Ethnoecological surveys: a methodological experience in indigenous lands and its lessons about environmental relations

Abstract

This article is about partial results of a consultancy carried out for an international technical cooperation project in three indigenous lands in the middle course of the Purus River, Amazonas State. The main objective of the consultancy was to collect basic information about the actual use of environmental resources by indigenous groups in their demarcated lands for supporting future initiatives of territorial management to be elaborated by the Amerindians themselves. The methodology of the so-called ethnoecological surveys is based on a set of anthropological and ecological fieldwork techniques applied to short-term activities. Although the procedure does not allow collecting in-depth information, it is possible to state as one of the results that the environmental relations of regional indigenous peoples can be better explained as adaptations to their social environments than to their natural ones. This is illustrated by the examples of Paumari and Jamamadi indigenous environmental relations.