Paper short abstract:

In the Brazilian Amazon, the development of NRM plans represents a significant indigenous people attempt to find endogenous solutions to cope with the social and environmental changes affecting their lands, by combining indigenous ecological knowledge with new management practices.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past forty years, the socio-environmental situation of the Western Brazilian Amazon has greatly changed. Migration from the forest interior towards the riverbanks and the progressive settlement near urban areas, population increase, the evolution of the relationship between local communities and the national society, the growing pressure and dependence from the external market, are all elements that attest the on-going changing process within indigenous lands. Today, one of the main challenges indigenous peoples are facing is to find adequate and endogenous solutions to manage their territories for copying with new environmental conditions and conservation policies, without compromising their cultural values. In this framework, the development of Natural Resource Management (NRM) Plans of Indigenous Lands, represents one of the most interesting indigenous people attempts to adapt traditional NRM practices with new land management requirements, combining indigenous land use activities and innovative techniques in order to face the rapidly changing reality.

This paper describes some of the NRM activities carried out by Kaxinawá communities of the State of Acre, drawing attention to the dynamic nature of indigenous management systems, as result of the progressive combination of traditional and new environmental knowledge and practices. However, several factors can affect the incorporation of new skills and information within the local knowledge system. In this framework, the paper analyses why some management practices are easily integrated into the body of local knowledge, whilst others struggle to be experimented and incorporated, as they clash with indigenous cultural values and local ways of perceiving the environment.