Will Noah’s Ark depart from the Amazon River floodplains?

Abstract

The Amazon rainforest constitutes the widest green spot on Earth. However, man's desire to exploit the incredible ground and underground natural resources is provoking destruction as deforestation pathways widen, rivers fall short on water and climate changes. Research undertaken in Brazil was aimed at the collection of local food, knowledge and practises, a quest intended to recover ancestral ecological experiences on a virtual Noah's Ark before the announced death of this Garden of Eden. This paper contrasts traditional agro-pastoral and extractive practises gathered among Caboclos along the Amazon River banks and floodplains with modern and capital-intensive agribusinesses settled alongside the BR-163 motorway. This contribution argues that ancestral environmentally friendly farming practises should be protected, both because they preserve the remainder of the woodland and its immense biogenetic richness and the Amazon Basin Rivers and their bounteous potential for life. Successful and long sustained cultivation on fertile riverbank alluvial soils, rebuilt by floods year after year, possesses a favourable demonstrative effect, valuable for other tropical sites, constituting a good array of best practises towards sustainable development.

Plantas medicinais consumidas em Cochim, no século XVI e na atualidade

“…Estão confirmadas em estudos farmacológicos as recomendações contra câncer de recursos" (Pardini, 2012), que convivem com a desflorestação comandada por madeireiros ou a serviço da produção agrícola em regime extensivo (Madaleno, 2009;Vieira, 2012). de fato, um dos desafios mais prementes que a humanidade enfrenta é o da produção alimentar qualitativa e quantitativamente adequada ao exponencial aumento de população mundial.…”

Urban agriculture in Santarém, Pará, Brazil: diversity and circulation of cultivated plants in urban homegardens

“…Changes in livelihood opportunities in rural zones, with accompanying changes in people's life expectations and attitudes, have resulted in rapid ruralto-urban migration. At the regional level, the collapse of jute (Corchorus capsularis) cultivation in the rural floodplain zone has contributed to the flow of migrants to the city (WinklerPrins, 1999(WinklerPrins, , 2006Madaleno, 2009). Jute provided a livelihood for many locals, and permitted year-round occupancy of the floodplain.…”