David S. Salisbury

Transboundary political ecology in Amazonia: history, culture, and conflicts of the borderland Asháninka

International boundaries in the lowland Amazon forest were historically drawn according to the scramble for natural resources. This paper uses a case study from the Peruvian and Brazilian border and the Ucayali and Juruá watersheds to understand the political ecology of a border process from contact to 2004. Results demonstrate how global resource demand and ecological gradients drove boundary formation and the relocation of indigenous labor to the borderlands. Forgotten in the forest after the fall of rubber prices, the borderland Asháninka emerged to challenge loggers incited by the global demand for high grade timber. The transboundary impacts of this resource boom highlight discrepancies between the Brazilian and Peruvian Asháninkas ability to mobilize power. A transboundary political ecology framework is necessary to grasp the heterogeneity and dynamism of natural resource management along boundaries and borderlands forged and tempered by historical resource booms.

Cultural Diversity in the Amazon Borderlands: Implications for Conservation and Development

Abstract The Amazon basin, one of the worlds core areas for biocultural diversity, includes or borders on nine South American states. The remote and biodiverse Amazon borderlands shared by these states contain over 12,000 kilometers of international boundaries and are increasingly threatened by transboundary infrastructure initiatives. This paper combines geographic information systems (GIS), field observations, and document research to investigate the relationship between cultural diversity and the Amazon borderlands: (1) Are the borderlands more culturally diverse than the Amazonian countries and Amazonian lowland rainforest biome? (2) If so, what characterizes this diversity? Results introduce the unique characteristics of the Amazon borderlands and underscore the argument for an alternative means of Amazon integration based on standing forest and biocultural diversity.

Fronteras Vivas or Dead Ends? The Impact of Military Settlement Projects in the Amazon Borderlands

The geopolitical initiative of creating military settlement projects, fronteras vivas (living borders), along isolated stretches of the Amazon borderlands transforms land use and livelihoods in unexpected ways. A case study in the Peruvian Amazon explores the natural resource management, household economics, and political geography of a borderland military base and associated settlement. Results find the military settlement projects transboundary impacts create opportunities for international conflict in an age of South American integration.