consumption, domination, anthropocentricity, and the transcendent emergence of a third energy from the tension between the 'good' God and his 'bad' brother; this is related to Jungian thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests serve a crucial role in our fight against climate change. Secondary forests provide important potential for conservation of biodiversity and climate change mitigation. In this paper, we explore whether collective property rights in the form of indigenous territories (ITs) lead to higher rates of secondary forest growth in previously deforested areas. We exploit the timing of granting of property rights, the geographic boundaries of ITs and two different methods, regression discontinuity design and differencein-difference, to recover causal estimates. We find strong evidence that indigenous territories with secure tenure not only reduce deforestation inside their lands but also lead to higher secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas. After receiving full property rights, land inside ITs displayed higher secondary forest growth than land outside ITs, with an estimated effect of 5% using our main RDD specification, and 2.21% using our difference-in-difference research design. Furthermore, we estimate that the average age of secondary forests was 2.2 y older inside ITs with secure tenure using our main RDD specification, and 2.8 y older when using our difference-indifference research design. Together, these findings provide evidence for the role that collective property rights can play in the push to restore forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the main spacial transformations that happened in the relationship between the city and the river in Vitória do Xingu, state of Pará, related to the installment of the the Hydroelectric Plant of Belo Monte and it's insertion in the energetic frontier imposed to the Amazon. In methodological terms, a theorical-conceptual review and field trips were made (with photographic records and formulary applications). It is argued that through the construction of the Hydroelectric plant, significant changes happened in the urban dinamic, revealed in the requalification of the city port (its waterfront), consolidation and modernization of the services and business main area and the surge of new settlement spaces in the city's countryside, mainly the road axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most used statistical techniques that include machine learning and data mining for predicting future outcomes with help of data that already exist is known as predictive algorithm. Predictive models are not stable, and they build assumption based on past and present actions. In the paper we are going to introduce Amazon online store and how algorithms know what we like, so they can recommend products to us by their own. One of the biggest innovations in online shopping - first introduced by Amazon - was automatic recommendation generation. The more accurate prediction algorithms are, the more online stores will sell their products. For that reason, prediction algorithms are of great significance for online stores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bredemeyera is a neotropical genus that comprises 12 species of woody vines and sub-erect or scandent shrubs. It occurs from Mexico to Paraguay and nearly all over Brazil. In this paper, we present a complete taxonomic revision of the genus. Bredemeyera ericifolia, a new species from the Brazilian state of Piauí, is here described and illustrated. Lectotypes are designated for Bredemeyera bracteata, B. densiflora, B. densiflora var. glabra, B. floribunda var. puberula, B. huberiana, B. isabelliana, B. laurifolia var. parvifolia, B. myrtifolia, B. parviflora, Catacoma altissima, C. brevifolia, C. lucida, and Securidaca flexuosa. A [second-step] lectotype is designated for B. velutina. Here, the names Bredemeyera altissima and B. lucida are considered taxonomic synonyms of B. divaricata, whereas B. myrtifolia and B. densiflora are synonyms of B. bracteata, and finally, B. disperma is considered a synonym of B. laurifolia. We provide an identification key, descriptions, distribution maps, illustrations, and comments on the conservation status, nomenclature, and taxonomy of all species involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the traditional knowledge on the management of stingless bee colonies and the use of honey by Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities of the department of Loreto, in the Peruvian Amazon. Semi-structured interviews and collection of voucher bees were carried out from June to August 2016 and from November to December 2017. The informants were selected through intentional non-probabilistic sampling (snowball sampling). During the study, 21 communities were visited, of which some of the community members in thirteen communities kept stingless bees. A total of 17 species of stingless bees are reported as used in the communities for either rearing or harvesting of honey from the forest with Melipona eburnea being the most common species. The way communities classify, manage, and use bees depends on how they perceive these insects, informed by knowledge processed and incorporated from other communities. In these communities, they use honey and pollen, with honey being the main product. Fourteen health conditions are treated with honey, with the most treated conditions being related to respiratory ailments, fertility, and reproduction. The study provides a basis for incorporating stingless bees into conservation and sustainable production policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America is plagued by extreme wealth inequality, much of which results from sharp disparities in land ownership. In addition to limiting access of basic goods to millions of Latin Americans, concentrations in land ownership harm the common good. Extreme disparities correlate to sluggish economic growth, inefficient agricultural practices, weakened public institutions, income disparities, and sharp increases in environmental degradation. A related concern is the destruction of indigenous peoples' land in the Amazon and denial of access to land that is rightfully theirs. This paper examines how resources from Catholic Social Teaching help us reflect critically upon and respond to these injustices. It analyzes in particular how Pope Francis and the Amazonian bishops apply the tradition in markedly new ways, ways that are shaped by and directed to this diverse, abundant and unique socio-geographical region. Attention is paid not only to what Catholic Social Teaching can bring to local justice issues, but also lessons indigenous peoples can teach the broader Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the historiographic production initiatives on the history of education in the Amazon, particularly studies of researchers who investigate the state of knowledge about the trajectory of education in the region. The research methodology has a bibliographic survey of books and articles, based on indicators on the history of education in the Amazon or its states, addressing the productions that refer to the period that corresponds to the first initiatives of creation of research groups in History of Education, in the 1980s, until the last twenty years, when there was an increase of studies in the Amazon. We conclude that, in spite of the important advances that have occurred, because it is a historically peripheral region in several aspects and therefore neglected in relation to the South and Southeast of Brazil, for example, it is still necessary to expand the efforts towards the dissemination of its production, which should occur from the training of new researchers in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millions of people across the world live off-grid not by choice but because they live in rural areas, have low income, and have no political clout. Delivering sustainable energy solutions to such a substantial amount of the world's population requires more than a technological fix; it requires leveraging the knowledge of underserved populations working together with a transdisciplinary team to find holistically derived solutions. Our original research has resulted in an innovative Convergence Framework integrating the fields of engineering, social sciences, and communication, and is based on working together with communities and other stakeholders to address the challenges posed by delivering clean energy solutions. In this paper, we discuss the evolution of this Framework and illustrate how this Framework is being operationalized in our on-going research project, cocreating hybrid renewable energy systems for off-grid communities in the Brazilian Amazon. The research shows how this Framework can address clean energy transitions, strengthen emerging industries at local level, and foster Global North-South scholarly collaborations. We do so by the integration of social science and engineering and by focusing on community engagement, energy justice, and governance for underserved communities. Further, this solution-driven Framework leads to the emergence of unique approaches that advance scientific knowledge, while at the same time addressing community needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing number of claims filed by Indigenous peoples against pollution caused by extractive industries makes the challenge of factualizing and measuring the damage caused in their territories necessary. In Peru, the Kukama Kukamiria people are among the most affected by the various spills from the North Peruvian Pipeline since its construction, one of the most well-known occurred in the lower Marañón River in 2014. This paper is about the efforts and limitations involved in aligning the Kukama Kukamiria's experiences with the criteria and frameworks for measuring damage and compensation amid the toxic environment and the complicated time and space of late capitalism. Based on ethnographic research and considering the judicial processes, the analysis found that compensation became a tool of dispute in which incommensurable Indigenous worlds emerged to claim for their incommensurability to exist. But in the Peruvian neoliberal and extractive context, compensation also became a technique for governing Indigenous lives and natures in a way that excludes those worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Businesses need to use sentiment analysis, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to forecast accurately whether or not consumers are satisfied with their offerings. This paper uses a deep learning model to analyze thousands of reviews of Amazon Alexa to predict customer sentiment. The proposed model can be directly applied to any company with an online presence to detect customer sentiment from their reviews automatically. This research aims to present a suitable method for analyzing the users' reviews of Amazon Echo and categorizing them into positive or negative thoughts. A dataset containing reviews of 3150 users has been used in this research work. Initially, a word cloud of positive and negative reviews was plotted, which gave a lot of insight from the text data. After that, a deep learning model using a multinomial naive Bayesian classifier was built and trained using 80% of the dataset. Then the remaining 20% of the dataset was used to test the model. The proposed model gives 93% accuracy. The proposed model has also been compared with four models used in the same domain, outperforming three. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how to generate development while preserving the environment is central to the history of the Brazilian Amazon. Many decades of top-down state interventions conceived and executed under a developmentalist framework have resulted in a socioenvironmental crisis. In response, the Sustainable Oil Palm Production Program (SPOPP) was launched in 2010. It promised to break with developmentalist visions and articulate environmental and sustainability concerns. This paper uses assemblage thinking to examine how these contrasting, often impossible-to-balance, views manifest within SPOPP implementation. We describe how non-human actors (trees, diseases, previous policies and agroecological zoning technologies) interact with human actors. However, powerful actors, in the state and beyond, continue to garner support for their developmentalist interests and thwart or depoliticize environmental and social concerns, thus limiting change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The order Odonata (Insecta) is composed of aquatic insects popularly known as dragonflies and damselflies. Members of this order are closely linked to the conservation status of their habitats; however, the Wallacean shortfall in some regions still remains high. The Volta Grande do Xingu region is known to have high endemism of some groups, such as Actinopterygii (fish), which can be applied to other groups that do not yet have their fauna known at the site, such as the order Odonata. The Wallacean shortfall and constant anthropic changes (for example, the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric) have been obstacles in the preservation of these and other groups. In that regard, the main aim of this paper is to provide a checklist of Odonata (Insecta) adult species from the streams of Volta Grande do Xingu, Pará, Brazil. The collections were carried out in 19 streams in the Volta Grande do Xingu region in September 2019, corresponding to the drought period. A total of 526 specimens were collected, where two suborders, six families, 26 genera and 43 species were identified. Three species of Odonata were registered for the first time in the state of Pará: Erythrodiplax famula (Erichson in Schomburgk, 1848); Acanthagrion chacoense Calvert, 1909 and Epipleoneura lamina Williamson, 1915. These data allow us to help increase the knowledge of Odonata fauna in the streams of Volta Grande do Xingu, a region that is under intense anthropic pressure. This helps to reduce the Wallacean shortfall, with another area sampled for the state of Pará. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Habitat fragmentation remains a major focus of research by ecologists decades after being put forward as a threat to the integrity of ecosystems. While studies have documented myriad biotic changes in fragmented landscapes, including the local extinction of species from fragments, the demographic mechanisms underlying these extinctions are rarely known. However, many of them—especially in lowland tropical forests—are thought to be driven by one of two mechanisms: (1) reduced recruitment in fragments resulting from changes in the diversity or abundance of pollinators and seed dispersers or (2) increased rates of individual mortality in fragments due to dramatically altered abiotic conditions, especially near fragment edges. Unfortunately, there have been few tests of these potential mechanisms due to the paucity of long‐term and comprehensive demographic data collected in both forest fragments and continuous forest sites. Here we report 11 years (1998–2009) of demographic data from populations of the Amazonian understory herb Heliconia acuminata (LC Rich.) found at Brazil's Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP). The data set comprises >66,000 plant × year records of 8586 plants, including 3464 seedlings established after the first census. Seven populations were in experimentally isolated fragments (one in each of four 1‐ha fragments and one in each of three 10‐ha fragments), with the remaining six populations in continuous forest. Each population was in a 50 × 100 m permanent plot, with the distance between plots ranging from 500 m to 60 km. The plants in each plot were censused annually, at which time we recorded, identified, marked, and measured new seedlings, identified any previously marked plants that died, and recorded the size of surviving individuals. Each plot was also surveyed four to five times during the flowering season to identify reproductive plants and record the number of inflorescences each produced. These data have been used to investigate topics ranging from the way fragmentation‐related reductions in germination influence population dynamics to statistical methods for analyzing reproductive rates. This breadth of prior use reflects the value of these data to future researchers. In addition to analyses of plant responses to habitat fragmentation, these data can be used to address fundamental questions in plant demography and the evolutionary ecology of tropical plants and to develop and test demographic models and tools. Though we welcome opportunities to collaborate with interested users, there are no restrictions on the use of this data set. However, we do request that those using the data for teaching or research purposes inform us of how they are doing so and cite this paper and the data archive when appropriate. Any publication using the data must also include a BDFFP Technical Series Number in the Acknowledgments. Authors can request this series number upon the acceptance of their article by contacting the BDFFP's Scientific Coordinator or E. M. Bruna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the themes of language rights, language choice, and language risk to consider linguistic insecurity in the Northwest Amazon (Upper Negro river) region of Brazil. Because the region is home to a large number of languages (c. two dozen), the idea of preserving this diversity is a popular theme in discourses about language in the Upper Negro river. I argue that the ideologies underlying the goal of preserving 'diversity' as a concept are not, in fact, the same ones that have sustained the presence of these languages thus far, especially as concerns the Tukanoan languages of the Uaupés basin (Jackson, J. E. 1983. The Fish People: Linguistic Exogamy and Tukanoan Identity in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press). Paradoxically, the reification of 'diversity' as a characteristic of the Northwest Amazonian Indigenous population has tended to promote homogenisation among groups that have historically valued differentiation from one another. In examining ideologies and practices surrounding each of the three themes of this issue, I suggest that discourses of 'diversity', applied at the local level, can create complex outcomes for the languages they are used to promote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an ongoing initiative that seeks to enhance the detection, monitoring, and reporting capabilities of local communities in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon through the introduction of hardware and digital tools, as a strategy to strengthen their ability to produce socio-environmental evidence. A Community Based Monitoring (CBM) system has been created to link social organizations, fighting for environmental justice, and academics working on the region in topics related to oil extraction and environmental change. This paper first, conceptualize the need for rural participatory systems of data collection, analysis, and distribution of environmental liabilities in extractive frontiers. Second, the paper provides a description of this community monitoring system in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in a way that can be used by communities and researchers in different contexts. Finally, the paper reflects on lessons learned to understand the main challenges and opportunities of similar systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The retail sector in the United States is undergoing an important transformation process, mainly in the last decade, due to the popularization of the internet and e-commerce. This paper aims to study extract the implicit perspectives for each company studied from the pricing of its shares trought the Gordon Model methodology. The results appoint, then, that the growth prospects for the e-commerce leader (Amazon) are much higher than the prospects for other companies, whether in the physical or online segment. The creation of important competitive advantages by Amazon has allowed it to grow faster than its competitors, including Ebay, is not achieving the same success as Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of priority areas for conservation and integrated management actions are essential for the effective maintenance and recovery of natural populations, especially for species overexploited by humans. Amazonian chelonians are a food resource historically used by people, resulting in the decline of species populations and worsening the risk of local extinctions. In this paper, we establish priority areas and define integrated conservation actions for populations of three Amazonian chelonians most threatened by human consumption in Brazil (Podocnemis expansa, P. unifilis and P. sextuberculata). To do so, we used 15 prioritization criteria (ecological, logistical and socioeconomic) estimated with 30 years monitoring data in 15 areas by the Amazon Chelonian Program (in portugues Projeto Quelonios da Amazonia, PQA). Each criterion presented four levels of priority with scores increasing according to the relevance for conservation of chelonian populations. The sum of the scores obtained in each area of the PQA allowed a ranking and four categories of importance for conservation to be defined. We also analyzed the similarity of scores among areas of the PQA and among the prioritization criteria to evaluate the application of integrated conservation action strategies. The areas of PQA were classified as Extremely Important for Conservation (Rebio Trombetas River, Middle Xingu River, Middle Araguaia River, Upper Guaporé River), Very Highly Important for Conservation (Middle Purus River, Middle Juruá River, Crixás-Açu River Mouth, Sub-middle Tapajós River); Highly Important for Conservation (Sub-Middle Araguaia River, Amazonas River Mouth, Middle Mortes River); and Important for Conservation (Middle Guaporé River, Lower Branco River, Flechal River, Afuá River). The prioritization and similarity analyses can support the development of a national integrated plan of conservation actions to reduce the overexploitation of Amazon chelonian populations, according to the ecological, logistical and socioeconomic needs of each PQA area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although protected by the law on fixed prices for books, independent bookshops in France have struggled to maintain their market share against bookselling giants such as Amazon and the chains. In trying to do so, they have developed a rhetoric based on the singularity of the experience in physical shops, stressing a sense of intimacy akin to that associated with the domestic sphere. Their being independent – no matter how slippery the notion – has also been a key argument. Using Pierre Bourdieu's theory of symbolic goods, this paper aims to show that this strategy has been effective in singling out something that 'only' independent retail can provide, something that proves particularly attractive to certain categories of customers. The article draws on semi-structured interviews carried out with owners of small and medium-sized independent bookshops, together with observation during events and debates, to provide some insight into a key element of physical bookshops' resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Amazon has a wide diversity, including forest species with timber and non-timber potential, which often have their use restricted due to a lack of silvicultural information. Thus, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of substrates and temperatures on seed germination of Aspidosperma vagarsii. Therefore, the premise of a completely randomized design was followed, in a 3 x 3 factorial scheme, with three substrates (paper, sand and vermiculite) and three temperatures (20, 25 and 30 °C). The germination percentage, germination speed index and mean germination time were determined, as well as germination relative frequency graphs. In addition, the weight of a thousand seeds, the number of seeds per kilo, and the moisture content was determined. The weight of thousand seeds was equal to 276.4 g, with 3,618 seeds per kilo, and a moisture content of 9.5%. There was no interaction between the studied factors. The sand substrate and temperatures of 20 and 25 °C presented the best results for seed germination of A. vargasii. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the status of visuality in surveillance capitalism by considering its role in the management of Amazon's logistical operations. Whereas Amazon is often portrayed as being at the forefront of developments in surveillance associated with face recognition technologies, a focus on its logistical operations highlights the more mundane role of the barcode scan. The barcode is considered a calm image, central to the operation of capture in the warehouse and beyond. Logistics is here marked by invisualities, wherein visuality is operationalised to optimise logistical flows of data, things and people, rather than geared towards visual forms of surveillance. These invisualities mean that power is exercised primarily through the scan as capture, with power characterised as operational and environmental. Recent developments in logistics towards augmented video surveillance and its associated networked images must also be assessed in the context of this mode of power and its economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to outline the phenomenon of violence against women during the Covid19 pandemic in the states of the Brazilian Northern region. The discussion is based on the theoretical contributions of feminist geography and intersectionality, and on the sociohistorical and cultural aspects that help to compose the studied scenario. Bibliographic research was carried out on websites, official bulletins and scientific works, and the results and discussions developed showed lack of information, which denounces the silencing of northern women including its particularities according to space, culture and descriptors of race, class and gender, which were intensified by the changes resulting from the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first years of the new millennium, the popularization of e-books and widely available digital content built a strong case for the possibility of analog eradication. Within the past few decades, most popular analog forms of entertainment have been replaced by more compact and efficient methods of consumption. Therefore, as e-readers gained momentum in publishing, the industry prepared for the reality that print books could become increasingly irrelevant. However, over a decade later, we have seen something shocking in the context of an increasingly digital society: print books are thriving in a digitized world. In this paper, I will discuss the complex relationship between publishing and the digital sphere and explore the prevalence of print. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using social network and proximity‐based approaches, this paper analyses the effect of two territorial governance arrangements implemented in the Amazonian region in the framework of 'The Territories of Citizenship' programme, which aims to promote interaction and collaboration between the various actors of rural development. In the Amazon region, the great distances between actors made their interactions difficult. Our study reveals, however, that those distances are not insurmountable obstacles to collaboration. Indeed, the measures implemented in the framework of territorial policies promote communication between the different actors of the territories, thus allowing for the development and reinforcement of organized proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The chagra is the agroforestry system adapted to the characteristics of the Amazon region. Recently, there has been a reported loss of biodiversity and traditional knowledge associated with the chagras. This paper characterizes the cultivators, exploring knowledge and expressed value perception in the context of the Amazonian chagra of an indigenous community; also, this prioritizes species, under the optics of commercial opportunity. Methods: A semi-structured instrument was applied to 14 volunteers, asking about marketing preferences and use values of the species; later, a floristic inventory and prioritization workshop was developed. Results: Sixty-two percent of the participants were 50 years or older at the time of the interview. Open conversations showed that traditional knowledge is a matter of practice; and is maintained mainly by the older "grandfathers". Thirty-eight species, belonging to 28 different families, were reported, showing considerable diversity. Seventy-nine percent of the participants consider the Leticia market and sales to tourists as the main marketing scenarios. Conclusions: The Ziora-Amena community centralizes the handling of chagras in the community's older adults, who transmit their traditional knowledge to new generations through oral tradition. Indicators of preference, use, and abundance highlight the food species. The perception of the trade stakeholder encourages research and development of endemic species, with health properties or ingredients for industry, which represent an opportunity of high added value for the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate drivers often have strong effects on the carrying capacity of animal populations, but little is known about how effects differ between regional and local scales. In this paper we evaluated how climate variables were correlated with regional and local fluctuations of a small rodent, Necromys lasiurus , in an Amazonian savanna. Between 2000 and 2019, we evaluated the temporal variation in abundance of N. lasiurus in eight 4.0-ha plots separated by 0.8 – 10.6 km. Using generalized linear mixed models, we found that, at a regional scale, the abundance of rodents captured was positively associated with the abundance in the prior year, but had little relationship with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), which had been shown to affect rats in a single plot in a previous study. However, variation in densities among years was coordinated among some plots, leading to patchiness in population dynamics. Based on the patterns of density fluctuations, the plots formed three clusters. Analyses based on these clusters indicated that only one was strongly affected by SOI, as in the previous study. The differences in the effects of global climate drivers on populations of a single species in relatively homogeneous habitat indicate that predictions about the effects of climate change should be based on simultaneous studies in a variety of sites or they may lead to spurious relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research applies the concept of food sovereignty as a framework to explore the impacts of tourism on Indigenous food systems in the Chakra Chocolate and Tourism Route (referred to as the "Chakra Route" in the paper), a tourist destination in the Amazon region of Ecuador that aims to improve the livelihoods of Kichwa people. Using a qualitative and collaborative research approach, we examine how Kichwa and non-Kichwa people in this destination area understand food sovereignty, particularly concerning tourism development. Findings show that chakra gardens, a traditional agroforestry method, offer a symbolic and practical embodiment of food sovereignty for local people. Participants expressed a variety of values and concerns regarding tourism and chakra, including on destination branding; the role Indigenous women and their traditional knowledge play in tourism; the food choices promoted to tourists; self-determination and the level of participation of Indigenous people in governance of the route. Overall, our research contributes to a pluralistic notion of justice in Indigenous tourism and illustrates how the study of food sovereignty in this Amazonia destination can serve as a holistic and collaborative frame for exploring the multidimensional impacts of tourism on communal well-being, food security, and biodiversity and cultural conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarises recent test excavations at five Mound Village sites in the south-eastern sector of Acre state, Brazil, including Caboquinho, Boa Esperança, Tocantins, Dois Círculos IV and V. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the excavation of these sites refine the chronology of this archaeological tradition. To improve the chronologies of the mound villages in Acre for which radiocarbon dates were available, we modelled them using Bayesian statistics. Bayesian modelling of new radiocarbon dates from basal contexts of nine sites in the region establish the beginning of this archaeological tradition at ~ AD 952-1216. Nine dates from ten construction phases at the Caboquinho site establish the longest sequence from ~ AD 1169-1309 to colonial times. The stratigraphy of the test units reported in this study confirms previous results indicating that mounds are the result of alternating construction and occupation episodes. Dates from the Dois Círculos IV Rectangular Mound Village ~ AD 1367-1451 indicates that Rectangular Villages are broadly contemporaneous with Circular Mound Villages. Single dates from three superimposed villages at Dois Círculos V suggest the succession of village construction. Overall, these preliminary results make a contribution to a better understanding of the timing of emergence and demise of Mound Village construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the effects of the construction of the Belo Monte dam, visible in the streets of Altamira, registered in photographic images, evidenced in the speeches of its residents or those who carry out professional activities and in commerce. Present at different moments in the city, notes and photographs were accumulated since before the dam was implemented in 2009 until 2016, so that in addition to this record, the memory of the researchers, of different actors and positions of social actors on Belo Monte is triggered for the elaboration of this paper. It is concluded by the finding of the end of a boiling cycle and turmoil in the social and economic life of the city, to a moment of depression, lethargy, deceleration, expectation and disenchantment caused by the demobilization of the resources used for this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the border between the states of Pará and Amapá lies one of the largest Brazilian nut massifs in the Amazon. In this region, nut gatherers have been engaged for decades in the extraction of nuts for consumption and/or commercialization. Since the 1990s, national and transnational companies have approached these populations with the intention of proposing business and establishing partnerships. This paper aims to present part of the process of forest certification of the nut woods of RDS Iratapuru, reflecting on its implications and effects. On the one hand, the certification enabled the extractive community to expand its business partners, among them the Brazilian cosmetic company Natura S/A. On the other hand, it required nut gatherers to make significant changes and adaptations. The ethnography was attentive to the disagreements within these agreements and sought to offer a reflection on the divergent understandings and on their stabilization processes, demonstrating that during the forest certification the knowledge of the nut gatherers is confronted to the knowledge of engineers, environmental technicians and forest management specialists. The paper argues that although the difference of assumptions that guide the considered knowledge is striking, it does not obstruct the capacity for communication and movement of both ways of knowing. In this sense, the anthropological literature on predation appears as an analogous way to understand the conflict of presuppositions and their possible arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with a series of urns and vessels related to burial practices probably of indigenous Mundurucu, in the lower Tapajós River, from the archaeological site of Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro (N.S.P. Socorro) - Itaituba, Pará. The paper then evaluates the similarities with ethnohistorical and archaeological data on funerary practices in the region, the description of the excavations in laboratory, presenting data and interpretations on the osteological traces found, contributing to the debates about funerary practices in the Amazon region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing institutional arrangements for supporting sustainable fisheries has been a critical challenge for the governance of common-pool resources, especially in transboundary regions. In this paper, we analyze the impact of governance arrangements on a small-scale fishery system on the Brazil-Bolivia border in the Amazon region. Data collection involved documental analysis, literature review and conduction of semi-structured interviews with fishers and environmental protection/regulatory agencies' staff. We present an exploratory qualitative analysis of the interactions between the fishery system's attributes (biological, environmental, technical and governance), examining institutional arrangements among diverse stakeholders. Results reveal that the small-scale fishery characteristics and the relationships between resources and stakeholders has contributed to stock maintenance and overall sustainability of the fishery system. Nevertheless, we also found that the governance structure is fragile due to weak institutional arrangements within and between countries, resulting in increased vulnerability of the fishery system to imminent threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Serranía La Lindosa is a geomorphological formation with land cover heterogeneity. This area faces a contradictory situation because it has high biodiversity and provides several ecosystem services, and yet it is one of the current largest deforestation sites in Colombia. Bats is a taxonomic group with high expected diversity in La Lindosa, but there is little published information about this group. This paper presents the results of bat inventories carried out during five years in the Lindosa mountain range. Additionally, diversity is compared in terms of species richness, composition, and structure of bat assemblies in two main types of vegetation cover evident in the area, which are humid forests and casmophytic savannas. Inventories collected information on 735 captured bats, corresponding to 46 species. Of these, 14 species were found only in casmophytic savannas, 11 in humid forests, and 19 in both types of vegetation. Thus, there is high complementarity in bat species composition between the two vegetation types. Additionally, the structure of bat assemblies varied between the two environments, with a proportional distribution of species abundance more homogeneous in casmophytic savannas than in forests. Besides, a higher number of rare species was found in casmophytic savannas. In general, the high diversity of bats of the Serranía de La Lindosa could be associated with vegetation heterogeneity, presence of different cave types and evolutionary history of bat species associated with the Guayana Region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw on common-pool resource theory to argue that indigenous territories, when granted full property rights, will be effective at curbing deforestation. Using satellite data, we test the effect of property rights on deforestation between 1982 and 2016. In order to identify causal effects, we combine a regression discontinuity design with the orthogonal timing of homologation. We find that observations inside territories with full property rights show a significant decrease in deforestation, while the effect does not exist in territories without full property rights. While these are local average treatment effects, our results suggest that not only do indigenous territories serve a human-rights role, but they are a cost-effective way for governments to preserve their forested areas. First, obtaining full property rights is crucial to recognize indigenous peoples’ original right to land and protect their territories from illegal deforestation. Second, when implemented, indigenous property rights reduce deforestation inside indigenous territories in the Amazon rain-forest, and could provide an important positive externality for Brazil and the rest of the world in terms of climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights an experience that shed light on how the translanguage pedagogy worked as a beneficial tool of teaching English language in the Amazon, according to the participants of this study. The experience took place in a discipline, in which the future teachers discussed not only the particularities shown in the English language structure, but also became involved a new way of thinking the language. Through oral and narrative practices, it was identified that the participants translanguaging in order to negotiate languages and cultures in a way to appropriate them. It was observed in the linguistic repertoire of the participants, that there was a presence of an "Amazonian identity", when expressing themselves in their additional language, which was interpreted as a way of building a dialogue with the local life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the eighteenth century, Portuguese settlers in Amazonia captured thousands of turtles and crushed millions of their eggs. These turtles, especially the Giant South American River Turtle (Podocnemis expansa), gave these settlers two essential resources: meat and oil. Though there is a rich historiography on turtle hunting, important social and environmental dimensions of the practice in Amazonia during the colonial period have been overlooked. In this paper we focus on how turtles played a key role in the diet and domestic needs of Portuguese settlers in the Amazon rainforest and explore the shape and magnitude of colonialism's impact on these animals. The turtles became prime targets for Portuguese settlers because they were abundant and had characteristics and behavior that made them easy prey. Though P. expansa did not become extinct, Portuguese hunting had enduring impacts on their distribution and abundance that merit consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discuss how Amazon is portraited in Brazilian contemporary art, by analising how two artists, Bené Fonteles and Ernesto Neto, who use Amazon and indigenous people as a source of inspiration for their work have been reported by the media. It analyzes how ecology, environment and shamanism are mobilized in exhibitions and in the artistic work of Brazilian and Amazonian artists, and the reception of these themes in the circuit of contemporary art. The research discusses the main categories mobilized by the media to report the repercussion of these artistic works and which are the symbolic references associated with Amazon present in these discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Brazilian social context, characterized by the enormous ethnic-racial, cultural, religious, and identity diversity, where occurs certain invisibility of the Jews in the national culture and especially in the Amazonian society, it is relevant to research the presence of Jews in Brazil. As in other parts of the country, Amazon was also marked by the arrival of this ethnic-religious community. To understand their historical trajectory, identity, symbolic representations, religious traditions, and practices requires a multidisciplinary approach involving the history, sociology, anthropology, theology, and religious studies. From a literature review, the objective of this paper is to understand the coexistence, the articulation with the local religiosity, and the strengthening of the cultural elements that permeate the Jewish identity and the meaning that the Amazonian populations attribute to the culture, symbols and religious rites of the Yehudei Amazonya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin American indigenous people have undergone changes in their cultural identity, especially as a result of their contact with Western cultures. As such, a measuring instrument is required to determine the extent of this change. In the Amazon, difficulties in obtaining field data have not allowed the establishment of cultural indicators. This paper presents an instrument designed from the indigenous perspective that allows us to measure their cultural identity. The qualitative study focusing on the Ecuadorian Amazon resulted in an instrument that provides information on thirty subscale and five cultural scales, and was successfully tested for validity and reliability. Finally, it was applied to three populations with different degrees of contact with Western society in order to determine their differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining equations to estimate with precision the volume of commercial trees is relevant for decision taking on the use of the forest and on the establishment of public policies for the monitoring and control of natural resources, their valorization and investments. Current paper develops volume equations for the Dense Ombrophilous Forest in Ipixuna, northeastern region of the state of Pará, Brazil. The real volume of 296 sample trees was determined according to the Smalian method. Forty-six trees were selected for a database for the validation of the equations. Twelve mathematic models were tested, of which six had simple entrance and six had a double entrance. Simple entrance models proved to have the best adjustment quality for the Hohenald & Krenn model, with equation v = 5.29918-0.1374d+0.00010d² (R²aj. = 0.84, Sy.x% = 19.81; DMP% = -3.63). In the case of double entrance, the best was Schumacher & Hall model, with equation Logv = -3.7657+1.9242.logd+0.7540.logh, (R²aj. = 0.96, Sy.xr% = 10.46, DMP% = -0.34). After validation of selected equations, the Schumacher & Hall was recommended to estimate the volume of commercial trees in the municipality of Ipixuna due to high precision adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]