Ethnopedology of a Quilombola Community in Minas Gerais: Soils, Landscape, and Land Evaluation

Quilombolas are Afro-brazilian rural peasants who descended from escaped slaves who tried to carve out territories of autonomy (called Quilombos) by collective organization and resistance. Despite many anthropological and ethnopedological studies, little research has been carried out to identify the agricultural practices and the knowledge of people who live in the Quilombos (Quilombolas). Peasant communities who live from land resources have wide empirical knowledge related to local soils and landscapes. In this respect, ethnopedology focuses on their relationship with local practices, needs, and values. We carried out an ethnopedological evaluation of the soils, landscape and land suitability of the Malhada Grande Quilombola Territory, aiming to examine the local criteria involved in land-use decision making, and evaluate the legitimacy of local knowledge. For this purpose, participatory workshops allowed environmental stratification of the Quilombolas into landscape units, recognition of soil types, and evaluation of land-use criteria. This approach was combined with conventional soil sampling, description, and analysis. The Brazilian System of Soil Classification and its approximations to the WRB/FAO system and the SAAT land evaluation system were compared with the local classificatory systems, showing several convergences. The Quilombolas stratified the local environment into eight landscape units (based on soil, topography, and vegetation) and identified eight soil types with distinct morphological, chemical, and physical attributes. The conventional soil survey identified thirteen soil classes, in the same eight landscape units, organized as soil associations. The apparent contradictions between local knowledge and Pedology were relative since the classification systems were established based on different criteria, goals, and sampling references. Most soils are only suitable for pasture, with restricted agricultural use, due to water or oxygen deficiencies. The current land use was only inconsistent with the technical recommendations when socioecological constraints such as the semiarid climate, land availability, and economic conditions for land management led to overuse of the land. Local knowledge demonstrated its legitimacy and allowed a useful and fruitful exchange of information with the academic view of soil-landscape interplays. Although mostly unknown by the scientific community, local knowledge proved capable of achieving social welfare and food security. In addition, a participatory survey proved to be a core factor for more grounded and detailed data collection on how Quilombolas decide land use on a local scale

Relações entre Atributos do Solo e Vegetações da Região Ecotonal do Médio Rio São Francisco, Brasil

RESUMO A região do Médio São Francisco representa um amplo espaço territorial, com marcante sazonalidade climática, diversidade de rochas, paisagens, solos, e, consequentemente, formações vegetais. No entanto, as relações entre as características edáficas e suas formações vegetais são pouco esclarecidas. Este estudo apresenta uma relação dos atributos edáficos, determinante para o estabelecimento de savana-estépica, savana-estépica florestada, savana, floresta estacional semidecidual e floresta estacional decidual nessa região, com base na análise de 166 perfis de solos. Em geral, os solos sob savana foram mais lixiviados e arenosos, álicos e restrito aos topos das paisagens; e os sob savana-estépica foram eutróficos, porém sódicos ou solódicos, e rasos, sempre associados às partes mais baixa da paisagem. A floresta estacional semidecidual apresentou forte variação dos atributos edáficos, indicando que sua ocorrência se baseia, principalmente, na disponibilidade de água. Houve grande semelhança entre os solos de savana-estépica florestada e floresta estacional decidual, sendo todos geralmente eutróficos, alcalinos e bem desenvolvidos, e suas diferenças restritas ao aspecto fisionômico da vegetação. Os domínios fitogeográficos do semiárido apresentaram-se pedologicamente bem diferenciados, sendo as savanas (cerrados) e savana-estépica (caatingas) similares às suas respectivas áreas nucleares. Além disso, as florestas estacionais deciduais evidenciaram atributos edáficos bem contrastantes com os domínios vizinhos, destacando essas formações como uma entidade fitogeográfica distinta

Landforms and soil attributes determine the vegetation structure in the Brazilian semiarid

The semiarid region of Brazil consists of a great variety of landscapes, soils and vegetation forms, with complex interrelations. In order to better understand this interplay, we posed two questions: Are there greater pedological similarities among the different landforms of the same catena or among the same landforms from different catenas? Which soil attributes could be the most important to segregate communities of plants? We sampled soils and vegetation on different landforms in four different catenas and performed NMS (non-metric multidimensional scaling) and ANOVA (analysis of variance) to address the first question; also, we carried another NMS following GLM (general linear model regression) to answer the second question. The first NMS indicated the existence of a fertility gradient, grouping communities in relation to similar landforms, confirmed by ANOVA. The second NMS indicated the same gradient whereas the GLM showed that is controlled by aluminum saturation, sodium saturation, phosphorous and sand content. One extreme of the gradient has uplands associated with cerrado vegetation forms whereas the other extreme slopes were associated with dry forests. The lowlands associated with dry forest represent the central position of the fertility gradient. In general, soils at similar landforms showed greater pedological similarity, and their physico-chemical attributes determined the formation and structure of vegetation. This similarity across the same landform refers to the comparable soil formation at each landform and soil age at landscape scale. The characteristics of the vegetation and soils in the Brazilian southern semiarid region indicated a previously wetter climate, during which deep weathered latosols (oxisols) were formed and remain as relics in the present semiari