The potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and ontologies for rethinking global forest governance

Abstract

This article explores the potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and forest understandings for making global forest governance more nuanced and thus rethinking the value of forests in the context of multiple global crises. Indigenous forest practices and their inherent knowledge are included in current global governance in very limited ways. Onto-epistemological openings in forest policies are needed in the face of converging climate, food and health crises. The indigenous forest relations and practices analyzed here may offer possibilities for such onto-epistemological openings. The current FAO and UNFCCC forest definitions are contrasted with indigenous forest understandings. While the current national and global definitions of forests contain a wide range of discrepant definitions, making the application of a shared forest policy difficult and even impossible, most institutional definitions share a positivist and technical approach to forest defining and governance. National and global discrepancies in definitions exist within the politics-as-usual process of forest defining, politics that could be challenged by the political ontology of forests that questions the deeper level of how forests should be conceptualized, placing greater emphasis on care, reciprocity, and the type of relational approach present among Amazon indigenous communities.