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2 The creation of the Afro-Brazilian ter-The fi rst author gratefully acknowledges the support of the FAPESP for research funds (no. 07/53308-1). We thank the State University of Campinas and the University of São Paulo for their academic support. We owe gratitude to all people from the quilombola communities in the Ribeira Valley (state of São Paulo) and all other key informants for making the collection of data possible. The authors assume full responsibility for the content presented in this study.1. Throughout this article, the terms Afro-Brazilian and quilombola are used interchangeably. 2. Quilombos refers to places where escaped slaves joined together in resistance to slavery (Gama 2005). "Traditional population" has become an omnibus or umbrella category in Brazil for a number of social groups, such as Amerindians and quilombolas. Despite being characterized by culturally and THE AFRO-BRAZILIAN COLLECTIVE LAND 27 ritories was an attempt to guarantee rights of access and land use for the descendants of African slaves who were brought to Brazil between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries; it is considered a compensation policy (Schmitt, Turatti, and Carvalho 2002). As a result, over the past twenty years, more than 114 quilombola territories in many states in Brazil have received collective land titles (7.3 percent of the 1,561 Afro-Brazilian communities in those states).3

Shifting cultivation systems (SCS) are currently restricted to tropical areas. The classical nutrient flow model for SCS considers increasing soil fertility from the conversion phase, with the addition of nutrients contained in the biomass that was slashed and burned, and made available through ash. This study assessed the impacts of the conversion and cultivation phases on soils subjected to an SCS practiced quilombola populations of the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. We used a diachronic method in six experimental plots divided into two fallow age classes (10-15 and 25-30 years). The results showed that fire does not have a primary role in the cycling and maintenance of the stock of nutrients in the soil/vegetation complex. Furthermore, the soil fertility status was not significantly altered during the conversion and cultivation phases. Thus, the quilombola SCS shows specificity and that soil fertilization does not necessarily occur during the conversion and cultivation phases of SCS. The soils from fallow areas between ten and 30 years have eutrophic fertility conditions in relation to the mature forests, and are therefore viable from an agronomic standpoint. Therefore, the data on the impact of the quilombola SCS on soils concur as proscribed by law.