Home gardens and agrobiodiversity

Smithsonian books has published Home Gardens and Agrobiodiversity, edited by Pablo Eyzaguirre and Olga Linares. What is a home garden? The editors write that ”home gardens are microenvironments within a larger farming system that contain high levels of species diversity and may contain crop species or varieties of species different from those found in surrounding agroecosystems.” They are thus important as reservoirs of agricultural biodiversity and the knowledge to make use of it. The book contains three sections. The first deals with Theory and Methods. It covers, for example, the importance of microenvironments for the selection, evolution and maintenance of home garden plants. The second is a survey of research results from a global project on home gardens, carried out by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and national partners in seven countries and funded by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). The third is in some measure a synthesis of the first two, and looks at how the genetic diversity of key crops can be managed and conserved in home gardens. ”Theres a great deal of diversity in home gardens,” said Eyzaguirre, ”but the most important thing is that everywhere weve looked, people keep the crops they really value close to home. Thats the way to look after agricultural biodiversity.” Eyzaguirre is a senior scientist at Bioversity International in Rome and Linares is a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama. Linares is also a member of Bioversity's Board of Trustees

Etnografia e manejo de recursos naturais pelos índios Deni, Amazonas, Brasil Ethnography and natural resources management by the Deni Indians, Amazonas, Brazil

São raros os estudos envolvendo o uso múltiplo de recursos naturais por populações amazônicas. Este trabalho apresenta um panorama de como os índios Deni, habitantes da região de interflúvio entre dois dos maiores afluentes de água branca da bacia amazônica, os rios Juruá e Purus, utilizam dos recursos disponíveis em seu território. Os Deni são, atualmente, índios que vivem da exploração de recursos da terra firme e de regiões alagadas. São um misto de horticultores e caçadores/coletores, que utilizam toda a sua área para a obtenção de recursos para subsistência. Como regra, deslocam periodicamente seus assentamentos, evitando o esgotamento local de recursos, e provocando a modificação local do ambiente. Esta alteração aumenta temporariamente a disponibilidade de alimento. Áreas com aldeias, pomares e roçados abandonados, por sua vez, tornam-se locais onde se concentram inúmeros recursos da flora e da fauna, posteriormente explorados. O impacto provocado por este sistema é aparentemente mínimo. Os Deni estão contextualizados na periferia de um sistema capitalista, onde a única fonte de renda para adquirir bens que são hoje considerados pelos índios como indispensáveis para sua sobrevivência são os recursos naturais. Estes são e continuarão sendo explorados de maneira a produzir um excedente a ser comercializado para a obtenção de uma série de produtos industrializados, independentemente das opiniões externas. É sobre este patamar que devemos avaliar a sustentabilidade do atual manejo da área.<br>Studies concerning the use of multiple natural resources by Amazonian indians are scarce. This work presents a portrait of how the Deni Indians, inhabitants of an area between two of the most important white-water rivers of the Amazon basin (Juruá and Purus Rivers), exploit natural resources in their territory. The Deni exploit both the upland and floodplain forests. They are a mix of horticulturalists and hunter-gatherers, using their whole territory to obtain what they need to live. As a rule, they move their settlements periodically, avoiding local resource depletion. The Deni modify the landscape at a local level, causing an increase in resource availability. Abandoned villages, fruit orchards and crops are places where floristic and faunistic resources concentrate and are systematically exploited. The impacts of such management are apparently minimal. For the Deni society natural resources are the only way to get goods for survival, but it is inserted in the periphery of a capitalist system which exploits and will continue to exploit natural resources in order to produce a surplus for the acquisition of industrialized products, independently of external judgements. This should be the starting point to evaluate sustainability in this local management system