The People of the Mountains: The Biocultural Heritage of the Espinhaço Range in Minas Gerais State, Brazil

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The Espinhaco mountain range in Minas Gerais is characterized not only by its great biodiversity but also by its closely associated cultural diversity. Inhabited by groups of humans for over 12,000 years, the Espinhaco Range underwent significant change with European colonization, particularly due to the eighteenth century search for gold and diamonds, and Africans enslaved for this purpose. As a result of this process of occupation and interaction, several traditional rural communities were formed which inherited ecological knowledge and built highly complex ecosystem management systems. The interactions between these communities and rocky fields play a central role in the environmental history of the region. Being located at higher elevations these fields were generally used for grazing animals, plant extraction, and even agricultural crops and housing. The cultural and biological importance of the region due to existing socio-ecological processes have contributed to the formation of a diversity of people and forests which was made even more valuable with the creation of the Espinhaco Biosphere Reserve, in 2005. However, the current context of territorial disputes over this mountain range reflects the different meanings and social projects in the region. The advances of large capitalist enterprises based in the region contributes to a scenario of territorial and environmental conflicts where culturally differentiated communities try to defend their traditionally occupied lands against the advances of real estate speculation, overlapping full protection conservation units, eucalyptus monocultures and implementations of big industrial mining projects. In this context, the objective of this chapter is to describe the historical and political dimensions of the biocultural diversity of the Espinhaco mountain range, focusing especially on areas of rocky fields. The chapter critically reflects upon the naturalization of the political and economic processes that have come to threaten the cultural diversity and environment of this region due to ethnoecological and ecological policy.