Traditional knowledge and areas of biodiversity in Brazilian Amazonia*

Abstract

The loss of biodiversity, one of the environmental problems with an acknowledged planet‐wide impact, has been addressed by a convention which highlights the need to take into account the “knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities” in a context of sustainable development. This rehabilitation of the traditional practices and knowledge of communities undermined by several decades of development raises a number of problems as to its relevance, forms, and procedures. The multidisciplinary research we have carried out in Brazilian Amazonia on the management of the varietal diversity of cassava by various local groups provides a good illustration of this. After presenting the Amazonian context in which cassava is cultivated, we look at the institutional and organizational environments in which the communities concerned live before taking up the question of emerging political configurations involved in preserving local knowledge. Non‐governmental organisations play a significant role politically, as intermediaries between the local level and the state's political and administrative institutions. The dynamics observed testify to a far‐reaching change in the way “indigenous communities” relate to the society around them.