Mobilidade Yanomami e os Efeitos à Paisagem Florestal de seu Território

Abstract

The Yanomami are a hunter-gatherer and gardener people with high mobility. Their mobility influences game reproduction and the regeneration of forest in agricultural clearings. The Yanomami are experiencing increasing contact with the wider Brazilian and Venezuelan populations (i.e., state-based societies), with consequent exposure to new risks and opportunities. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of Yanomami settlement on the forest in the Brazilian portion of their territory and to determine whether increasing sedentarization influences forest regeneration. Landsat images were examined for each of four points in time, each based on a mosaic of images from within a two-year period. The mosaics were separated by intervals of seven years. Garden clearings were related to the demographic situation of the groups. Mobility was detected in all three intervals for both garden clearings and dwelling places and few sedentary groups were found. Most of the sedentary groups maintained alternative residences. The Yanomami cleared 16,856 ha (0.17% of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Brazil) over the 21 years covered by this study. Individuals in mobile groups deforested more than those in sedentary groups, but secondary-forest regeneration occurs mainly in clearings made by mobile groups. Permanent settlements had impeded regeneration of 48% (2025 ha) of the area cleared prior to 1988. The implantation of a health-care system has led to population growth but has not increased sedentarization.