Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and Development of the Amazon

Abstract

This chapter seeks to explain the "dilemma" of Amazonia by proposing that systematic study and understanding of the ecological knowledge systems of the Amazon Basin's most ancient inhabitants, the Amerindians, -can help resolve the dilemma. It deals with easily delineated categories of indigenous knowledge that suggest fields of research for Western science. With the extinction of each indigenous group, the world loses millennia of accumulated knowledge about life in, and adaptation to, tropical ecosystems. The obvious source of new ideas and information lies in the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples. The chapter focuses on folk ecological knowledge is based primarily upon data collected during field work with the Northern Kayapo Indians between 1977 and 1978. Although most Indian societies are already extinct, and those remaining face imminent destruction, there is still time to salvage knowledge about the Amazon from surviving indigenous systems.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 41 citations exist upstream.