Amazonian Indigenous Socioecologies and the Rethinking of Biodiversity Conservation

About this Research Topic

Background

The Amazon rainforest, home to some of the highest levels of biodiversity on Earth, as well as the planet’s largest river basin, owes much of its ecological richness to the stewardship of Indigenous peoples. For more than 12,000 years, these communities have developed complex management systems which integrate ecological dynamics into cosmological perspectives and social systems.

Calls for incorporating Indigenous knowledge into conservation practices have gained momentum in recent scientific and policy discussions, however these efforts have rarely engaged with deeper ontological and cosmopolitical issues, and how these in turn may be deeply enmeshed with Amazonian landscapes and human histories.

This Research Topic weaves the rich tapestry of Indigenous knowledge into the broader narrative of biodiversity conservation. It emphasizes the necessity of collaborative approaches that respect and integrate Indigenous perspectives and socioecological systems into conservation strategies.

Our goal is to incorporate Amazonian Indigenous perspectives into our understanding of what is often termed "biodiversity" and "conservation". Specifically, we aim to highlight the interplay between indigenous sociocultural elements—such as cosmologies, social networks, and management practices—and ecological processes like forest succession, landscape transformation, and territorialization. By showcasing diverse Indigenous worldviews on biodiversity and conservation, this effort intends to redefine conservation planning and ensure that Indigenous peoples are engaged as co-authors in scientific endeavours. The issue will include co-authored contributions by prominent figures in the social and natural sciences as well as Indigenous researchers, leaders and intellectuals.

In sum, the Research Topic clarifies these intricate relationships, explores Indigenous contributions to conservation strategies, and promotes an inclusive platform for collaborative research. To gain a better understanding of how the perspectives of Amazonian Indigenous peoples can rethink biodiversity conservation, the Research Topic covers the following themes:

o Biocultural conservation: integrating conservation efforts with Indigenous language and cultural preservation, informed by local ecological knowledge.

o Cosmological relationships: presenting Indigenous cosmologies and their relationships with ecological processes and conservation through a cosmopolitical lens.

o Historical ecology: examining how Indigenous peoples have historically transformed landscapes through management practices informed by their perspectives.

o Knowledge systems: analysing indigenous ways of knowing and developing strategies for translating and communicating this knowledge to non-indigenous peoples;

o Landscape archaeology: discussing recent archaeological discoveries shedding light on ancient Indigenous-population landscapes and their sociocultural dynamics; and

o Methodological and theoretical exchange: investigating the interfaces and differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous scientific knowledge to propose methodological and theoretical dialogue, building on existing synergies while respecting areas of incommensurability.

Contributions may include original research articles (including case studies), reviews, methodological papers, or perspectives.

To highlight the main issues that we expect to be addressed in this research topic, we prepared a glossary of terms that can help authors target their contributions:

Ancestral/cultural forests – these are mature forests in the vicinity of ancient, abandoned areas of swidden fallows, gardens or house-yards, where modern villagers occasionally return to harvest resources (Franco-Moraes et al. 2019).

Biocultural conservation – conservation actions made in the service of sustaining the biophysical and sociocultural components of dynamic, interacting, and interdependent social–ecological systems (Gavin et al. 2015).

Cosmology – set of narratives that explain the origin, organization and functioning of the cosmos (Viveiros de Castro 2002).

Cosmopolitical networks – the way indigenous notions of human lives connect people in a web of social-ecological relations with other species, with the forest, with the rivers, and with the territory (Levis et al. 2024).

Historical Ecology – a research program concerned with the interactions through time between societies and environments and the consequences of these interactions for understanding the formation of contemporary and past cultures and landscapes (Balée 2006).

Landscape transformation – the action of transforming landscapes through traditional management practices, including changes in the floristic abundance, composition and structure of an area (Balée 2006).

Management practices – the process of making and effectuating decisions about the use and conservation of forest resources within a local territory (Wiersum 1997).

Non-human beings – all beings that are not humans but that can have human attributes, such as culture, feelings and knowledge. These non-human beings can include animals, plants, trees, mushrooms, spirits, among others (Descola 2005).

Social-ecological system – a complex adaptive system where social and biophysical agents are interacting at multiple temporal and spatial scales (Janssen & Ostrom 2006).

Social relationships – personal (e.g., zeal, hostility and reciprocity) and group (e.g., politics, hierarchy and kinship) relations among people themselves or among people and non-human beings (Descola 2005).

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) – a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment (Berkes et al. 2000).

Worldview – a conceptual-theoretical model that explains the origin of the universe and on which myths, norms, rituals and oral histories of each society are based (Descola 2005). Worldviews provide the interpretation of the observations of the world around us and include elements such as religions, cosmologies, ethics and belief systems (Franco-Moraes et al. 2021)

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Registered Report
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Amazon rainforest, biocultural conservation, historical ecology, Indigenous cosmologies;, Indigenous knowledge, biocultural conservation;

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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