Etnoconhecimento, conservação e valor dos bens comuns no alto Solimões

Abstract

The objective of this research was to contribute to the study on the knowledge of the Amazonian populations and their strategies for the conservation of the environmental system. The methodological basis used was the study of multiple cases, complemented by auxiliary analysis methodologies, as well as, by several techniques and data collection instruments. Edgar Morin's paradigm of systemic complexity was the epistemological pillar of this research, guiding the interviews, surveys, workshops, focus groups, cultural trails, observations, and the subjects' daily lives. The chosen cases were the communities of São José, in a lowland ecosystem, and the indigenous community of Nova Aliança, in a land-based ecosystem, both located in the municipality of Benjamin Constant, in the upper Rio Solimões region, Amazonas. The incursions to these places were carried out in the period from 2016 to 2019, seeking to make a deep immersion as to the way of life of the residents, as well as their ways of handling and using commons, as well as their processes of self-organization with the environmental system in which they operate. The inhabitants of these places are family farmers, living off work in agro ecosystems, developing plantings of different species in the fields, in the fallow areas and in the backyards / farms, in addition to extracting plant and animal material from the forest (through hunting), complementing food and ensuring survival of their families. The river is a separate “chapter” due to the essentiality in the life of farmers in these communities. Through it, the rise and fall of the waters are observed, through it too, whether it goes or arrives, and through it, the main source of food for the residents of the two communities is extracted: the fish. The surveys and analyzes of the data collected in the field, showed that in São José and Nova Aliança, the daily life experienced and worked in family agro-ecosystems, explains strategies developed by farmers, in the face of emergencies that arise. These strategies emerge from the knowledge learned over generations, in the management of local agrobiodiversity and biodiversity, where these indigenous and non-indigenous family farmers are transforming the environment into agro-ecosystem landscapes, in which they make their choices, experiments and decisions come alive, and propagating a conservation process that promotes environmental sustainability. Farmers survive beyond the consumption of what they plant or extract, from an income composed of the sale of surplus production or extraction, social benefits from the government and pluriactive activities developed in schools, health centers, city hall, in commercial establishments existing in the communities themselves and for the street commerce practiced that it commercializes, mainly local delicacies. This movement that gives dynamism to both communities was called “Ethnoeconomy”, based on concepts established by Cavalcanti (2001), Rodrigues (2008) and Noda, S. (2000). And this “local Amazonian economy”, which has its specificities dependent on the culture of the populations of each locality, ensures and makes it possible to efficiently manage the use of commons, based on the attribution of a utility value, which permeates the need of conservation exercised in these communities. Therefore, the practical application of the knowledge of indigenous and non-indigenous family farmers from São José and Nova Aliança, in their processes of social, cultural, economic and environmental self-organization, evidenced in this study, provide important information about conservation and sustainability in Amazonian communities, and how their way of life and ethno knowledge gives value to commons accessed and managed collectively