Ludivine Eloy

Seed exchange networks for agrobiodiversity conservation. A review.

The circulation of seed among farmers is central to agrobiodiversity conservation and dynamics. Agrobiodiversity, the diversity of agricultural systems from genes to varieties and crop species, from farming methods to landscape composition, is part of humanity’s cultural heritage. Whereas agrobiodiversity conservation has received much attention from researchers and policy makers over the last decades, the methods available to study the role of seed exchange networks in preserving crop biodiversity have only recently begun to be considered. In this overview, we present key concepts, methods, and challenges to better understand seed exchange networks so as to improve the chances that traditional crop varieties (landraces) will be preserved and used sustainably around the world. The available literature suggests that there is insufficient knowledge about the social, cultural, and methodological dimensions of environmental change, including how seed exchange networks will cope with changes in climates, socio-economic factors, and family structures that have supported seed exchange systems to date. Methods available to study the role of seed exchange networks in the preservation and adaptation of crop specific and genetic diversity range from meta-analysis to modelling, from participatory approaches to the development of bio-indicators, from genetic to biogeographical studies, from anthropological and ethnographic research to the use of network theory. We advocate a diversity of approaches, so as to foster the creation of robust and policy-relevant knowledge. Open challenges in the study of the role of seed exchange networks in biodiversity conservation include the development of methods to (i) enhance farmers’ participation to decision-making in agro-ecosystems, (ii) integrate ex situ and in situ approaches, (iii) achieve interdisciplinary research collaboration between social and natural scientists, and (iv) use network analysis as a conceptual framework to bridge boundaries among researchers, farmers and policy makers, as well as other stakeholders.

Payments for ecosystem services in Amazonia. The challenge of land use heterogeneity in agricultural frontiers near Cruzeiro do Sul (Acre,Brazil)

Amazonia became a target area for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives in deforestation. We analysed the implementation of a PES scheme in Acre (Brazil) by taking into account land use heterogeneity in an agricultural frontier. Justified by the modernisation of deforestation control policies, the programme promotes agricultural intensification through fire-free practices. In this way, the PES tends to focus on long-established settlements, where farmers are wealthier and the landscape is dominated by pasture. Agricultural intensification may be adapted to foster reforestation. In order to curb deforestation a specific policy is needed for targeting remote areas where initial stages of deforestation usually take place. Bypromoting only land sparing, PES programmes in Amazonia may lose sight oftheir socio-economic and environmental objectives due to limited spatial targeting.

Urbanização e transformação dos sistemas indígenas de manejo de recursos naturais: o caso do alto rio Negro (Brasil)

We analyse the transformations in indigenous resource management due to urbanization and migratory flows in the Upper Rio Negro, Northwest Amazon. Data were obtained from ethnographic and agro-economic research, combined with a GIS analysis of population, land tenure and landscape distribution in the peri-urban zone of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, the main town of the region. Each indigenous community is associated with a traditional territory, within which are articulated many kinds of resource use rights, ranging from individual exclusive ownership to common property. In the peri-urban area, private ownership has become the main land-use right. Due to the increasing scarcity of available resources around Sao Gabriel, newly arrived indigenous families have to negotiate land-use rights within their large kinship networks and to resort to a multilocal strategy. This multilocal land-use system may be seen as an expression of the adaptation of traditional natural resources management.

Urbanisation and transformation of indigenous resource management: the case of Upper Rio Negro (Brazil)

Indigenous resource management is transforming in the face of urbanisation in Amazonia. We wonder how land tenure arrangements feature a new kind of resource management in peri-urban areas. Data were obtained from ethnographic and agro-economic interviews combined with a geographic information system analysis of population and land tenure distribution nearby Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, Northwest Amazonia. The territories of each indigenous village are composed by many kinds of land use rights, ranging from exclusive ownership to common property. In the peri-urban area, private property has become the main land use right. But most of indigenous families resort to a multi-sited land use in rural-urban areas. The multi-sited pattern is associated with diversification of land use rights in the same households and extended families. These innovations reveal the adaptation of indigenous resource management.

On the margins of soy farms: traditional populations and selective environmental policies in the Brazilian Cerrado

In the Cerrado, the expansion of soybean cultivation since the 1990s has coincided with the strengthening of environmental regulations. We analyze how the two main environmental policies – Protected Areas and the Forest Code – have played out at the ground level in western Bahia state. These policies in Cerrado have not been designed to curb the expansion of this agricultural frontier. These norms have, on the contrary, accommodated this expansion because the way environmental managers selectively choose environmental problems and publicize them through specific information systems depreciates traditional fire-dependent production systems. These ‘politics of selection’ are likely to increase competition for resources in the margins of soybean agriculture, which is where traditional populations have now become confined.

Globalization in the Brazilian Amazon Region: Conflicting Answers from “Quilombo” Communities

Globalization is a process that encompasses the accelerated and simultaneous circulation of ideas, goods, and human beings (Appadurai, 1996). In an Amazonian context, this chapter aims at analyzing the impacts of particular land status ownership on the resilience and flexibility of traditional communities facing globalization (Kramer et al, 2009). The Amazon has been part of the global market since the 16th century: from the drogas do Sertao, through the rubber boom, to Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) and acai (Euterpe oleracea), the global demand for Amazonian products has played a crucial role in the phases of human population of this rich basin (Bunker, 1985). Mark Harris (2006), following Moran and Parker, characterizes the “cabocla” populations by their ecological adaptations as well as their economic versatility. During the 1990s and 2000s, a great number of “traditional” and/or indigenous communities were granted land rights in Brazil. Innovative legal statuses were created, either for the sake of environmental protection or as a function of the peculiar special social status of some social groups, mainly indigenous people and remnants of escaped slave communities (i.e. remnant quilombola communities). At the core of these rights is the recognition of a “special relationship” between these traditional communities and their territories. Due to the acknowledgement of this particular link, almost 30% of the Legal Amazon is officially under the responsibility of traditional communities.1 However, traditional communities are now facing contradictory pressures induced by Brazilian public policies and globalization. On the one hand, they were granted land under

New perspectives in fire management in South American savannas: The importance of intercultural governance

Wildfires continue to cause damage to property, livelihoods and environments around the world. Acknowledging that dealing with wildfires has to go beyond fire-fighting, governments in countries with fire-prone ecosystems have begun to recognize the multiple perspectives of landscape burning and the need to engage with local communities and their practices. In this perspective, we outline the experiences of Brazil and Venezuela, two countries where fire management has been highly contested, but where there have been recent advances in fire management approaches. Success of these new initiatives have been measured by the reduction in wildfire extent through prescribed burning, and the opening of a dialogue on fire management between government agencies and local communities. Yet, it is clear that further developments in community participation need to take place in order to avoid the appropriation of local knowledge systems by institutions, and to better reflect more equitable fire governance.

Redes e observatórios da agrobiodiversidade, como e para quem? Uma abordagem exploratória na região de Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre

The diversity of cultivated plants that are selected and preserved by traditional farmers attracts local and national interest, and constitutes an important biological and cultural heritage. In the case of the Amazon, besides the existence of a great set of data on agrobiodiversity, the wide range of methods hampers a synthetic view of its dynamics. To understand this, it is essential to have a monitoring system in the long term in specific sites, or to build observatories and indicators to be shared among local populations, researchers and public policy makers. As an example, we propose an exploratory approach to the agrobiodiversity managed by 52 farmers in two communities of the Cruzeiro do Sul region (Acre), from a qualitative (based on the local names of plants) and quantitative approach (based on the measure of richness). The amplitude of the richness is of 338 cultivated plants, mainly landraces, with a high frequency of species or varieties present in only one or two farmers plots. The structure of this diversity is characterized by the presence of a nested pattern, with a core of plants with greater cohesion.

La construction de territoires multisitués en Amazonie. Le cas des Quilombolas du Trombetas (Pará, Brésil)

Nous explorons les logiques des territoires multisitues de communautes quilombolas (descendants d’esclaves marrons) d’Amazonie. Leurs systemes de mobilites articulent des espaces discontinus, a la fois ruraux et urbains, grâce a la dispersion des residences familiales et a la complementarite entre profils de mobilite. Un ensemble de regles collectives d’appartenance et d’acces aux ressources assure la continuite entre ces espaces et donne sens a la notion de territoire multisitue. Nous discutons ensuite les defis associes a la reconfiguration recente de ces territoires, compte tenu de l’evolution des systemes de production et des injonctions liees a la gestion environnementale.