Contributions of human cultures to biodiversity and ecosystem conservation.

The expansion of globalized industrial societies is causing global warming, ecosystem degradation, and species and language extinctions worldwide. Mainstream conservation efforts still focus on nature protection strategies to revert this crisis, often overlooking the essential roles of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP&LC) in protecting biodiversity and ecosystems globally. Here we assess the scientific literature to identify relationships between biodiversity (including ecosystem diversity) and cultural diversity, and investigate how these connections may affect conservation outcomes in tropical lowland South America. Our assessment reveals a network of interactions and feedbacks between biodiversity and diverse IP&LC, suggesting interconnectedness and interdependencies from which multiple benefits to nature and societies emerge. We illustrate our findings with five case studies of successful conservation models, described as consolidated or promising 'social-ecological hope spots', that show how engagement with IP&LC of various cultures may be the best hope for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation, particularly when aligned with science and technology. In light of these five inspiring cases, we argue that conservation science and policies need to recognize that protecting and promoting both biological and cultural diversities can provide additional co-benefits and solutions to maintain ecosystems resilient in the face of global changes.

Intentional creation of carbon-rich dark earth soils in the Amazon.

Fertile soil known as Amazonian dark earth is central to the debate over the size and ecological impact of ancient human populations in the Amazon. Dark earth is typically associated with human occupation, but it is uncertain whether it was created intentionally. Dark earth may also be a substantial carbon sink, but its spatial extent and carbon inventory are unknown. We demonstrate spatial and compositional similarities between ancient and modern dark earth and document modern Indigenous practices that enrich soil, which we use to propose a model for the formation of ancient dark earth. This comparison suggests that ancient Amazonians managed soil to improve fertility and increase crop productivity. These practices also sequestered and stored carbon in the soil for centuries, and we show that some ancient sites contain as much carbon as the above-ground rainforest biomass. Our results demonstrate the intentional creation of dark earth and highlight the value of Indigenous knowledge for sustainable rainforest management.

The domestication of Amazonia before European conquest.

During the twentieth century, Amazonia was widely regarded as relatively pristine nature, little impacted by human history. This view remains popular despite mounting evidence of substantial human influence over millennial scales across the region. Here, we review the evidence of an anthropogenic Amazonia in response to claims of sparse populations across broad portions of the region. Amazonia was a major centre of crop domestication, with at least 83 native species containing populations domesticated to some degree. Plant domestication occurs in domesticated landscapes, including highly modified Amazonian dark earths (ADEs) associated with large settled populations and that may cover greater than 0.1% of the region. Populations and food production expanded rapidly within land management systems in the mid-Holocene, and complex societies expanded in resource-rich areas creating domesticated landscapes with profound impacts on local and regional ecology. ADE food production projections support estimates of at least eight million people in 1492. By this time, highly diverse regional systems had developed across Amazonia where subsistence resources were created with plant and landscape domestication, including earthworks. This review argues that the Amazonian anthrome was no less socio-culturally diverse or populous than other tropical forested areas of the world prior to European conquest.

Pre-Columbian urbanism, anthropogenic landscapes, and the future of the Amazon.

The archaeology of pre-Columbian polities in the Amazon River basin forces a reconsideration of early urbanism and long-term change in tropical forest landscapes. We describe settlement and land-use patterns of complex societies on the eve of European contact (after 1492) in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon. These societies were organized in articulated clusters, representing small independent polities, within a regional peer polity. These patterns constitute a "galactic" form of prehistoric urbanism, sharing features with small-scale urban polities in other areas. Understanding long-term change in coupled human-environment systems relating to these societies has implications for conservation and sustainable development, notably to control ecological degradation and maintain regional biodiversity.

The legacy of cultural landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon: implications for biodiversity.

For centuries Amazonia has held the Western scientific and popular imagination as a primordial forest, only minimally impacted by small, simple and dispersed groups that inhabit the region. Studies in historical ecology refute this view. Rather than pristine tropical forest, some areas are better viewed as constructed or 'domesticated' landscapes, dramatically altered by indigenous groups in the past. This paper reviews recent archaeological research in several areas along the Amazon River with evidence of large pre-European (ca 400-500 calendar years before the present) occupations and large-scale transformations of forest and wetland environments. Research from the southern margins of closed tropical forest, in the headwaters of the Xingu River, are highlighted as an example of constructed nature in the Amazon. In all cases, human influences dramatically altered the distribution, frequency and configurations of biological communities and ecological settings. Findings of historical change and cultural variability, including diverse small to medium-sized complex societies, have clear implications for questions of conservation and sustainability and, specifically, what constitutes 'hotspots' of bio-historical diversity in the Amazon region.

Amazonia 1492: pristine forest or cultural parkland?

Archaeology and indigenous history of Native Amazonian peoples in the Upper Xingu region of Brazil reveal unexpectedly complex regional settlement patterns and large-scale transformations of local landscapes over the past millennium. Mapping and excavation of archaeological structures document pronounced human-induced alteration of the forest cover, particularly in relation to large, dense late-prehistoric settlements (circa 1200 to 1600 A.D.). The findings contribute to debates on human carrying capacity, population size and settlement patterns, anthropogenic impacts on the environment, and the importance of indigenous knowledge, as well as contributing to the pride of place of the native peoples in this part of the Amazon.