ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
IN THE
AMAZON FOREST
LUIGI FABBRO
Amazonia Landscape Mapping and Biodiversity
Estimation - Associacao Amazonia
Reserva Xixuau, Rorainopolis (RO) .
Brazil
Podere San Polino. 53024 Montalcino (Si) ,
Italy
luigi.fabbro@amazonia.orghttp://amazonia.org
Abstract: The local communities of the Rio Jauaperì provided
with modern technology (Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS, Computers) will contribute
towards the development of Sustainable Agriculture in
Amazonia
Keywords: Amazonia, Biodiversity, Agriculture,
Sustainable Development, Remote Sensing, Permaculture
1. Ecologically sustainable agriculture and permaculture
Every
person has the right to safe and nutritious food and all peoples have the
right to food sovereignty as reaffirmed in the United Nations Declaration of the
World Food Summit held in Rome in 2002. At the same time unsustainable
agriculture is one of the principal causes of deforestation..
According to
the World Bank, one of the most successful projects of the Pilot Program to save
the Amazon Forest (PPG7) has been a permaculture project. : " Many
different kinds of crops should be grown , such as fruit trees, palms and other
perennials, pineapples, oilseeds, sugarcane, herbs, peppers, and medicinal
plants, together with the traditional crops. Some rules should be followed
about which plants should go first, which should come later, and which grow
better next to each other, just like a forest grows back. Unwanted growth should
be cut, but left to rot on the ground. Nothing should be taken from the plot,
except for the harvest. Costly chemical fertilizers and pesticides will not be
needed . All one needs are seeds and seedlings of useful plants and trees and
labor." (World Bank, 2000)
Permaculture has its origins in the
work of Mollison (Mollison, 1988) and its theoretical foundations are provided
by the new science of self-organizing complex systems ( Lovelock ,1979) (
Kaufman, 1993).
However, it seems that before the arrival of the Europeans
the indigenous peoples of Amazonia already had developed the permaculture of
the forest enabling to feed , in an ecologically sustainable manner, a forest
population much larger that at the present .
According to Darrel Addison
Posey the apetè , forest islands, of the Kayapò are an
example of the permaculture of the forest. "The Apetè are placed at
location with high biodiversity gradient. They consist of five, more-or-less
concentric, zones, each with preferred varieties of cultivars and different
cultivation strategies. Plant varieties and micro-environmental conditions are
carefully matched. The eating habits of deer and tapir are well-known to the
Indians, and their favourite foods are propagated in forest islands. In this
sense, forest islands must be viewed as both agroforestry plots and hunting
reserves. These islands become important sources of medicinal and edible plants,
as well as places of rest. Palms, which have a variety of uses, figure
prominently in apêtê, as do shade trees. Even vines that produce
drinkable water are transplanted here. Apêtê look "natural" and only
recently scientists recognized that they were in fact human artefacts.
(Posey, 2000). The inhabitants of the Jauaperi also speack of similar
techniques emplyed in the ancient past.
The future agriculture of the
Amazon Forest must be based on those lost techniques developed by the original
inhabitants of Amazonia. and a step towards their recovery could be made
with the help of the Amazonia Landscape Mapping and Biodiversity Estimation
program run by the Caboclo Communities of the Rio Jauaperì
2. Mapping Amazonia Biodiversity by the Caboclo Communities of the Rio
Jauaperì using Remote Sensing, GPS and GIS
Since the Rio 92 Earth
Summit the world has placed great hopes on sustainable use of biodeversity for
promoting Sustainable Development in the Tropical Forests for its potential
capacity to trigger a powerful synergy bewteen poverty reduction and
biodiversity conservation
The Caboclo communities of the Rio
Jauaperì, within the framework of the extractivist reserve and of the
UN Convention on Biodiversity, using modern technology (GPS, GIS, database,
databanks, Internet, remotely sensed imagery) will map the biodiversity of
the lower Jauaperì basin (Fabbro, 2000) (Fabbro, 2001)
This long
term pilot project is first of all an exercise in Sustainable
Development
It aims to instantiate sustainable use of biodiversity to
alleviate poverty and , with mutual reinforcement, conserve biodiversity
.
Species, populations, habitats, communities, ecosystems, processes will be
geo-located and documented. The resulting map, will then transform the Lower
Jauaperì basin into a catalogued in-situ Germplasm
collection.
It is hoped that, it will be then possible to provide
services to world agriculture, within the framework of the new
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
(FAO, November 3, 2001)
It is also hoped to contribute to the development
of sustainable agriculture in Amazonia, and in particular to the rediscovery
of the permaculture of the forest .
The knowledge and competence of the
Indigenous and Local Communities have been recognized by the UN Convention
on Biodiversity and the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on
Biodiversity have requested respect for it, have advocated its application
and have asserted its equivalence with modern science. It has also been
requested that Local Communities should be provided with appropriate technology
to help in their work.
The GIS maps are populated with information obtained
from interviews with local experts. Ground truth expeditions are made to
provide "true" data, test the reliability of the data obtained from the
interviews, test the predicting capabilities of the GIS.. The collected data is
recorded using palmtops, digital cameras , minidisc recorders and GPS. The
equipment is time-synchronized to provide data congruence. On return from the
expedition the equipment will be delivered to the Information Technology
department where the collected data will be loaded into the database and the
GIS. Collection of data is driven by ecology and phylogeny to increase its
efficaciousness. Provision will be made for the presence of scientists and
technicians from IBAMA, EMBRAPA, INPA, University of Amazonas. The taxonomy
of the Caboclo communities of the Rio Jauaperi employs as many as 500
different taxa ( animals, plants, habitats, communities, processes) and more
taxa are forthcoming . The spatial domain of these taxa varies from meters to
kilometers and thus a multi-scale approach is available. The system of
geolocated local community taxa coupled with time series of remotely sensed
data and guided by ecology and philogeny considerations will provide a cost
effective guide to the ecologically sustainable extraction of biodiversity
resources from the forest .
The Extractivist Reserve developed by Chico
Mendes will provide the perfect framework for this project The extraction from
the forest will then include also biological data, a commodity predicted to
be in much demand in the near future..
The Associaòao Amazonia has
recently formed a partnership with IBAMA/CNP to set up a Extractivist Reserve
in the Rio Jauaperi..
The following facilities are present in the Reserve
Xixuaù: solar electricity, 24 hours a day 256 KBS Internet connection,
office premises, computers LAN, Linux server, MS Windows Server, Rio Jauaperi
GIS, satellite imagery, data base, inventories of plants and animals , GRASS,
gstat and FRAGSTAT software, digital cameras, GPS equipment , voice recording
equipment
The project participates in the International Biodiversity
Observation Year 2001-2002 IBOY -. A DIVERSITAS initiative (IBOY,
2001)
3. A Model Ecological Farm in the Jauaperì
Recently the
Amazonia Association has initiated an ambitious project for the creation of an
Ecologic Farm in the Xixuau Reserve which should eventually cover the alimentary
requirements of the people of the Jauaperì. (Clark, 2002)
The exigency
of immedaite cost effective production dictactes that time proven agricultural
methods are to be employed at the very start of the project . Local
production techniques will be rationalized and improved with the help of modern
scientific techniques. For this purpose the help of EMBRAPA will be sought. The
utilization of local germplasm and appropriate technology will be favored. At
the same time the foundations will be laid for the development of Permaculture
Some of the agricultural methods used in the Jauaperì in fact can be
considered a form of perrmaculture. For example planting orchards using many
different fruit trees collected from the forest or medicinal plant gardens
made with plants collected from the forest..
One of the first activities to
be implemented will be mapping the biodiversity of the area where the farm
will be located to select candidate locations for different permaculture
plots.
The first data that have been collected within the Amazonia Landscape
Mapping show a very heterogeneous landscape and seem to confirm the rapid
decline of species composition similarity at short distances described by
Richard Condit and others in the 25 January 2002 issue of Science. (Condi
et alia, 2002). This seems to indicate that at distances shorter than the
average distance of seed dispersal beta diversity depends not only on seed
dispersal but also on niche issues, that is on community self-organisation. It
is also becoming apparent that a popular defence strategy is
Defence
against predators and diseases. is one of the greatest problem for agriculture
in amazonia It appears that together with apt selection of habitats and of
species guilds also the right selection of the distances and habitats
between the cultivated plots have a determinant role to play in the
establishment of permaculture in the Amazon Forest
3. References
Mollison, B., Permaculture A Designer's Manual, Tagari Publications
1988
Lovelock, J. - Gaia - A New Look at Life on Earth,, Oxford
University Press, 1979
Kauffman, S., 1993. The Origins of Order: Self-organization and
Selection in Evolution. Oxford University Press, New York.
Posey, D. A. - Beyond the great lips - Resurgence , issue 203,
2000
Fabbro, L.,. Amazonia Biodiversity Estimation using Remote Sensing and
Indigenous Taxonomy, Paper presented at the European Space Agency Symposium
2000 held in Gotheborg Sweden 16-20 October 2000 -
http://earth.esa.int/pub/ESA_DOC/gothenburg/408fabbr.pdf
Fabbro, L., - . Amazonia Landscape Mapping and Biodiversity
Estimation - Geomatics WorkBooks, No 2, Autumn 2001 - Geomatics Laboratory,
Faculty of Engeneering, Politecnic of Milan, Italy. - See also the following
sites:
Clark, C., Model Farm for a Nature Reserve in the Amazon Forest,
2002 ,
http://amazonia.org/SustainableDevelopment/Jauaperi/Agriculture/MFP_Proposal_2002.en.htm
Condit, Richard et alia, Beta-Diversity in Tropical Forest Trees,
Science , 25 January 2002, Vol. 295