Ethnographic study reveals actions of Amazonian communities that live from the extraction of Brazil nuts
An ethnography of social practices and knowledge about the worlds of animals and plants among the inhabitants of the quilombola communities of the Trombetas river, in Oriximiná (PA), transmitted throughs das generations, since the ancestors arrived fleeing slavery to the region. It which brings the doctoral thesis of anthropologist Igor Alexandre Badolato Scaramuzzi, whose focus is on ethnographic descriptionis do Brazil nut extraction, alsoIt is called Brazil nut or Amazon nut. (Bertholletia excelsa), an activity of fundamental importance for the formation and survival of communities from their origins to the present day. The author was guided by professor Nádia Farage, from the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH). The research was funded by Fapesp.
“I carried out practically all of my field research following the chestnut collection and realized that chestnut forests, where chestnut trees live, are a very interesting gateway to studying the relationship that quilombolas maintain with 'nature', as they live in these places for a good part of the year and coexist with a great diversity of animal and plant species”, says Igor Scaramuzzi. “It is knowledge formed in daily work, and over generations. Good chestnut growers have a lot of intimacy with the chestnut groves and a detailed knowledge of the trees from which they collect nuts – so much so that, individually, they are given names or names. nicknames who mentionoa experiences personal, historyories of places and families or their own productive qualities. A good chestnut tree makes a selective collection, it does not go to just any tree, as it knows the productive attributes of several of them.”
According to the anthropologist, the quilombola population of the Trombetas river basin is constituteleft by descendants of slaves who fled the properties that exploited cocoa and livestock in the regionsis Óbidos, Santarém, Alenquer and Belém. “When they arrived at the waterfall-fed stretches of the Trombetas, Erepecuru and Cuminá rivers, and formed the old quilombos, the extraction of chestnuts and other forest products was decisive for them to obtain what they could not produce and, subsequently, so that they would no longer be persecuted by state agents. Through comerUsing these products, this population was significantly integrated into the regional economy. The growing importance of quilombolas in the economic context of the regionin the second half of the 19th century, which coincides with the rise of forest products on international markets, had the consequenceThe end of repressive measures, especially punitive expeditions.”
Scaramuzzi rescued the history of this extractivism, demarcating an initial period that goes from the first half to the end of the 19th century, in which quilombolas sold nuts and other forest products to regatões and traders in the urban centers of Oriximiná and Óbidos. The second period, which the quilombolas call “time of the bosses”, goes from the beginningo to the 70s of the XNUMXth century. “Wealthy segments of the region at this time purchased chestnut grove areas from quilombola lands, which the government considered as Devoluted Lands, and implemented the so-called 'placements' – chestnut grove spaces delimited by bosses where quilombola families collected chestnuts in exchange for goods. consumption, according to the clanssico amaz aviation systemônico".
The third period, according to the author of the thesis, involves the end of the 1970s and the 80s and 90s, when access to part of the chestnut groves on quilombola lands was prohibited due to implanttion of the Trombetas River Biological Reserve (Rebio Trombetas), an integral protection conservation unit. “On this left bank of the river are the largest chestnut trees in the region and there was a huge conflict, as the quilombolas continued to collect chestnuts clandestinely. The reserve was created during the military dictatorship to protect the Amazon turtle, which is threatened with extinction. Some of the residents were expelled from their lands and there are reports of torture and murders.”
Igor Scaramuzzi states that in the first decades of the 21st century, Rebio Trombelas reopened the chestnut areas to quilombolas during the harvest period, but under regulation, signed in terms of commitment, and supervision, which brings tension and conflict. “Quilombolas need to work with theballot' (containing personal data, number of boxes collected, number of buyers, etc.); Hunting, an activity that is part of the quilombola way of life, and carrying firearms are prohibited in the reserve area, while fishing is limited to more abundant and small species.”
According to the anthropologist, the tensiono is aggravated by the presence, on the other bank of Trombetas, of a floweresNational ta (Flona Saraquá-Taquera) under the management of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) which houses the largest bauxite mine in Brazil, whose extraction iso if din an industrial way. “A Minerahereo Rio do Norte/MRN, third largest bauxite producer in the world and first in the country, wants to expand exploration to an immense area of the lands of quilombola communities, cutting down copaibeira forests, a tree from which medicinal oil is extracted, an activity as important for some communities as chestnut extraction. It is a paradoxical situation for ICMBio, which severely monitors the low-impact activities of quilombolas, but shelters the mining company. There is also the possibility of building a hydroelectric plant in Trombetas.”
The agouti and the chestnut trees
The author considers that the most interesting part of his doctoral thesis is the quilombola theories about the formation and reproduction of chestnut plantations. “There are two hypotheses about the formation and regeneration of chestnut trees that are widely discussed in botany. The first is that chestnut groves are anthropogenic forests – formed by human management of the environment, since thelittle pré-colonial, especially that related to prateof agriculture. The Indians used and continue to use an agricultural system that is predominant in the Amazon, which is called slash and burn or coivara. This system consists of cutting down pieces of forest and using fire to create fields on a rotating basis. According to this theory, the chestnut tree, being a species whose initial development is favored the greater the amount of sunlight (heliophila, in botanical terms), would have benefited, for thousands of years, from clearings and greater soil fertility caused by the cutting and burning of biomass, and developed in clusters in areas managed by humans.”
Noting that the two hypotheses do notyouThey are necessarily exclusive, Scaramuzzi comments on the second, also admitted by botanists and which attributes the formation of chestnut trees to the agouti, a small rodent. "AND o the only animal in nature capable of breaking open the hedgehog, the woody fruit of the chestnut, and which has the habit of storing food – the agouti often dies or moves out of its area, leaving the chestnuts buried. Another characteristicstatic is that it has a very restricted territorial circle, hence the fact that the chestnut trees grow in clusters.”
The contribution offered by this doctoral thesis is the theory of the quilombolas themselves, who have an improved knowledge of the activity and a refined look at the forest. “I discovered that, for them, the formation of chestnut groves is related to several subjects: the agouti, humans, bees and the understory vegetation (which is between the floor and the ceiling of the forest). For the quilombolas, it is the agouti that plants the chestnut tree, 'the chestnut tree is their garden'. The bee, which extractivists call Aramã, drink water from the flowers and, with its saliva, stores their moisture, making them become fruits. The understory vegetation allows bees to reach the sixty-meter-high crowns of the chestnut trees.”
As à participate!tion of humans, the quilombolas defend – based on observationoe coexistence long lastingtion with trees – that chestnut trees need the “smell” and “heat of feet and human bodies” to encourage them to produce fruit. “They argue, in accordance with a thesis already defended by some contemporary botanists, that those trees have consciousnessnce and intelligenceence at the individual and collective level: without the presence of man, they know that a good part of their fruits, their children, will rot in the forest, as the agouti cannotor giveto bury everyone. Therefore, they stop producing when they cannotOhthere is the human presence in the chestnut forests.”
Chain of living beings
The author included in the study a chapter detailing the stages of chestnut collection: observation of the tops of the chestnut trees, the collection of hedgehogs in the forest, the breaking of the hedgehogs and the removal of the nuts, the “vasculho” as the last collection effort carried out at the end. of the harvest, the transport of the chestnut without the hedgehogs, and the commercializationo. “At the beginning of the harvest there is the 'to spy', a careful observation of the tops to identify which ones have ripe fruits and, especially, which ones are loaded with 'bamboorradas' of ouriwaistband. From the 'to spy' the collection and routes to be taken are planned.”
Igor Scaramuzzi alsoém realça aspects of the knowledge of quilombola extractivists in collecting nuts, such as not cutting vegetation to create trails, guiding themselves in the forest through landscape contrasts (hills, coves, floodplains, igapós); respect restrictions on Sundays and religious holidays; and avoid 'ganâance', without taking more from the forest than it should. “The greedance é always passípunishment leveltions, such as a frightening encounter with the supernatural beings who watch over the forest and the animals. In my opinion, the lesson of the quilombolas is to see biodiversity in a non-traditional way.the anthropocentric: they do not think they are nor do they want to be the protagonists in an activity and in the relationship with a specific entity, the chestnut tree, to which they giveso importantânce; they consider that the different subjects involved in the formation of chestnut groves, including themselves, have an equivalent degree of importance in this network of relationships. The chestnut tree and chestnut groves develop according to a chain of living beings in which noOhIn the hierarchy among them, man is just one more.”
Other side
In a note, Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN) clarifies “that it does not mine bauxite in titled quilombola areas. All areas cultivated by MRN are reforested with seedlings of species native to the Amazon region produced in the MRN Forest Nursery. From 1979 to 2016, MRN reforested 5.930 hectares where more than 12 million seedlings of 450 native tree species were planted. MRN maintains a sustainable copaibeira management program that associates the conservation of the species with income generation for communities located in the company's area of operations. MRN also maintains the only germplasm bank in Brazil focused exclusively on the conservation of the Brazil nut tree and which produces essential knowledge for the conservation of this species”.
