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

BE/CNH：亚马逊地区的生物多样性动态和土地利用变化：生态系统与土著人民资源利用决策之间的多尺度相互作用

• 批准号: 0837531
• 负责人: Jose Manuel Fragoso
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-01 至 2011-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0837531&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Biodiversity; Dynamics; Land; Use

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.

围绕原住民资源利用和保护的争论已经从检验 20 世纪 70 年代和 1980 年代的“高贵野蛮人”假说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。 尤其是许多土著群体的狩猎行为可能受到基于精神信仰（宇宙论）、社会仪式和自然历史知识相结合的内部控制的严格监管。 尽管有证据表明宇宙学在调节资源利用方面发挥着关键作用，但大多数关于游戏过度开发和土著人民放弃传统狩猎做法的研究，特别是在中美洲和南美洲北部的新热带地区，都侧重于市场一体化的影响并忽视精神和其他文化习俗。 该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学可以缓冲他们融入国家社会的过程，从而防止土著社会本身造成生物多样性和生态系统退化。 这一假设将通过量化某一族群社区的资源利用实践和生物多样性状况来评估，这些社区对传统宇宙学和实践的保留程度不同。 该项目将位于巴西亚马逊北部占地 170 万公顷的拉波萨土著地区。 该地区马库西人的狩猎动态为复杂性研究的理论和实践提供了一个良好的桥梁。 分布在拉波萨异质景观中的 206 个村庄的狩猎方式和融入巴西社会的程度各不相同。 将使用定量和定性方法开发和测试动物种群动态和人类狩猎实践的机械模型。 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内收集、整合和分析。 除了更好地了解土著地区人类与生物多样性的联系外，该项目的成果将包括 (1) 为 Macuxi 及其合作机构提供的教育材料，(2) 学生合作的远程研究生研讨会跨院系、校园和学科，(3) 扩大女性和少数族裔学生对科学的参与，(4) 通过将不同专业领域的机构连接成一个有利于学生的教学和研究网络，加强科学基础设施通常只能访问该项目将有助于制定有效的发展政策和生物多样性保护，并将有助于为热带地区的自给或半自给社会中的人与自然耦合系统提供理论背景。 研究结果将涉及以下问题的讨论：低技术狩猎者的过度捕杀在更新世灭绝中的作用，以及环境条件、社会组织形式和决策对自然资源消耗强度的协同效应。 其结果对于正在进行的关于“公园里的人”的作用以及土著人民将为全球生物多样性保护做出的贡献的辩论尤其密切。 这项研究的地理位置本身就很重要。 罗赖马州覆盖了圭亚那地盾森林-稀树草原过渡区的大部分未经研究和管理的高多样性地区。 该地区从干燥的稀树草原到湿地和潮湿的森林，再到山地云林和特普伊栖息地，是地球上最后的荒野地区之一。 对于这个关键生态区，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受其影响的重要见解，对拉波萨和土著人民保留重要存在的其他地方的人类与环境相互作用产生影响。 该项目得到了 2005 财年环境生物复杂性特别竞赛的奖项的支持，该竞赛重点关注自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。