Indigenous knowledge, management system and environmental change in the Amazon-Cerrado transition region

Abstract

The article analyzes aspects of indigenous knowledge and the management system of peoples living in the Amazon-Cerrado transition region as an adaptation and reaction to environmental changes in their territories.  This is an ethnographic survey, conducted between 2014 and 2020, based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with groups of elders, hunters, and indigenous leaders. Among the Gavião people, speakers of the Macro-Jê linguistic trunk that make up the so-called Timbira peoples, the negative impact of environmental changes caused by deforestation and illegal burning in their territory affects traditional forms of subsistence and the interactions between humans and nature in their cosmovision. The Gavião cosmography recognizes nature as a space populated by different beings and agencies, with relationships that oscillate in the need for closeness or distance between them and from which it is necessary to act to ensure the reproduction of all the people. Based on this knowledge and in the face of environmental changes on their lands, the Timbira people have developed a broad management system, in which the most visible product of the articulation with public and non-governmental authorities is the Timbir Territorial and Environmental Management Plan of Timbira Indigenous Lands (PGTA). The indigenous knowledge articulated with an environmental management system has revealed possibilities for the sustainable use of natural resources and effective indigenous participation in the territorial management of the Amazon-Cerrado transition region.