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Social learning is hypothesized to result in shared knowledge and skills, trust, self-efficacy, and democratic decision-making for collective action. This paper uses a multi-method approach, including ethnography and nonparametric and multivariate statistics, to test this hypothesis and describe what specific process characteristics can predict social learning outcomes. Data are based on two communities, each with a subset of members participating in social learning processes for communal timber management and collective Brazil nut marketing in the Bolivian Amazon. Those who participated in the social learning process had significantly more knowledge about communal forest management, gained more skills, were more active in specific management activities, and had more intentions to work collectively than those who did not. The development of trust during the process, the equal involvement of all who participated, and the presentation of various ideas were most predictive of these outcome variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mercury is known to be a powerful neurotoxin, particularly in its organic form. Amazonian populations living along contaminated rivers are exposed to mercurial contamination through fish consumption, but spatial disparities of contamination have very seldom been explored. The problem was addressed along the river Beni, in the Bolivian Amazon. Fifteen communities have been studied by a multidisciplinary research team, to explore the socio-geographical determinants of contamination by mercury. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, from the community to the regional level, this paper shows how spatial contrasts of mercury contamination are determined by contrasted types of resource management and contrasted social networks from one community to another, and how the places' and societies' specificities play an essential role in the determination of the mercurial risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale fisheries in developing countries are often vital to the livelihoods of the rural poor, yet the dynamic and variable nature of household engagement in local fisheries remains poorly understood. This paper describes a small-scale fishery for aquarium fish in two proximate villages of the Peruvian Amazon, and explains observed differences within and between villages in participation, reliance and organisation of the fishery. A framework is developed to guide the systematic description and characterisation of small-scale fisheries organisation in Amazonia and beyond. An improved understanding of the socioeconomic factors that shape the organisation of artisanal freshwater fisheries promises to better inform research and management initiatives aimed at promoting sustainable local fisheries and poverty reduction among fishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the remaining tropical forests of lowland Latin America, many are inhabited by indigenous peoples, and the sustainability of their land uses is a point of heated debate in the conservation community. Numerous small-scale studies have documented changes in indigenous land use in individual communities in the context of expanding frontier settlements and markets, but few studies have included larger populations or multiple ethnic groups. In this paper we use data from a regional-scale survey of five indigenous populations in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon to describe their agricultural land use practices and investigate the factors that affect those practices. We find the areas cultivated by indigenous households to be small compared to those of nearby mestizo colonists, but a large proportion of indigenous cultivated area is in commercial land uses. We also construct multilevel statistical models to investigate the household and community-level factors that affect indigenous land use. The results reveal significant influences on cultivated area from contextual factors such as access to markets, oil company activities, and the land tenure regime, as well as from household characteristics such as demographic composition, participation in alternative livelihood activities, and human, social and physical capitals. Overall the results are most consistent with market integration as an underlying driver of land use change in indigenous territories of the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research featuring demographic factors in environmental change has focused on processes operating at the level of national or global populations. This paper focuses on household-level demographic life cycles among colonists in the Amazon, and evaluates the impacts on land use allocation. The analysis goes beyond prior research by including a broader suite of demographic variables, and by simultaneously assessing their impacts on multiple land uses with different economic and ecological implications. We estimate a system of structural equations that accounts for endogeneity among land uses, and the findings indicate stronger demographic effects than previous work. These findings bear implications for modeling land use, and the place of demography in environmental research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s the Brazilian Amazon has received over 1 million migrant farm households from other regions of the country, many of whom were attracted to government-sponsored frontier settlement programs that offered free tropical forest land. As a result, pressures on tropical forests have intensified along several settlement corridors throughout the region. Despite their importance as agents of landscape change, surprisingly little is known about the land use practices of these farmers. This paper briefly reviews the research literature on smallholder land use patterns in Amazonia, describes the recent history of one important agricultural land settlement program in the western Brazilian Amazon state of Rondônia, and, based on 240 household surveys conducted in three separate settlement locations in the state, highlights key differences in land use patterns among the rural population. Typologies of farming systems are presented on the basis of cluster analysis of land use data and ANOVA tests. The findings indicate considerable complexity and heterogeneity in smallholder farming systems. Spatial variations in farming system types may be due to geographic differences in soil regimes, the social histories of specific communities, and site-specific responses to exogenous variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions of indigenous peoples with the surrounding non-indigenous society are often the main sources of social and environmental changes in indigenous lands. In the case of the Suruí in Brazilian Amazonia’s “arc of deforestation,” these influences are leading to deforestation and logging that threaten both the forest and the sustainability of the group’s productive systems. The Suruí tribal leadership has initiated a proposal for an economic alternative based on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). This has become a key case in global discussions on indigenous participation in REDD. The realism of the baseline scenario that serves as a reference for determining the amount of deforestation and emissions avoided by the proposed project is critical to assuring the reality of the carbon benefits claimed. Here we examine the SIMSURUI model, its input parameters and the implications of the Suruí Forest Carbon Project for indigenous participation in climate mitigation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Inter-Oceanic Highway is among the first wave of large infrastructure projects under the auspices of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America, which proposes regional integration as a means of economic development. Such projects have reignited debates over infrastructure impacts, which in many ways center on the ramifications for natural resource management. We pursue an analysis of the implications of highway paving for local livelihoods by focusing on the effects of market connectivity on livelihood diversity. Given that infrastructure brings shocks to affected regions, we argue that livelihood diversity is usefully interpreted in terms of household resilience to such shocks. We draw on rural household surveys from the tri-national frontier where Bolivia, Brazil and Peru meet in the southwestern Amazon, where the Inter-Oceanic Highway has recently been paved. The findings show that households more connected to markets in terms of travel time and road paving have less diverse livelihoods. This confirms concerns about regional integration and rural household vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite improved national censuses and 'micro-demographic' studies, demographic processes and health conditions among indigenous populations in Amazonia and elsewhere in lowland Latin America are not well understood. A new source of demographic and health data has emerged in the past decade, namely meso-scale surveys initiated and administered by indigenous organizations. These surveys offer the potential for filling information gaps, shedding light on culturally specific factors that shape demographic processes and health, and empowering indigenous organizations with data that could inform health initiatives. This article assesses the indigenous-run survey '2005 Health Analysis of the Shuar and Achuar Nations' of eastern Ecuador in which the authors were involved, which reached 1,943 households in 257 communities in Morona-Santiago Province. We present findings on fertility, migration, sanitation, and health, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the survey. We argue that despite flaws in the survey design and implementation, this survey revealed important linkages among fertility, migration, and health. Such surveys have the potential to provide much needed detail, representativeness, and cultural specificity that macro and micro data sources cannot provide. We conclude with recommendations to improve surveys of this type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature on conservation and land reform politics concentrates on how local actors are characterized dualistically as either environmental villains or heroes. Here I present three different frames as exemplary of the multiple narratives at stake as actors create environmental subjectivities in relation to political opportunity, based primarily on ethnographic field research in a case study of Projects for Sustainable Development (PDSs) located in the Transamazon highway region of the Brazilian Amazon. I argue that local identities are mediated by their shifting relationships with other interested actors. Through a historical analysis of different frames of identity and land use, I examine how and why representation struggles occurred and shifted, based upon the ways in which powerful actors took advantage of political opportunities. This led to indeterminate outcomes in different local struggles across the region. In the process, local voices were often undermined in favor of interests of more powerful outsiders. The political process through which such struggles occur yield geographically and socially uneven effects contingent upon key events and contestation from disparate groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used cultural consensus models to test whether hunters shared perceptions of wildlife abundance and the relative importance of hunting and fishing in a Guarayo indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. Results show that highly prized animals that were considered rare are either those with lower reproductive rates and more sensitivity to land use changes and harvest (white-lipped peccary and spider monkey) or those with marked seasonal distribution patterns (barred sorubim and tiger-fish). Rapidly reproducing and resilient species (agouti and armored catfish) were perceived as abundant. More tapirs and red brocket deer were present than predicted by scientific models possibly because hunters were harvesting these species in new forest management areas. Residents identified hunting and fishing among their most important livelihood activities, recognized bush meat and fish as basic food resources, and expected wildlife harvests to be part of their future livelihoods, although market-based livelihoods and domestic replacements for bush meat were reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike neighboring disciplines, anthropology rarely studies how actual future events affect current behavior. Such studies could lay the groundwork for studies of ethno-forecasting. Psychologists argue that people forecast poorly, but some empirical work in cultural anthropology suggests that at least with weather, rural people might make reasonably accurate forecasts. Using data from a small-scale, pre-industrial rural society in the Bolivian Amazon, this study estimates the effects of future weather on the current collection of planted crops and wildlife. If actual future events affect current behavior, then this would suggest that people must forecast accurately. Longitudinal data covering 11 consecutive months (10/2002–8/2003, inclusive) from 311 women and 326 men ≥age 14 in 13 villages of a contemporary society of forager-farmers in Bolivia’s Amazon (Tsimane’) are used. Individual fixed-effect panel linear regressions are used to estimate the effect of future weather (mean hourly temperature and total daily rain) over the next 1–7 days from today on the probability of collecting wildlife (game, fish, and feral plants excluding firewood) and planted farm crops (annuals and perennials) today. Daily weather records come from a town next to the Tsimane’ territory and data on foraging and farming come from scans (behavioral spot observations) and surveys of study participants done during scans. Short-term future weather (≤3 days) affected the probability of collecting planted crops and wildlife today, although the effect was greater on the amount of planted crops harvested today than on the amount of wildlife collected today. Future weather beyond 3 days bore no significant association with the amount of planted crops harvested today nor with the amount of wildlife collected today. After controlling for future and past weather, today’s weather (mean hourly temperature, but not rain) affected the probability of collecting wildlife today, but today’s weather (temperature or rain) did not affect the probability of collecting planted crops today. The study supports prior work by anthropologists suggesting that rural people forecast accurately. If future weather affects the probability of harvesting planted crops and collecting wildlife today, then this suggests that Tsimane’ must forecast accurately. We discuss possible reasons for the finding. The study also supports growing evidence from rural areas of low-income nations that rural people tend to protect their food production and food consumption well against small idiosyncratic shocks or, in our case, against ordinary daily weather that is not extreme. However, the greater responsiveness of daily foraging output compared with daily farming output to today’s weather suggests that foraging might not protect food consumption as well as farming against adverse climate perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resurgent protectionists advocate a return to strict nature protection characterized by excluding most people from ecologically fragile areas. Certain groups of indigenous residents, namely those with low population densities, simple technologies, and subsistence economies, are seen as conservation friendly, but groups who are experiencing demographic growth, using Western technologies, and producing for the market are perceived as incompatible with biodiversity conservation. Using insights from common property theory as well as ethnographic observations of the Huaorani Indians of Ecuador, I illustrate how such assumptions constitute a “conservation Catch-22” in which cultural conditions deemed compatible with biodiversity conservation are precisely those from which we wouldnotpredict conservationist practices to emerge. Romanticized conditions deemed harmonious with nature lack the incentives necessary for people to develop conservationist practices. Conservation is not a state of being, but a social process inextricably linked to social and political institutions influencing resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]