The Last Move of the Ribeirinho: Indigenous Sovereignty and Servitude in the Middle and Lower Rio Negro Basin, Brazilian Amazonia

ABSTRACTThe Last Move of the Ribeirinho: Indigenous Sovereignty and Servitudein the Middle and Lower Rio Negro Basin, Brazilian AmazoniabyFrancisco Boavista PontualDoctor of Philosophy in Environmental Sciences, Policy, and ManagementUniversity of California, BerkeleyProfessor Claudia J. Carr, ChairThe ribeirinhos (mestizo or "generic indian" river dwellers) amount for the largest indigenous contingent in the Pan-Amazonia, yet have remained virtually invisible and unrecognized in spite of being a living and diversified cultural entity undergoing their ethnic transfigurations since the 18th century. During the past decades, many ribeirinho households from rural communities located in the Middle and Lower Rio Negro Basin have left behind their subsistence grounds and moved to the nearest towns in what seems to be an anomalous phenomenon of rural-to-urban migration. The observed migrations seem to lack the most common Amazonian push factors ⎯ such as land grabs, loss of ecosystem services, and forced displacements; while the common pull factors ⎯ such as access to urban-based public services and the job market ⎯ are either of very low quality or simply not available.In this study, I wanted to understand who are the present-day Middle and Lower Rio Negro ribeirinho, how their livelihoods have been changing throughout the centuries, why they have such high mobility and how can it serve their long-term survival strategies, and how they seemed to keep a say about their lives after many centuries of service dedicated to a myriad of patrons?I provide a comprehensive historical background and analysis on the ribeirinho ethnogenesis and general history, as well as the origins and evolution of patron-client relationships during the past four centuries. Based on the contexts derived from this initial analysis, I designed and conducted the first Middle and Lower Rio Negro regional scale household survey of ribeirinho families and rural communities to shed light on their present-day identities, socio-political organization, cultural perceptions and expressions, household micro-economy, livelihood dynamics, drivers of mobility and main survival strategies. I argue that the apparently paradoxical exodus from a supposedly "better" rural existence to a "worse" semi-urban or urban one is in fact a present day expression of ribeirinho historical survival strategies that kept them alive as cultural entities, and is now delivering a response to opportunistic circumstances of the 21st century. The future of the ribeirinhos and the Rio Negro basin depends on the development priorities and policies yet to be adopted and implemented by the Brazilian government. The ribeirinhos have been the main driving force of all Amazonian socio-economic cycles, where they have played roles of servitude as a means of keeping their sovereign capacity to self-determine their own way to survive and take care of their families. This study suggests that -- if the coercive patrons are substituted by a supportive and functional State -- the ribeirinhos seem to be willing to shift their livelihoods and use of their profound ecological and geographical knowledge and regional experience towards socio-economic activities associated with sustainable rural development projects

A taxonomic reassessment of Cacajao melanocephalus Humboldt (1811), with the description of two new species

The author of the last published systematic review of Cacajao recognized 2 subspecies of black-headed uakaris (black uakaris): Cacajao melanocephalus melanocephalus and C. m. ouakary. As a result of a series of black uakari surveys and collecting expeditions to several tributaries of the Rio Negro and of morphological and molecular analyses of museum specimens and specimens we collected during field expeditions, we reassess their taxonomy. We describe a newly discovered species of black uakari from the Rio Aracá, a left bank tributary of the Rio Negro, Amazonas, Brazil. We also show that ouakary is a junior synonym of melanocephalus and provide a new name and a new description for Cacajao melanocephalus melanocephalus in the Pico da Neblina region of Brazil and Venezuela. Based on genetic, morphological, and ecological evidence, we propose that there are 3 species of black uakaris. We named the Rio Aracá species Cacajao ayresi sp. nov. (Ayres uakari) in honor of the late José Márcio Ayres, a pioneer in uakari research and conservation. We named the Neblina black uakari Cacajao hosomi, after the Yanomami word for uakaris. The new taxonomic arrangement provided here implies that the conservation status of black uakaris needs to be reassessed. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

The Brazilian Cerrado is becoming hotter and drier

The Brazilian Cerrado is a global biodiversity hotspot with notoriously high rates of native vegetation suppression and wildfires over the past three decades. As a result, climate change can already be detected at both local and regional scales. In this study, we used three different approaches based on independent datasets to investigate possible changes in the daytime and nighttime temperature and air humidity between the peak of the dry season and the beginning of the rainy season in the Brazilian Cerrado. Additionally, we evaluated the tendency of dew point depression, considering it as a proxy to assess impacts on biodiversity. Monthly increases of 2.2−4.0℃ in the maximum temperatures and 2.4−2.8℃ in the minimum temperatures between 1961 and 2019 were recorded, supported by all analyzed datasets which included direct observations, remote sensing, and modeling data. The warming raised the vapor pressure deficit, and although we recorded an upward trend in absolute humidity, relative humidity has reduced by ~15%. If these tendencies are maintained, gradual air warming will make nightly cooling insufficient to reach the dew point in the early hours of the night. Therefore, it will progressively reduce both the amount and duration of nocturnal dewfall, which is the main source of water for numerous plants and animal species of the Brazilian Cerrado during the dry season. Through several examples, we hypothesize that these climate changes can have a high impact on biodiversity and potentially cause ecosystems to collapse. We emphasize that the effects of temperature and humidity on Cerrado ecosystems cannot be neglected and should be further explored from a land use perspective