They are based on a closed cultural and linguistic unit and limited to the group that applies them. Given this definition, only indigenous Indian societies belong to this group. There are three types of populations :
* groups that flatly refuse any form of contact;
* groups that accept contact sporadically, either with the country's
majority groups or with neighbouring indigenous groups;
* groups with whom there has only recently been some form of contact.
There is a variety of agricultural systems exemplified in these economies, though various forms of slash-and-burn agricultures tend to prevail, with long, sometimes extremely long periods of forest regeneration. Hunting, gathering and fishing territories are usually vast ; a maximum number of different species, whether plant or animal (terrestrial or aquatic), are exploited and this variety encourages the permanent renewal of their resources. Impact on the forest equilibrium is weak and modifications very subtle.
populations concerned
|
population
|
* INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS |
approx.
13 200 people
|
* MESTIZOS |
-
|
* MIGRANTS |
-
|
Such societies have limited contacts with the country's majority groups. Limited contacts here implies that the pressure from outside populations and economies is restricted. As in the preceding case, only native American Indian populations are to be found in this category, whether whole ethnic groups or segments of a group (other segments of the same group belong either here or in the above category).
Forest resources provide the basis of self-subsistent strategies and they requires as good a knowledge of their natural habitat as it does for totally self-subsistent populations. The degree of knowledge is related to the autonomy of a given culture and the freedom people have to protect this autonomy. This pattern is however progressively altered by various outside agents such as national agencies for the welfare of native American Indians, missionary groups, NGOs, etc. Contact is usually preceded by :
* the spread of new diseases which alters the pyramidal population
structure and brings down demographic levels before a spectacular increase,
partly due to the introduction of health care ;
* a desire and then the need for new objects (mainly tools) entailing the
need to create a surplus for exchange and to be closer to the centres where
such objects can be obtained. It then becomes necessary to find an alternative
basis to the economy leading more often than not to a form of dependence, even
if the process is slow, and even if the native American Indians themselves
express it in terms of a form of alliance.
Surplus usually consists of agricultural products (manioc flour) or products that have been collected (Brazil nuts, various fruits, medicinal plants...) and craftwork (pottery, basketwork, canoes,...), all of which are an integral part of the populations' ecosystem. In the 1960s, many indigenous groups belonged to this category, but new roads and the following migrations have reduced their numbers.
populations concerned
|
population
|
* INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS |
approx.
227 000 people
|
* MESTIZOS |
-
|
* MIGRANTS |
-
|
These societies (or communities, or even family groups in the case of mestizos) have an interdependent relationship with the country's majority groups. They nevertheless try to preserve a strong cultural autonomy and a certain amount of freedom in the management of their economy. This category includes tribal American Indians who often belonged to the preceding category until recently. A new phenomenon is that communities of mestizos are sometimes included in this category, communities which previously belonged to the group that we will be defining next.
The knowledge which these communities have of their natural habitat is slightly different from what may be encountered among groups in the two preceding categories, except where such understanding of the environment is a mental reconstruction, as is the case for small-scale extractivists. For all of them, there is a gap between their system of values, whether ecological of cultural, and the practical foundations of their economy. Their economy aims at tapping the territory's wealth, and it is based on two strategies. The first strategy involves developing their production through a system of cooperatives (this is the case for the extractivists of Acre in Brazil), system which protects them from the overwhelming control of tradesmen. The second strategy is based on drawing the benefits of exploitation (wood, gold, oil...) carried out by others on their territory or by granting some concessions (e.g. a path for high voltage power lines) as in the case of the Gavião and Kayapo, Brazil.
The first strategy is a response to the complex need to find outlets for products that have a high commercial value for small bulk or low tonnage, all the while maintaining subsistence activities. A general overview of the question for tropical America can be found in 'Neotropical wildlife use and conservation' (J. G. ROBINSON & K. H. REDFORD eds., 1991) dealing with the fauna, and 'Sustainable harvest and marketing of rain forest products' (M. PLOTKIN & L FAMOLARE eds., 1992) dealing with the flora.
But it is difficult to see how the second strategy could be viable in the long term despite being made necessary by immediate economic factors ; indigenous populations are endangered by the attacks on the environment of the activities which they thus condone (Povos indígenas no Brazil, 1991).
populations concereds
|
population
|
* INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS |
approx.
321 000 people
|
* MESTIZOS |
100
000 people ?
|
* MIGRANTS |
-
|
Because of the novelty and mobility of this type of economy, it is difficult to assess the number of people involved.
The communities belonging to this category are as many live evocations of the various historical stages of the transformation process undergone by indigenous societies.
Communities may live far away from urban centres, or quite close or very near them ; they may or may not witness a rapid degradation of their natural habitat ; social systems may be structured to a certain extent (Tikuna and Munduruku, Brazil) or made up of several single units (caboclas family units in the Rio Negro, Brazil and Columbia), but they are all equally dependent economically. This dependency is what brings the products they have laboured to produce into the warehouses of the big Amazonian towns and even right on to the shelves of our supermarkets.
These populations are still well integrated in their natural habitat, but their knowledge is gradually channelled to provide for the demands of a market economy. This inevitably breaks off their relationship with the spiritual content of their activities, the backbone of their world. These societies are evolving inexorably towards simplification, and even reduced social organization, a degradation of the subtle understanding they had of their environment. In order to respond to pressures from the outside, they often resort to exploiting their environment to such an excessive extent that it can only be destroyed in the long run. A few of the many examples of this degradation is the rarefaction of some animal species, e.g. the giant aquatic turtle, or species of trees (carapa, mahogany, etc) or fish.
populations concerned
|
population
|
* INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS |
approx.144
000 people
|
* MESTIZOS |
approx.
2 000 000 people
|
* MIGRANTS |
-
|
And yet, this mass of people, both native American Indians and the majority of native mestizos living in rural areas, i.e. over 2 000 000 people, provides most of the foodstuffs and fish for the whole of the Amazon basin. As far as the native American Indians are concerned, they are deeply affected economically and yet strong demographically, and it is among these groups that one finds the most virulent political claims and a very strong feeling of the value of their identity : e.g. the Tikuna (PACHECO FILHO, 1990) and Tukano (BUCHILLET, 1990 ; MEIRA, 1991).
This type of economy does not affect the populations mentioned in the four preceding categories. It concerns mainly mestizos who are completely or partially cut off from their original cultural background, and migrant groups or populations constantly on the move which make up the mass of labourers plundering the Amazonian forest. To these one should add coastal populations in the Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname, and old peasant populations from Maranhão and Goias in Brazil and in the llanos of Venezuela. None of these groups will be described here because they are beyond the scope of this study as it was defined earlier on in the report.We will only comment on the failure of their attempt to occupy the Amazonian area : a majority of the total Amazonian population is made up of people belonging to such groups, but 52 % of them are now struggling to survive in urban areas (SAUNDERS, 1974 ; BARRAL & LéNA, 1987).
populations concerned
|
population
|
* INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS |
-
|
* MESTIZOS + MIGRANTS |
approx.
30 000 000 people
|
Only taking into account the data on indigenous populations (diagram 3), it is clear that in the pattern of distribution of today's various indigenous economies, complete self-subsistence only involves a small portion of the area (2 %) but continues to exist, a fact which is quite simply amazing at this stage of world history.
If we add to the latter the groups which still have a basically self-subsistent economy (32 %) and those with an economy partly responding to demands from the outside (46 %), we end up with a total of 80 %. In other words, 80 % of Greater Amazonia's native American population is engaged in an economy that still relies, in practice and in its ideology, on indigenous values.
The extra 20 %, including populations with an economy based on savage capitalism, does no doubt tend to increase, but we must recognize that these figures are all much more optimistic than one could have imagined before carrying out this analysis. It is one of the surprising conclusions of this report.
