Amazon rainforest

Significant human impacts on tropical forests have been considered the preserve of recent societies, linked to large-scale
deforestation, extensive and intensive agriculture, resource mining, livestock grazing and urban settlement. Cumulative
archaeological evidence now demonstrates, however, that Homo sapiens has actively manipulated tropical forest ecologies
for at least 45,000 years. It is clear that these millennia of impacts need to be taken into account when studying and conserving
tropical forest ecosystems today. Nevertheless, archaeology has so far provided only limited practical insight into
contemporary human–tropical forest interactions. Here, we review significant archaeological evidence for the impacts of past
hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists and urban settlements on global tropical forests. We compare the challenges faced, as well
as the solutions adopted, by these groups with those confronting present-day societies, which also rely on tropical forests for
a variety of ecosystem services. We emphasize archaeology’s importance not only in promoting natural and cultural heritage in
tropical forests, but also in taking an active role to inform modern conservation and policy-making.

Seminario internacional “Reflexiones políticas y jurídicas sobre la protección del medio ambiente y las políticas de desarrollo en la Amazonia”, organizado por el Centro de Estudios Brasileños de la Universidad de Salamanca. Vídeo de la conferenciade clausura Derecho a la amazonia", celebrada el 1 de junio de 2021, impartiro por João Meirelles Filho (Instituto Peabiru, Pa´ra, Brasil), moderada por el Prof. Ignacio Berdugo Gómez de la Torre (Universidad de Salamanca, España). Seminário internacional “Reflexões políticas e jurídicas sobre a proteção do meio ambiente e as políticas de desenvolvimento na Amazônia”, organizado pelo Centro de Estudos Brasileiros da Universidade de Salamanca. Vídeo da conferência de encerramento “Direito à Amazônia", celebrada em 1º de junho de 2021, ministrada por João Meirelles Filho (Instituto Peabiru, Pará, Brasil), moderada pelo Prof. Ignacio Berdugo Gómez de la Torre (Universidade de Salamanca, Espanha).

Amazon is the first large company that sells goods and services over the internet it was founded by jeff bezos in 1994. Amazon started out as an online book store then it grows quickly to add new items such as DVD’s, video games, electronics, clothing and more to the extent that the company logo symbolizes means that they sell all products from A to Z. Amazon.com try their best to get customer loyalty and trust. They offer state shipping service and they have many retail stores in different countries. It also purchases customer data and information to achieve customer needs and wants. Amazon is one of the first in the world to sell online and has many competitors like: ebay, rakuten and flipkart. Therefore, amazon has own over 40 subsidiaries includes: zappos, shopbop, IMDb, Amazon Prime, appstore, and amazon drive.

Science has a critical role to play in guiding more sustainable development trajectories. Here, we present the Sustainable Amazon Network ( Rede Amazônia Sustentável , RAS): a multidisciplinary research initiative involving more than 30 partner organizations working to assess both social and ecological dimensions of land-use sustainability in eastern Brazilian Amazonia. The research approach adopted by RAS offers three advantages for addressing land-use sustainability problems: (i) the collection of synchronized and co-located ecological and socioeconomic data across broad gradients of past and present human use; (ii) a nested sampling design to aid comparison of ecological and socioeconomic conditions associated with different land uses across local, landscape and regional scales; and (iii) a strong engagement with a wide variety of actors and non-research institutions. Here, we elaborate on these key features, and identify the ways in which RAS can help in highlighting those probl...

Science has a critical role to play in guiding more sustainable development trajectories. Here, we present the Sustainable Amazon Network ( Rede Amazônia Sustentável , RAS): a multidisciplinary research initiative involving more than 30 partner organizations working to assess both social and ecological dimensions of land-use sustainability in eastern Brazilian Amazonia. The research approach adopted by RAS offers three advantages for addressing land-use sustainability problems: (i) the collection of synchronized and co-located ecological and socioeconomic data across broad gradients of past and present human use; (ii) a nested sampling design to aid comparison of ecological and socioeconomic conditions associated with different land uses across local, landscape and regional scales; and (iii) a strong engagement with a wide variety of actors and non-research institutions. Here, we elaborate on these key features, and identify the ways in which RAS can help in highlighting those probl...

Resumo Este artigo analisa fontes e possibilidades de pesquisa educacional no Brasil colonial, particularmente, na Amazônia. Origina-se de uma investigação de natureza teórico-bibliográfica, considerando relatos de viagens, cartas jesuíticas, dissertações, teses e artigos. Notamos o protagonismo dos jesuítas e da educação institucionalizada por eles, emergindo, assim, lacunas no campo das ações educativas promovidas por outras ordens religiosas e dos estudos sobre processos educativos ocorridos no cotidiano social passado.

This paper presents a description of hunting and an analysis of its technical relations among the Panará, an indigenous group which inhabits southern Amazonia. The paper is focused around two genetic processes of hunting: the individuation of the hunter and the constitution of a hunting territory. In this sense, it approaches the constitution of the hunter as person in relation with his weaponry, a technical object that is the mediator between the hunter’s action and the prey; afterwards, it approaches the forms of environment that emerges from the movement across the forest and through the production of hunting paths where the prey is encountered. The analysis of these aspects allows us to get insight of the hunting activity from the point of view of its actions, materials and interactions with the environment, from the analysis of technical elements which are socially relevant and construct important modes of relation between Panará and their territory.

The Indigenous cultures of South America developed a diverse array of traditional uses for psychoactive plants. This chapter surveys the historical and anthropological literatures on these practices. Pre-Columbian usage, later labeled as idolatry, was transformed by European colonization of the Americas. However, chroniclers such as Sahagun, Hernández, de Acosta, and Monardes, as well as accounts by Spanish “extirpadores de idolatrias” can be used to understand the original Amerindian contexts of these plant drugs. Colonialism initiated processes of “mestiçagem” (mixing) and cultural hybridity including the drug “imaginary,” to borrow Serge Gruzinski’s term. The current religious revival of such practices as “vegetalismo” “curandeirismo” using ayahuasca, jurema, and hallucinogenic snuffs (paricá, yopo, vilca, etc.) is analyzed along with its recent literatures. This also means revisiting the classic anthropological concept of shamanism and its application to Amerindian cultures, par...

Inspired by Stephen Hugh-Jones’s suggestion of a fit between Tukanoan writing genres and their sociocultural systems, in this article we explore Shuar autobiographical writings in light of Chicham (Jivaroan) individualism. By exploring first-person—nonpatrimonial—texts that have received much less attention in the regional literature, the article contributes to theorizing a different way of transmitting tradition: one focused on individual praxis rather than on collective patrimony. Through the analysis of three autobiographical texts, we show how their authors appropriate writing to construct singularity, or distinct “paths of individuation”: the personal story of resistance of a schoolteacher, the exemplary life course of a visionary leader, and the claim to sainthood of an exceptional shaman.

Rivers in the Amazon have among the greatest biodiversity in the world. The Xingu River, one of the tributaries of the Amazon River, has a length of 1640 km, draining 510,000 km2 in one of the most protected regions on the planet. The Middle Xingu region in Brazil has been highly impacted by mining and livestock farming, leading to habitat fragmentation due to altered water quality. Therefore, comparing two rivers (the preserved Xingu River and the impacted Fresco River) and their confluence, the aims of the present study were to (1) assess the land uses in the hydrographic basin; (2) determine the water quality by measurements of turbidity, total solids, and metals (Cd, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn, and Hg); (3) compare the zooplankton biodiversity; and (4) to evaluate the avoidance behavior of fish (Astyanax bimaculatus) when exposed to waters from the Xingu and Fresco Rivers. Zooplankton were grouped and counted down to the family level. For the analysis of fish avoidance, a multi-compartm...

Ayahuasca has become a subject of great interest in recent years. Academics, spiritual seekers, communities, and curious individuals have all been intrigued by this topic through either writing about it or direct participation in the contemporary spiritual phenomenon that is ayahuasca, which holds promises of bestowing upon its users profound wisdom or healing. However, what anthropological (but also popular) writings barely comment on are the deviant perceptions that arise out of experiences seeking amelioration or transcendence, and the subjective ways in which those experiences are interpreted. Consequently, I wish to supplement this scope of representation. In this text, I present fieldwork conducted in the Peruvian Amazon amid the Shipibo, focusing on the experiences of the spiritual seekers who came to them in search of healing or self-discovery. I discovered a unique contradiction—participation in Shipibo ayahuasca practices while simultaneously having or developing a negative perception or attitude towards it. These aberrances are held, as I argue herein, (incognizantly) in the expressed attitudes of the Westerners (especially North American and European) as a result of the positivist notions that emerged from the Age of Enlightenment (but are not limited to it). My priority in this article is to present and expound on these atypical associations and place them against a historical (Western) background to elucidate the origin of the thus found and experienced perceptions.

More than a hundred hydropower dams have already been built in the Amazon basin and numerous proposals for further dam constructions are under consideration. The accumulated negative environmental effects of existing dams and proposed dams, if constructed, will trigger massive hydrophysical and biotic disturbances that will affect the Amazon basin's floodplains, estuary and sediment plume. We introduce a Dam Environmental Vulnerability Index to quantify the current and potential impacts of dams in the basin. The scale of foreseeable environmental degradation indicates the need for collective action among nations and states to avoid cumulative, far-reaching impacts. We suggest institutional innovations to assess and avoid the likely impoverishment of Amazon rivers.

Anthropogenic environmental disturbance is a significant factor driving mosquito community composition. However, researchers subjectively define environmental change creating difficulties for cross-study comparison. To examine the relationship between terrestrial change and mosquito composition, we used remote sensing techniques to define spatially explicit land use categories along a gradient with low (rural), medium (peri-urban), and high (urban) anthropogenic influence in the Peruvian Amazon. We found significant differences in mosquito diversity among land use categories. Our results provide baseline data linking mosquito distribution to land use in the Peruvian Amazon and present an easily replicable method of comparison for future research. Creating standardized methods to measure the impact of human influence on the environment is of particular importance in designing targeted public health policies and in predicting disease risk in rapidly changing environments such as the Amazon.

Engaging in hotel room reservations has remained a hassle even though there are few applications which provide their own services. This study aims at building a voice chatbot device that can be used for hotel reservation using Amazon Lex Service with Facebook Messenger as the communication platform. The chatbot is built by leveraging on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the form of a service called Amazon Lex for configuring the bot with utterances and responses and Lambda Functions to validate the responses while carrying out the operations by using Facebook Messenger service. The lambda function runs a script that collects input in the form of plain text or by using voice recognition using the microphone connected to it, which is sent to the Amazon Lex to be processed using various services provided by Amazon Web Services. Then the chatbot sends back a suitable response to the user through the speaker connected to the device or in the form of plain text. This bot is also integrated wit...

Factualmente recorrente, simbolicamente pregnante e sociologicamente estruturante, a caça é um dado fundamental na Amazônia. A série de elementos destacados pela etnologia regional revela a centralidade da atividade entre os coletivos amazônicos. Neste trabalho foco os discursos antropológicos a respeito da atividade cinegética dos povos indígenas, buscando delinear um objeto de estudo. A revisão da bibliografia se concentra em um período particular dessa produção, aquele referente às últimas três décadas, e se detém sobre alguns dos aspectos relativos à “metafísica da caça” (LIMA, 1996). Um dos propósitos é ver como os temas da “afinidade potencial” e do “perspectivismo ameríndio” rebatem na compreensão do campo cinegético, e por outro lado, ver como esse campo informa as operações analíticas desses conceitos. Paralelamente, no ensaio procuro identificar alguns dos nódulos que a interpretação da caça tem enfrentado, apontando, assim, questões para potenciais avanços etnográficos e ...

There is a considerable controversy about whether western Amazonia was ever covered by marine waters during the Miocene [23 to 5 Ma (million years ago)]. We investigated the possible occurrence of Miocene marine incursions in the Llanos and Amazonas/Solimões basins, using sedimentological and palynological data from two sediment cores taken in eastern Colombia and northwestern Brazil together with seismic information. We observed two distinct marine intervals in the Llanos Basin, an early Miocene that lasted ~0.9 My (million years) (18.1 to 17.2 Ma) and a middle Miocene that lasted ~3.7 My (16.1 to 12.4 Ma). These two marine intervals are also seen in Amazonas/Solimões Basin (northwestern Amazonia) but were much shorter in duration, ~0.2 My (18.0 to 17.8 Ma) and ~0.4 My (14.1 to 13.7 Ma), respectively. Our results indicate that shallow marine waters covered the region at least twice during the Miocene, but the events were short-lived, rather than a continuous full-marine occupancy o...

A precipitação pluviométrica é uma das variáveis mais importantes para investigações associadas a processos biológicos. Na Amazônia, estudos sobre sua distribuição espacial e temporal vêm sendo utilizados como uma ferramenta de análise no planejamento regional visando a conservação de diferentes ecossistemas. Isto pode ser exemplificado pela construção de calendários agrícolas e de queimas controladas com o objetivo de prevenir que fogos derivados de queimadas para limpeza de roças e pastagens escapem do controle e se transformem em incêndios florestais de grandes proporções em anos de seca severa na Amazônia. Nosso estudo teve como objetivo modelar a distribuição espacial da precipitação no Estado de Roraima (1998-2018) utilizando as escalas mensal e anual a partir de dados orbitais de dois produtos disponíveis na rede mundial de computadores (TRMM/WORLDCLIM). Foi adotada a krigagem ordinária como método para a modelagem da precipitação. Roraima apresenta duas estações climáticas b...

Unlike other environmental threats, the loss of biodiversity is irreversible and the current and
rapid loss of species is alarming. Several authors agree the state-owned protected areas are
not sufficient to lessen biodiversity loss which is accentuated because most of the biodiversity
is on private land. In this thesis, I study private conservation’s role as a tool for biodiversity
conservation and the constraints they face. I visited five private protected areas (PPA) in
Ecuador where I conducted semi-structured interviews with the owners or administrators of
the reserves. From my data and previous studies, I conclude PPAs’ contribution to the national
conservation goals is to work as a supplement by expanding and connecting conservation
areas where the state’s efforts are not enough. On the other hand, private interest can clash
with these conservation goals; PPAs might be tempted, for example, to protect only
ecosystems appealing for tourists or keep animals captive as a tourist attraction. The common
conflicts the selected PPAs have are illegal logging, poaching and illegal settlements. The
interviewees claimed there is not state support either, despite reporting these cases
constantly. This situation is exacerbated by the lack of a legal framework to recognize,
monitor, evaluate and support private conservation in Ecuador. However, one of the
objectives to improve the national systems of protected areas (where PPAs are included) is to
develop a legal framework for private conservation. This legal framework should include
different actors at different levels, from local stakeholders to national authorities. Human
groups and how their livelihoods are affected by the creation of PPAs must be taken into
consideration as well. It is imperative to go further state’s actions and rescaling out
environmental governance while finding a balance between conservation and human needs.
Keywords: Private protected areas, biodiversity conservation, private conservation, Ecuador.