Landscapes and ethno-knowledge in the Ticuna and Cocama agriculture at upper River Solimões, Amazonas, Brazil

Abstract

The units of landscape in the Cocama and Ticuna agriculture, in the upper River Solimões, are characterized by production arrangements and management of natural resources. This paper aims to characterize these agro-ecological based practices, the landscaped results and its regional applicability. The survey was conducted in Novo Paraíso, at Bom Intento Island, and in Nova Aliança, both located in the municipality of Benjamin Constant, state of Amazonas, Brazil. The social and economic organization of Ticuna and Cocama Peoples is founded on kinship and communal ownership of natural resources, including spaces for gathering. Family units, despite their weak linkages with the market and its rules, have in the logic of reciprocity the motivation for the production, transmission and management of resources and factors of production. The landscapes are reconstructed by agro-ecological production derived from ethno-knowledge and correspond to the inherent processes of management and conservation of flora and fauna. This process allows the existence of complex imbrications of constantly changing landscapes in which forms of production are recreated for sufficiency and sustainability.