Landscape management among the Guarani of the Atlantic Forest of Misiones, Argentina: the case of the Syagrus romanzoffiana (Cham.) Glassman (Arecaceae) palm tree

Jorge J Araujo,José L Rojas,Norma I Hilgert,Héctor A Keller

doi:10.15451/ec2021-04-10.22-1-19

Jorge J Araujo, José L Rojas + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.15451/ec2021-04-10.22-1-19

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Abstract

The study of the management practices that different Guarani settlements have carried out in the environment over time constitutes one of the objectives of ethnoecology and historical ecology as the way through which these communities obtain forest resources affects landscape settings. In this work, based on a local classification system of the ontogenic stages of the pindo palm tree Syagrus romanzoffiana (Cham.) Glassman (Arecaceae), we study the effects of traditional management practices on the unity of the pindoty landscape - plant communities with a high concentration of this species. We evaluated the degree to which two morphometric variables used in the measurements of woody tree species, diameter at chest height (DBH) and total height (H), explain the local classification. As a result, in the environment of four Guarani settlements (Ita Piru, Kurupayty, Pindo Poty, and Yvyra Pepe Poty), the production of edible larvae favors temporary changes in the pindoty landscape unit since it produces changes in pindo population’s structure – (abundances by class size). In addition, we discuss some aspects of the pindoty units and their anthropogenic nature concluding that their evolution results from the Guarani cyclical cosmological conception.

Highlights

Throughout time, different human activities have modified the environment; in America, evidence dates to about 10,000 years BP, more precisely to the Holocene period (Bonomo and Capeletti 2014; Levis et al 2018) increasing in the current period known as the Anthropocene (Gillings and Hagan Lawson 2014; Oldfield and Dearing 2003)
In places where human populations have settled down, practices of use, management and domestication of resources remain reflected in modifications of the landscape units and in many cases, it is possible to speak of bio-cultural landscapes (Cassino et al 2019)
In the areas used in the surroundings of the settlements, they recognize different sites -or landscape units- and name them according to environmental biological and utilitarian-cultural criteria

Summary

Introduction

Throughout time, different human activities have modified the environment; in America, evidence dates to about 10,000 years BP, more precisely to the Holocene period (Bonomo and Capeletti 2014; Levis et al 2018) increasing in the current period known as the Anthropocene (Gillings and Hagan Lawson 2014; Oldfield and Dearing 2003). In places where human populations have settled down, practices of use, management and domestication of resources remain reflected in modifications of the landscape units and in many cases, it is possible to speak of bio-cultural landscapes (Cassino et al 2019). The study of the interactions between human populations and the management of their environment constitutes one of the main objectives of historical ecology (Armstrong et al 2017; Szabó 2014) as well as of ethnoecology (Toledo and Barrera Bassols 2008). Several studies have shown that human perception of the environment and decisions on how to relate to it are based on biophysical and cultural factors (Cotton 1997; Fowler 1979). Historical ecology does not consider humans as another animal in a complex web of organisms or as a species among many in an ecosystem within a system based on balance and process; rather, the human species can be understood as a keystone species (Balée and Erickson 2006)

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