BE/CNH: Biodiversity Dynamics and Land-Use Changes in the Amazon: Multi-Scale Interactions Between Ecological Systems and Resource-Use Decisions by Indigenous Peoples

关于土著人民利用和保护资源的辩论已从1970年代和1980年代对“高贵野蛮人”假说的检验转向分析影响资源利用可持续性的多种社会、经济和生物因素。特别是在许多土著群体中，狩猎活动可能受到内部控制的强烈管制，这些控制基于精神信仰（宇宙学）、社会仪式和自然历史知识的结合。尽管有证据表明宇宙学在调节资源利用方面发挥了关键作用，但大多数关于土著人民过度开发和放弃传统狩猎行为的工作，特别是在中美洲和南美洲北部的新热带地区，都集中在市场一体化的影响上，而忽视了精神和其他文化习俗。这个研究项目将检验一个基本假设，即土著社会保留传统习俗和宇宙观可以缓冲它们融入国家社会的进程，从而防止土著社会本身造成生物多样性和生态系统退化。这一假设将通过在保留传统宇宙学和实践的程度不同的一个族裔群体的社区中量化资源利用实践和生物多样性状况来评估。该项目将建立在巴西亚马逊北部170万公顷的Raposa土著地区。该地区马库西人的狩猎动态为复杂性研究提供了一个很好的理论与实践的桥梁系统。在Raposa分布在异质景观上的206个村庄中，狩猎习俗和与巴西社会的融合程度各不相同。将采用定量和定性方法开发和测试动物种群动态和人类狩猎做法的机制模型。社会经济数据、野生动物数据和遥感数据将在地理信息系统中收集、整合和分析。除了更好地了解土著地区人类与生物多样性之间的联系外，该项目的成果将包括：(1)为马库西人及其合作机构提供教育材料；(2)举办远程研究生研讨会，让学生跨部门、校园和学科合作；(3)扩大妇女和少数民族学生对科学的参与。(4)通过将具有不同专业领域的机构连接到一个教学和研究网络来增强科学基础设施，这将使通常只能访问自己所在机构的学生受益。该项目将有助于制定有效的发展政策和生物多样性保护，并将有助于为热带大部分地区的自给或半自给社会的耦合人类-自然系统提供理论背景。研究结果将有助于讨论低技术猎人的过度杀戮在更新世物种灭绝中的作用，以及环境条件和社会组织形式以及决策对自然资源耗竭强度的协同作用。研究结果将对正在进行的关于“公园里的人”的作用和土著人民将对全世界生物多样性保护作出的贡献的辩论产生特别密切的影响。这项研究的地理位置本身就很重要。罗赖马覆盖了圭亚那盾林区向稀树草原过渡的大部分未被研究和管理的高度多样性。该地区从干燥的稀树草原到mesic和潮湿的森林，再到山地云雾林和特普伊栖息地，代表了地球上最后的荒野地区之一。对于这个关键的生态区域，生物多样性的未来掌握在土著人民手中。这项研究将提供关于土著社会内部文化动态如何影响和受生物多样性模式和生态系统功能的影响的关键见解，并对Raposa和其他土著人民保持重要存在的地方的人与环境相互作用产生影响。该项目得到了2005年度环境生物复杂性特别竞赛的支持，该竞赛侧重于自然和人类系统耦合动力学。

Debate surrounding resource use and conservation by indigenous peoples has shifted away from tests of the "noble savage" hypothesis of the 1970s and 1980s towards analysis of the multiple social, economic, and biological factors that affect the sustainability of resource use. Hunting practices in particular among many indigenous groups are probably strongly regulated by internal controls, based on a combination of spiritual beliefs (cosmology), social rituals, and natural history knowledge. Despite the evidence for the key role of cosmology in regulating resource use, most work on game overexploitation and the abandonment of traditional hunting practices by indigenous peoples, particularly in the Neotropics of Central America and northern South America, has focused on the effects of market integration and ignored spiritual and other cultural practices. This research project will test the fundamental hypothesis that retention of traditional practices and cosmology by indigenous societies buffers them against the process of integration into the national society, thereby preventing biodiversity and ecosystem degradation by the indigenous societies themselves. This hypothesis will be evaluated by quantifying resource-use practices and biodiversity status among communities of one ethnic group that differ in their degree of retention of traditional cosmology and practices. The project will be based in the 1.7 million-hectare Raposa Indigenous Area in the northern Brazilian Amazon. The dynamics of hunting by the Macuxi people of this region offer an excellent system for bridging theory and practice in the study of complexity. Hunting practices and degree of integration to Brazilian society vary among 206 villages distributed across the heterogeneous landscape in Raposa. A mechanistic model of animal population dynamics and human hunting practices will be developed and tested using quantitative and qualitative approaches. Socioeconomic data, wildlife data, and remotely sensed data will be collected, integrated, and analyzed within a geographic information system. In addition to a better understanding of human-biodiversity linkages in indigenous areas, outcomes of this project will include (1) educational materials for the Macuxi and the institutions that work with them, (2) a distance-linked graduate seminar in which students collaborate across departments, campuses and disciplines, (3) broadening of the participation of women and minority students in science, and (4) enhancement of the infrastructure for science by linking institutions with different areas of specialty into a teaching and research network that will benefit students who would normally have access only to their own institution.This project will contribute to the development of effective development policies and biodiversity conservation and will help provide theoretical background for coupled human-natural systems in the subsistence or semi-subsistence societies that characterize much of tropics. Research results will be relevant to discussions on the role of overkill by low technology hunters in Pleistocene extinctions and the synergistic effects of environmental conditions and forms of social organization and decision making on the intensity of natural resource depletion. The results will be particularly germane for the ongoing debate on the role of "people in parks" and on the contribution that indigenous peoples will make to biodiversity conservation worldwide. The geographical location of this study is significant unto itself. Roraima covers a large portion of the unstudied and largely unmanaged high diversity Guiana Shield forest-savanna transition. The area, which grades from dry savannas through mesic and wet forests to montane cloud forest and tepui habitats, represents one of the last wilderness areas on Earth. For this key ecological area, the future of biodiversity lies in the hands of indigenous peoples. This study will provide key insights regarding how the internal cultural dynamics of indigenous societies influence and are influenced by biodiversity patterns and ecosystem function, with implications for human-environment interactions in Raposa and elsewhere where indigenous peoples retain an important presence. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2005 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.