Rural Amazonia Research Articles

A Survey of Hepatitis B Virus and Hepatitis E Virus at the Human-Wildlife Interface in the Peruvian Amazon.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and Hepatitis E virus (HEV) are zoonotic pathogens posing significant health concerns in rural Amazonia, a region marked by high endemicity, poverty, and limited healthcare access. However, the epidemiology of HBV and HEV in this ecosystem remains underexplored. This study examines the circulation of HBV and HEV at the human-wildlife interface and identifies risk factors within an isolated Amazonian indigenous community reliant on hunting for subsistence. Antibodies against HBV core antigens (HBcAbs) were found in three wildlife species: Cuniculus paca (0.8%), Tayassu pecari (1.6%), and Mazama americana (4.1%), marking the first record of HBV antibodies in free-ranging wildlife in the Amazon. However, further research is necessary to identify circulating strains and their relation to human HBV. HBcAbs were also detected in 9.1% of human samples, confirming exposure to HBV in the region. HEV IgG antibodies were present in 17.1% of humans and were associated with higher age. All wildlife and domestic animal samples tested negative for HEV, but transmission through consumption of wild animals and contaminated water needs further investigation. The identified risk factors highlight the urgent need for measures to promote safer food handling, improved sanitation, hygiene, and practices related to contact with wild animals.

Thinking with <i>Bem Viver</i> across rural and urban Amazonia: Indigenous and Black spaces of resistance

In Brazil, Bem Viver recently arrived as a compelling counter-narrative to development's vision of land and labor as resources to be exploited. Bem Viver challenges the reductionism of land-as-resource, reinforces community autonomy, and entails reciprocity in relations with the nonhuman world. The purpose of this article is to extend conversations surrounding Bem Viver to the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará, primarily through asking whether the relational ethics of Bem Viver are active within current resistance movements focused on opposing neoliberal capitalism and racially-motivated dispossession. These resistance movements struggle for the maintenance of traditional relations while safeguarding socioecologies through territory. The cases we discuss draw upon our ethnographic work conducted within an Indigenous community in the Tapajós Basin and the Afro-Brazilian market Porto da Palha in urban Belém. We also consider whether Bem Viver opens the possibility of a post-political ecology framing of contestation over natural resources and place. Bem Viver is fundamentally relational and creates territorialities conflicting with market logics centered on financialization, individual accumulation, and private property. On the ground, Bem Viver as praxis shapes everyday practices sustaining place-based lifeways and determining material realities for the Indigenous and Black communities of the Tapajós and Belém regions of Pará.

Exploring educators’ perception of issues involving Planetary Health: A qualitative study in the Brazilian Amazon

Background: Planetary Health is a transdisciplinary area that needs to be part of the curriculum of students at all levels of education, starting from basic education with early childhood education. The present work aims to discuss the perceptions of basic education teachers from a riverside school on Planetary Health issues, in addition to knowing the environmental context of communities and/or riverside schools in the Brazilian State of Amazonas. Methods: The data collection was done through semi-structured interviews with rural education teachers from the south of the state of Amazonas. For the data analysis, we opted for the content analysis (Bardin, 2009) with the support of the N-Vivo software - version 1.5. Results: The results indicated the main environmental problems related to anthropogenic actions in the community and school, in which the following questions stood out: garbage disposal in the river, mineral extraction, lack of basic sanitation, and the predominance of ultra-processed foods in school meals. On the other hand, teachers pointed out the great potential of rural schools to promote the consciousness of children and adolescents on Planetary Health themes. Conclusion: Primary school teachers in rural Amazonia are in contact with a rich source for the creation of teaching materials on PH for students, in view of the importance of the inclusion of PH themes in the formative trajectory of children and adolescents in the basic education curriculum. These experiences provide knowledge about the reality of riverside schools, local traditional issues, environmental sustainability, and the changes occurring in ecosystems, especially in the Amazon.

Amazonian Forest Peoples' Perceptions of Malaria on the Upper Rio Negro, Brazil, are Shaped by Both Local and Scientific Knowledge

Malaria is endemic in Brazilian Amazonia, accounting for 99% of national cases. Amazonian forest peoples (both Indigenous and traditional) understand and treat the disease based on their knowledge, rituals, and religion. In recent decades, biomedical health coverage has expanded in the region, with implications for local perceptions and practices to prevent, treat, and recover from malaria. This paper attempts to understand how the expansion of biomedical healthcare among forest peoples interacts with their ethnomedicinal knowledge. Our results clearly indicate that most of our research participants in rural northwest Amazonia believe that malaria has a variety of causes, forms of prevention, and treatment. We also found that these beliefs are shaped by both local knowledge (including Indigenous) and some technical concepts of biomedicine. Consequently, new approaches and practices in healthcare need to be developed which consider forest peoples' perceptions and understanding.

Integrated multi-scalar analysis of vulnerability to environmental hazards: Assessing extreme flooding in western Amazonia

Environmental change is significantly altering hydrological systems worldwide, with substantial impacts for the people who live on floodplains and depend on rivers for their livelihoods and lifeways. Amazonia is a region significantly affected by these changes, particularly more severe flooding. This paper proposes a multi-scalar approach to vulnerability, applying it empirically to the analysis of household vulnerability to the 2011 flood—the second largest flood event along the Ucayali River in 30 years—in terms of exposure, impacts, and responses. Locally relevant indicators for assets, social identity, and social networks at the community and household levels are used to examine their role in shaping flood vulnerability, the interplay of community-level and household-level factors, and differential vulnerability across exposure, impacts, and responses to the same hazard event. We find that the most common impacts of severe flooding in rural Amazonia are on agriculture and that fishing is the dominant response strategy. This study suggests that covariate shocks, like floods, can have distinct idiosyncratic impacts and responses among households. We demonstrate that more integrated approaches to vulnerability analysis offer potential for better understanding differential vulnerabilities within populations as well as for drawing comparisons across hazard events and different settings.

Arapaima co-management through the lens of the Protected Areas Assets Framework

An extensive network of Protected Areas (PA) has been established across the Brazilian Amazon, but this PA system still suffers from a shortage of funding resources and environmental managers. New conservation strategies that successfully align social aspirations with biodiversity conservation are therefore imperative. Although approaches exist that demonstrate the value of biodiversity conservation for society and the local/national economy, these do not always manage to capture intrinsic values or local perspectives on natural resource conservation, and this can generate limitations in the use of these approaches as conservation tools. Here, we assessed the case of arapaima (Arapaima spp.) co-management, a well-consolidated community-based conservation initiative, through the lens of the Protected Areas Asset Framework (PAAF) to investigate the material and immaterial value of PA assets. Arapaima was clearly recognized as a key biophysical natural asset by local communities, with a significant role in terms of food, cultural, economic and conservation importance, in addition to its status as an iconic and emblematic species. This study reinforces the potential of the PAAF to identify the diverse range of values associated with PAs. Our results also encourage wider support to strengthen collaborative sustainable natural resource management programmes such as arapaima co-management, which is achieving remarkable social and ecological outcomes in rural Amazonia.

Sustainable-use protected areas catalyze enhanced livelihoods in rural Amazonia

Finding new pathways for reconciling socioeconomic well-being and nature sustainability is critically important for contemporary societies, especially in tropical developing countries where sustaining local livelihoods often clashes with biodiversity conservation. Many projects aimed at reconciling the goals of biodiversity conservation and social aspirations within protected areas (PAs) have failed on one or both counts. Here, we investigate the social consequences of living either inside or outside sustainable-use PAs in the Brazilian Amazon, using data from more than 100 local communities along a 2,000-km section of a major Amazonian river. The PAs in this region are now widely viewed as conservation triumphs, having implemented community comanagement of fisheries and recovery of overexploited wildlife populations. We document clear differences in social welfare in communities inside and outside PAs. Specifically, communities inside PAs enjoy better access to health care, education, electricity, basic sanitation, and communication infrastructure. Moreover, living within a PA was the strongest predictor of household wealth, followed by cash-transfer programs and the number of people per household. These collective cobenefits clearly influence life satisfaction, with only 5% of all adult residents inside PAs aspiring to move to urban centers, compared with 58% of adults in unprotected areas. Our results clearly demonstrate that large-scale "win-win" conservation solutions are possible in tropical countries with limited financial and human resources and reinforce the need to genuinely empower local people in integrated conservation-development programs.

Structural diversity and change in rural Amazonia: a comparative assessment of the technological trajectories based on agricultural censuses (1995, 2006 and 2017)

Abstract By applying methodological notions developed by Costa (2009), the present article sets out to define rural techno-productive trajectories in the Amazon, and compares their evolution with data from the agricultural censuses of 1995, 2006 and 2017. By highlighting the growth of each trajectory, the article discusses their fundamentals, set within the context of technological variants that have critically depended either on land or on labour, and were relatively intense, either in mechanical-chemical components or in the use of forest resources or permanent plantations. The results have underlined the significance that trajectories based on temporary crops and beef cattle have assumed within the region, as well as the risks and structural changes that this has involved. Results have also demonstrated the contrast represented by trajectories based on agroforestry systems and permanent crops.

Human Food Dynamics in Highly Seasonal Ecosystems: A Case Study of Plant-Eating in Riverine Communities in Central Amazon

Food habit studies in the Amazon emphasize the consumption of fish and manioc (Manihot esculenta) flour as basic diet in different ethnic groups, while little is known about human plant-related diet dynamics during the hydrological regime. In a scenario of food transition in rural Amazonia, with insertion of industrialized items in the diet, traditional food and consumption of regional products have undergone transformations, affecting the autonomy and lifestyle of traditional populations. Considering this, the objectives of the current case study were: (1) to contextualize plant-related eating habits in five Riverine communities on the Lower Purus River and (2) to characterize the dietary dynamics of plant eating according to the hydrological regime, considering the provenance of food items. We conducted interviews and sample collection in both low- and high-water seasons. We calculated species richness and diversity per meal and season and used multivariate analysis to access differences in plant consumption between seasons. The greatest richness and diversity of plants is consumed in the flooding season and mainly as snacks, the meal most susceptible to being replaced by industrialized foods. Despite a significant difference in diet between seasons, the basic array of plants consumed is similar in both seasons, with availability topped up by external purchases. This tendency deserves attention and action from public policies aimed at providing food security in the region.

Literature reviews: Gender And Rural Development

The purpose of this paper was to elaborate the gap of gender and rural development from geography perspective based on scientific research literature reviews. Four papers was selected to conduct this literature reviews. There are paper from Jennifer C. Langill, Chetan Choitani, Rosanna Quagliariello and friends, also Tamara Jacka and Sally Sargeson. These journals are interesting because it discusses the conception of empirical-scientific geography model as empirical science. Jennifer C. Langill’s paper offered a conceptual framework for gendered division of labour and gendered livelihoods in rural Amazonia: highlighting how gender roles and gendered livelihoods in rural Amazonia: highlighting how gender roles and livelihood seasonality need to be understood as co-produced. Because gendered livelihoods are further complicated by household composition and life-stage, often over-burdened with productive and reproductive labour. While Chetan Choitani shows the impact of migration of men that include ‘improved autonomy’ and ‘increased responsibility’ for left-behind women, also provide conceptual pathways to understand migration-gender-food security linkages. Rosanna Quagliariello and friends offered solutions for gender mainstreaming in rural area by technocratic regulation, legality, implementation and law enforcement within the framework of gender mainstreaming that ensures the empowerment of women towards gender equality. While Tamara Jacka and Sally Sargeson Discover the highlight of local constructions of gender and representation.
 Keywords: Gender, Rural Development, Gender and Development, Geography, Literature Review

How village leaders in rural Amazonia create bonding, bridging, and linking social capital configurations to achieve development goals, and why they are so difficult to maintain over time

At the dawn of the 21st century, riverine communities in the Brazilian Amazon faced natural resource conflicts, land tenure issues, a lack of basic services, and other development challenges. The solutions to these challenges required riverine leaders to not only build extensive social networks, but also forced them to create mutually reinforcing configurations of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. A position generator survey conducted among a sample of riverine communities in the municipality of Lábrea, Amazonas confirmed that riverine leaders had more extensive linking social capital than non-leaders. Two years of ethnographic research identified the complex micro-sociological processes riverine leaders engaged in to create the configurations of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital required to achieve collective goals. These micro-sociological processes included day-to-day behaviors, actions, interactions, and complex decisions regarding how and when to activate and deactivate relationships. This research indicates that analyzing day-to-day micro-sociological processes is useful not only to understand social capital configurations, but also to understand how some people are able to create more social capital than others. However, while some micro-sociological processes facilitate social capital configurations, others complicate efforts to create and maintain them. This article also illustrates the burdens riverine leaders faced in creating social capital configurations and the challenges of maintaining them over time. This study builds on previous research regarding the role of community leadership in rural development and provides examples of how analyzing micro-sociological processes can help identify the benefits, costs, and burdens of creating the social capital necessary to achieve development goals.

Forest cover and social relations are more important than economic factors in driving hunting and bushmeat consumption in post-frontier Amazonia

Identifying the economic drivers of hunting and bushmeat consumption is crucial for understanding whether economic growth in tropical forest regions can foster poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation. However, studies investigating those drivers have drawn contrasting conclusions. Some authors attribute inconsistent findings to heterogeneous spatial and environmental contexts, yet other studies indicate that social factors may predominate over economical determinants. Here, we investigate bushmeat hunting and consumption by analyzing the relative importance of household-scale economic factors in diverse spatial and environmental contexts. We surveyed 240 households distributed across twenty diverse rural landscapes in a post-frontier region in Brazilian Amazonia. Our results show that hunting is more likely in locations with higher forest cover, where game availability is expected to be higher. In contrast, bushmeat consumption is widespread even in deforested landscapes near to urban centers. However, we find no evidence that household-scale economic factors determine variation in rural bushmeat consumption, regardless of spatial or environmental context. Consequently, we infer that future growth in income or wealth would be unlikely to significantly change patterns of bushmeat hunting and consumption. Instead, we find that eating bushmeat is mainly dependent on the hunting of relatively common species for subsistence and food sharing, rather than through market exchange. This demonstrates an important informal economy maintained by social relations. Work is needed to evaluate the sustainability of hunting these small to medium-sized species given they evidently provide useful ecosystem service to poor households and are likely to support social relations in rural Amazonia.

The co-production of gendered livelihoods and seasonal livelihoods in the floodplains of the Peruvian Amazon

Gender is poorly understood in rural Amazonia. There remains limited understanding of how livelihoods are gendered or how labour is divided within the household. In this paper, I offer a conceptual framework for understanding gendered division of labour and gendered livelihoods in rural Amazonia. I draw on ethnographic data collected in two riverine mestizo villages located on the floodplains of the Ucayali River, Peru. I disaggregate riverine agro-fishing livelihoods by introducing the gendered and seasonal divisions of livelihood activities, highlighting how gender roles and livelihood seasonality need to be understood as co-produced. I suggest that rather than the annual flood being a ‘miserable’ period as previously suggested in the literature, the flood season and flood recession represent two socially distinct periods, with livelihoods rotationally focused within and beyond the household respectively. Gendered livelihoods are further complicated by household composition and life-stage, with single-headed households, particularly female-headed households, often over-burdened with productive and reproductive labour. This paper begins a necessary conversation of gender and social difference in Peruvian Amazonia, while questioning the relationship between gendered livelihoods and seasonality.

Irreplaceable socioeconomic value of wild meat extraction to local food security in rural Amazonia

Wild vertebrates play a decisive role in the subsistence economy of human populations worldwide. The food security value of wild-meat extracted from natural ecosystems remains poorly quantified. Here, we provide an economic valuation of the nutritional and monetary benefits of year-round wild-meat hunting across a large trinational region of southwestern Amazonia using data from indigenous and non-indigenous settlements from 30 sites. We then build scenarios to explore whether three ubiquitous sources of regional-scale household income (i.e. wage labour, horticultural revenues from manioc flour production and the harvest of Brazil-nuts) could match the purchase costs of alternative meat demand to meet domestic consumption of animal protein should game stocks collapse for any reason. We also considered a fourth valuation scenario in terms of game meat substitution with bovine beef. We conservatively estimate a total annual consumption of ~1431.8 tons of undressed animal carcasses, equivalent to a mean per-capita meat consumption of 54.75 kg person−1 yr−1, or ~10.9 kg of animal protein person−1 yr−1. This overall consumption of terrestrial wildlife meat provides US$7.875 million yr−1 across the study region. However, household income levels were too low to enable transitions into domestic livestock consumption indicating low adaptation capacity to alternative animal protein; replacement purchases of domestic meat would amount to 90% of aggregate annual wages, 194% of overall income from manioc flour, and 67% of all Brazil-nuts collected. Complete beef replacement by the population in this region would require further inputs of US$2.658 million yr−1 and the conversion of 4310 ha of Amazonian forests into pasture. Our results emphasize the extraordinarily valuable and irreplaceable role of wild meat in the food security of tropical forest dwellers. Proposing consumption of alternative sources of animal protein for monetarily deprived forest dwellers is clearly an unrealistic, if not environmentally-damaging, strategy. Conservation scientists, wildlife biologists and policy makers should therefore prioritize adding value to standing forests by managing sustainable wild-meat offtake from natural ecosystems.

Measuring local depletion of terrestrial game vertebrates by central-place hunters in rural Amazonia.

The degree to which terrestrial vertebrate populations are depleted in tropical forests occupied by human communities has been the subject of an intense polarising debate that has important conservation implications. Conservation ecologists and practitioners are divided over the extent to which community-based subsistence offtake is compatible with ecologically functional populations of tropical forest game species. To quantify depletion envelopes of forest vertebrates around human communities, we deployed a total of 383 camera trap stations and 78 quantitative interviews to survey the peri-community areas controlled by 60 semi-subsistence communities over a combined area of over 3.2 million hectares in the Médio Juruá and Uatumã regions of Central-Western Brazilian Amazonia. Our results largely conform with prior evidence that hunting large-bodied vertebrates reduces wildlife populations near settlements, such that they are only found at a distance to settlements where they are hunted less frequently. Camera trap data suggest that a select few harvest-sensitive species, including lowland tapir, are either repelled or depleted by human communities. Nocturnal and cathemeral species were detected relatively more frequently in disturbed areas close to communities, but individual species did not necessarily shift their activity patterns. Group biomass of all species was depressed in the wider neighbourhood of urban areas rather than communities. Interview data suggest that species traits, especially group size and body mass, mediate these relationships. Large-bodied, large-group-living species are detected farther from communities as reported by experienced informants. Long-established communities in our study regions have not “emptied” the surrounding forest. Low human population density and low hunting offtake due to abundant sources of alternative aquatic protein, suggest that these communities represent a best-case scenario for sustainable hunting of wildlife for food, thereby providing a conservative assessment of game depletion. Given this ‘best-case’ camera trap and interview-based evidence for hunting depletion, regions with higher human population densities, external trade in wildlife and limited access to alternative protein will likely exhibit more severe depletion.

Prevalence and associated factors of overweight in adults of rural Brazilian Amazonia

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nutritional situation of rural adults in the Brazilian Amazon. Anthropometric measurements (height, weight and waist circumference) were taken from all participants. BMI was calculated. Dietary intake was assessed by 24h recall and food patterns were assessed by food frequency questionnaires (FFQ). Energy expenditure was calculated from the resting metabolic rate multiplied by an activity factor based on physical activity. Linear regression was applied to assess variables associated to BMI. Participants of the study comprised 58 men and 50 women. The mean (±standard deviation) age of the study population was 44.0±12years for women and 47.0±15.0year for men. The BMI for normal weight men was 22.16±1.57 whereas for the overweight group was 28.33±2.58kg. Overweight and obese adults together comprise 60.2% of the study sample and therefore were considered as one group. Normal weight individuals had higher values of PAL (physical activity level) than overweight persons for both sex. There was no statistical difference between the groups concerning the intake of protein, kilocalories from protein and percentage of energy from protein. The physical activity level of participants describes a sedentary profile for women in the rural communities for both groups. The food pattern of surveyed people is based on rice, beans and meat as daily food. The prevalence of overweight and obesity altogether is comparable to that reported by other studies for Brazilian rural areas. The dietetic assessment revealed that energy expenditure was significantly different between normal weight and overweight women. Physical activity was shown to be a relevant factor for overweight in the two rural communities. The food pattern of the two communities expresses a monotonous diet.

Hepatitis A and E seroprevalence and associated risk factors: a community-based cross-sectional survey in rural Amazonia.

BackgroundHepatitis A virus (HAV) and hepatitis E virus (HEV) are both transmitted by the faecal-oral route, and represent common causes of acute hepatitis in developing countries. The endemicity of HAV infection has shifted from high to moderate in Brazil. Human cases of HEV infection seem to be rare, although the virus has been detected in swine livestock and effluents of slaughterhouses. This study was to determine the epidemiology of hepatitis A and E in one of the largest agricultural settlements in the Amazon Basin of Brazil.MethodsSerum samples collected from 397 individuals aged between 5 and 90 years during a population-based cross-sectional survey were tested for anti-HAV and anti-HEV antibodies. Associated risk factors and spatial clustering of HAV and HEV seropositivity were also analyzed.ResultsThe overall rate of HAV seropositivity was 82.9% (95% confidence interval (CI), 79.2-86.6%). Multilevel logistic regression analysis identified increasing age (in years; odds ratio (OR), 1.097; 95% CI, 1.050-1.147; P < 0.001) and crowding (OR, 1.603; 95% CI, 1.054-2.440; P = 0.028) as significant risk factors for HAV seropositivity. Anti-HEV IgG was detected in 50/388 settlers (12.9%, 95% CI, 9.5-16.2%). Anti-HEV IgM was detected in 7/43 (16.3%) anti-IgG positive samples, and 4 of them had a confirmed result by immunoblot. Increasing age was the only significant determinant of HEV seropositivity (OR, 1.033; 95% CI, 1.016-1.050; P < 0.001). No significant spatial clustering of HAV and HEV seropositivity was detected in the area.ConclusionsBoth HAV and HEV are endemic, with differing rates of infection in children and adults in this rural setting of the Brazilian Amazon. Anti-HEV prevalence was considerably higher than those previously reported in Brazil. The detection of HEV- specific IgM antibodies in four asymptomatic individuals is highly suggestive of the circulation of HEV in this rural population.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2334-14-458) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Manioc Varietal Diversity, Social Networks, and Distribution Constraints in Rural Amazonia

Social exchange networks play a critical role in the maintenance and distribution of crop diversity in smallholder farming communities throughout the world. The structure of such networks, however, can both support and constrain crop diversity and its distribution. This report examines varietal distribution of the staple crop manioc among rural households in three neighboring caboclo communities in Brazilian Amazonia. The results show that the centrality of households in exchange networks had no significant correlation with the number of manioc varieties maintained by households. However, household centrality did show a significant correlation with households’ perceived knowledge of manioc cultivation as well as the total area of manioc they cultivated. Although households with the most knowledgeable and active producers played a central role in the distribution of planting materials and manioc varieties, they did not maintain higher varietal diversity than more peripheral households in this study. This case study represents an important example of how social networks can constrain varietal distribution and contribute to low crop diversity in agricultural communities.

Microgeographical Differences of Plasmodium vivax Relapse and Re-Infection in the Peruvian Amazon

To determine the magnitude of Plasmodium vivax relapsing malaria in rural Amazonia, we carried out a study in four sites in northeastern Peru. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism of PvMSP-3α and tandem repeat (TR) markers were compared for their ability to distinguish relapse versus reinfection. Of 1,507 subjects with P. vivax malaria, 354 developed > 1 episode during the study; 97 of 354 (27.5%) were defined as relapse using Pvmsp-3α alone. The addition of TR polymorphism analysis significantly reduced the number of definitively defined relapses to 26 of 354 (7.4%) (P < 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression modeling showed that the probability of having > 1 infection was associated with the following: subjects in Mazan (odds ratio [OR] = 2.56; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.87, 3.51), 15-44 years of age (OR = 1.49; 95% CI 1.03, 2.15), traveling for job purposes (OR = 1.45; 95%CI 1.03, 2.06), and travel within past month (OR = 1.46; 95% CI 1.0, 2.14). The high discriminatory capacity of the molecular tools shown here is useful for understanding the micro-geography of malaria transmission.

Of Stakes, Stems, and Cuttings: The Importance of Local Seed Systems in Traditional Amazonian Societies*

Studies of indigenous agricultural systems in Amazonia often devote only limited attention to the accessibility and exchange of crop plant germplasm among Amerindian and folk peoples. I argue that scarcity of crop planting material—geographically, seasonally, and socially—in rural Amazonia has given rise to socioeconomic relations that profoundly influence indigenous agriculture and rural life. Access to seeds, cuttings, and other plant propagules is shown to be critical in the building and maintenance of crop and varietal diversity, in subsistence security for lowland farmers, and in market product specialization among traditional farmers. Further study of seed supply systems in Amazonia is needed to inform discussions of in situ crop conservation as well as intellectual property rights over plants and seed. Moreover, a focus on seed systems provides a new lens through which to study Amazonian peoples, their relations with one another, the market, and society.