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

围绕土著人民资源利用和保护的辩论已从对20世纪70年代和80年代“高贵野蛮人”假说的检验转向对影响资源利用可持续性的多种社会、经济和生物因素的分析。狩猎活动，特别是许多土著群体的狩猎活动，可能受到基于精神信仰(宇宙学)、社会仪式和自然历史知识的内部控制的严格管制。尽管有证据表明宇宙论在规范资源使用方面发挥了关键作用，但关于土著人民过度捕捞猎物和放弃传统狩猎习俗的大部分工作，特别是在中美洲和南美洲北部的新热带地区，侧重于市场一体化的影响，而忽视了精神和其他文化习俗。这一研究项目将检验这样一个基本假设，即土著社会保留传统习俗和宇宙观可以在融入国家社会的过程中缓冲它们，从而防止土著社会本身的生物多样性和生态系统退化。这一假设将通过量化资源使用做法和不同族群社区对传统宇宙观和做法的保留程度不同的生物多样性状况来进行评估。该项目将位于巴西亚马逊北部170万公顷的Raposa土著地区。该地区马库西人的狩猎动态为研究复杂性的理论和实践提供了一个极好的系统。在分布在拉普萨不同地貌的206个村庄中，狩猎做法和与巴西社会的融合程度各不相同。将利用定量和定性方法开发和检验动物种群动态和人类狩猎做法的机械模型。将在地理信息系统中收集、整合和分析社会经济数据、野生动物数据和遥感数据。除了更好地了解土著地区人与生物多样性之间的联系外，该项目的成果还包括：(1)为Macuxi及其合作机构编写教材；(2)为学生举办跨部门、跨校园和跨学科的远程协作研究生研讨会；(3)扩大妇女和少数族裔学生对科学的参与；以及(4)加强科学基础设施，将不同专业领域的机构连接成一个教学和研究网络，使那些通常只能进入自己的学院的学生受益。该项目将有助于制定有效的发展政策和保护生物多样性，并将有助于为以热带大部分地区为特征的自给自足或半自给社会中的人-自然耦合系统提供理论背景。研究结果将与关于低技术猎人在更新世灭绝中的过度捕杀作用以及环境条件和社会组织和决策形式对自然资源枯竭强度的协同影响的讨论有关。这一结果将与正在进行的关于“公园里的人”的作用以及土著人民对全世界生物多样性保护的贡献的辩论特别相关。这项研究的地理位置对其本身具有重要意义。罗莱马涵盖了未经研究和基本上未经管理的高多样性圭亚那盾森林-稀树草原过渡的很大一部分。该地区是地球上最后的荒野地区之一，从干燥的稀树大草原经过中原和潮湿的森林到山地云雾森林和特普伊栖息地。对于这一关键生态区，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的内部文化动态如何影响生物多样性模式和生态系统功能以及如何受其影响的重要见解，并对拉普萨和土著人民保持重要存在的其他地方的人与环境的互动产生影响。该项目得到了2005财年环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的一个奖项的支持，该竞赛的重点是自然和人类耦合系统的动力学。

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.