Introduction

Recognizing that “Conservation is a human-centered activity with human-centered aims, objectives, and decision-making processes” (Aitken, 2004: 186), conservation practices are inherently power-laden, seeking to protect a particular suite of cherished elements and functions and raising the question of by whom and which values, elements, and functions are selected (Berkes & Turner, 2006; Buscher & Fletcher, 2019; Turner & Berkes, 2006). As Kirby (2014: 639) notes:

“top–down conservation frequently places severe limits on the livelihoods of local people—who are often poor and reliant on local resources—while leaving those with the power to propose conservation actions free to pursue ecologically unsustainable lifestyles.”

Controversy surrounds the planning and implementation of conservation areas in Tropical Forests in Brazil (Bensusan, 2011; Diegues, 2008; Peterson et al., 2019). In this case study we assess how accommodating designated zones are to local interests relative to externally imposed framings and we interpret how meaningfully local knowledges and conceptualizations of socio-cultural landscapes are incorporated into such deliberations. Our study shows how external imposition of an idealized ‘rural idyll’ in the creation of a protected area in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, failed to incorporate local understandings and associated environmental values.

Ethno-scientific knowledge describes how culture influences the ways that communities interrelate with plants, animals, and their territories (Ribeiro, 2014). From an ethnogeographic perspective, landscapes are the key (Toledo, 1992). Rather than reflecting simple deterministic responses to specific geographical, genetic, or ecological factors, cultural frames of reference imprint distinctive marks of a particular symbolic order upon landscapes, thereby representing specific meanings and modes of appropriation in terms of socio-cultural attributes such as means of production, organization, division of labor, and development/use of technology (Leff, 1994). Socio-cultural insights co-produce nature-culture relations, or socio-natures (Castree, 2001), creating a distinctive imprint upon the land. We address the question of which values management programmes choose to protect and conserve.

Ethnogeographic research approaches landscape as a text written by certain social groups that can be interpreted. According to Barrera-Brassols (2015), ethnogeography combines the anthropological and geographic tasks of describing spatial patterns and arrangements, highlighting systems of beliefs and symbolism. For Diegues (2008: 80), all ethnosciences “start from linguistics to study the knowledge of human populations about natural processes, trying to discover the logic underlying human knowledge of the natural world, the taxonomies and total classifications.“ Rather than merely descriptive chorological studies, ethnogeography critically appraises political relations to evaluate how local perceptions and knowledge about nature are incorporated into management practices (Blaut, 1979; Lave et al., 2018).

Ethnogeomorphology implies a shift in perspective from conventional approaches to both human and biophysical relationships in, of, and to landscape (Wilcock et al., 2013). Ribeiro ( 2012: 49) defines ethnogeomorphology as “the knowledge that a community has about geomorphological processes, taking into account the knowledge about the nature and values of local culture and tradition, being the anthropological basis for the use of forms of relief by a given culture.“ Ethnogeomorphology entails transdisciplinary analysis of the ways that social groups relate to and manage the land. It recognizes landscapes as products of ongoing interactions among biophysical, social, political, and cultural factors. In this sense, ethnogeomorphology is a hybrid science that incorporates social knowledge and its cultural and economic values about nature, appraising the knowledge that a community has about geomorphological processes and their uses.

Ethnogeomorphology explores how scientists relate to social groups by “finding hybrid spaces of dialogue” that offer a framework for practical intercultural communication that moves beyond assumptions of static and linear time and space (Wilcock & Brierley, 2012). Distinctly local expressions and terminology frequently emphasize specific connections to the environment, highlighting the importance of linguistic considerations (Villas Boas, 2017; cf., Macfarlane 2014). A multiple (plural) knowledges ethos incorporates understandings of sensory relationships among the agents, processes, and phenomena that act (and interact) in the landscape to inform stories and narratives (cf., Howitt & Suchet-Pearson, 2003). As aesthetic concerns also permeate the construction of traditional knowledge about landscape dynamics (Tuan, 1974), the perception of processes, along with personal perspectives, are at the same time a cognitive construct and a source of influence upon what is valued in understandings of the living world. In this sense, ethnogeomorphology presents an alternative methodology - “another way of doing geography” - creating new possibilities for constructive dialogue between the earth, environmental, and social sciences (cf. Braun & Castree, 2005; Demeritt, 2002; Ginn & Demeritt, 2009; Knorr-Cetina, 2013).

We use an ethnogeomorphic perspective to explore changing socio-cultural relations to land use in the Upper Macaé Catchment in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, over the 200 year transition from indigenous forest through colonized agricultural landscapes to implementation of a protected area. Through interviews with traditional farmers we explore intergenerational use of resources and changing relationships with the land. Following Diegues (2008: 87), we designate ‘traditional’ knowledge as “landscape understandings of the farmer settlers, built through the direct contact of generations with their resources.”

Regional setting: Upper Macaé Catchment

Draining a catchment area of approximately 1,800 km2, the 140 km long Macaé River emerges from a spring in the Serra Macaé de Cima Mountains in the east-central sector of Rio de Janeiro State, ultimately discharging into the Atlantic Ocean near Macaé City (Marçal et al., 2017; Fig. 1). The basin is dominated by an extensive escarpment parallel to the coastline. Plateau and escarpment landscapes of the Serra do Mar morphostructural unit lie between 860 and 1,820 m elevation. Steep, narrow valleys in these headwater areas have slopes that range from 8 to 45% (Marçal et al., 2017). Rock outcrops are common and soils are thin, typically cambisols and leptsols, with low natural fertility and limited potential for agricultural production (Oliveira, 2007). The region has a typical tropical maritime climate, locally influenced by elevation, topography and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. Average annual temperature varies across the catchment between 13 and 24 °C, while annual precipitation is well distributed through the year, ranging from 1,500 to 2,300 mm.

Fig. 1
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Attributes of the Physical Geography of Macaé Catchment

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Unlike the coastal plains, where, from the sixteenth century, Portuguese settlers replaced forest with sugar cane plantations, the mountains of Serra do Mar remained covered by Atlantic rainforest until the early nineteenth century, when gold and coffee attracted settlers to the interior lands. The steep relief, dense forest, and hostile indigenous peoples served as a “green barrier” to colonial expansion and began to be used as an escape route by gold smugglers to avoid paying taxes (Villas Boas & Mattos, 2021).

In response, in 1818 the Portuguese authorities decided to occupy this area. They financed the first Brazilian settlement colony. Two years later 1,600 settlers from Fribourg, Switzerland, arrived at the Morro Queimado farm, which became the village of Nova Friburgo (Nicoulin, 1995). Until then the mountain region in northern Rio de Janeiro was occupied chiefly by indigenous peoples from the Macro-Jê ethnolinguistic population belonging to three tribes: the Puris, the Coroados, and the Coropós (Aguiar, 2010). These nomadic peoples lived scattered throughout the forest and exerted relatively minor, localized impacts upon these landscapes. Although the population number of indigenous peoples in the Nova Friburgo region remains uncertain, reports from the Catholic Church indicate the presence of 2,000 Coroados, 500 Puris, and 200 Coropós in a region north of the Macaé catchment in the first decades of the nineteenth century (Aguiar, 2010).

While the Puris remained isolated and had little contact with colonial society, the Coroados and the Coropós became sedentary, living in villages of around 40 people along river corridors, subsequently becoming acculturated into Brazilian society (Mayer, 2003). Alongside collection of native plant species, crops such as corn, sugar cane, and cassava were cultivated. Trade relations and religious practices within the scope of Brazilian society were established. Although the Coroados and Coropós appeared peaceful, and they readily established trade relations and converted to Catholicism, settlers compared them to jaguars, likely in reference to their warrior culture (Aguiar, 2010). In subsequent decades, the population of Coroados and Coropós was reduced mainly due to the migration and impacts of variola (smallpox) epidemics (Aguiar, 2010). Today, of the three indigenous tribes previously in this area, only the Puris are listed in the national population census, but they are no longer found in the region. However, imprints from the past are retained through indigenous names for various local attributes and landforms, for example, the word Macaé refers to a palm tree that produces a sweet coconut.

In 1821, the Morro Queimado area of Nova Friburgo was divided into 200 plots distributed between the three adjacent river valleys: Grande, Cônego, and Macaé, the last being the most distant and isolated from the village. An influx of German migrants to this area occurred three years later. The settlers initially applied European cultural values and practices, but experienced production difficulties in the early years (Mayer, 2003). Steep terrain, shallow rocky soils, and dense forest were ill-suited to their traditional European agricultural practices. In response to these environmental difficulties, and contrary to the expectations of the imperial government, the settlers began to adopt indigenous techniques suited to local conditions, such as the use of fire to clear vegetation and enrich the soil (Nicoulin, 1995). Traditional fallow and fire techniques required little use of mechanization.

As access to the mountainous region was limited to mule tracks, the area remained isolated until residents opened a road at the end of the 1950s. The area became popular with hippies in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, the Jardim Botanico do Rio de Janeiro (a local institute focused on biological research) cataloged several endemic species in the region. Asphalting in 1982 and electric lights in 1985 prompted initial incursions of tourists. Over time, the natural values (ambient temperature, clean air) and scenic splendor of the area became well-known to residents of nearby urban centers. The number of visitors increased markedly and some bought land to build holiday houses (Fig. 2a). In moves intended to preserve the landscape, these newcomers (or outsiders) started to pressure the municipality to designate the region a protected area. In 1990 the Nova Friburgo Municipality created two reserves in the upper Macaé catchment, although these were not implemented until 2001, when pressure on the Rio de Janeiro State Government resulted in the creation of the Área de Proteção Ambiental de Macaé de Cima (APAMC; Macaé de Cima Environmental Protected Area) overlapping the Upper Macaé Catchment (Fig. 2b). The protected area remained only on paper for five years before any action was taken on the ground. Local farmers became aware of the creation of APAMC only through the installation of signposts. They were not informed of any regulations pertaining to use of the territory. Accordingly, they interpreted these steps as a victory for the holiday homeowners, environmentalists, and tourism sector (Villas Boas & Mattos, 2021).

Fig. 2
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Changing meanings of landscapes. Figure 2a - a rural idyll. Figure 2b - a APAMC welcoming roadside sign (in English: Welcome to APAMC. You are part of this environment)

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Environmental regulations in this area follow a category of National Law 9.985/2000 (Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação – Protected Areas National System), similar to IUCN category V - Protected Landscape. Originally proposed in 1994 and updated in 2013 through the Guidelines for applying protected area management categories, this category is defined as:

“A protected area where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant ecological, biological, cultural and scenic value: and where safeguarding the integrity of this interaction is vital to protecting and sustaining the area and its associated nature conservation and other values.” (IUCN, 2013: 20).

Under this designation, conservation encompasses the “associated nature and other values created by interactions with humans through traditional management practices” (IUCN 2013: 20).

APAMC includes about 75% tropical forest cover, 24% agricultural lands, and less than 1% urban area. Today, APAMC has three primary social groups: farmers descended from the original European settlers, neo-rural people who migrated from major urban centers to live in small villages or rural areas, and owners of holiday houses and tourists. The rural population continues to out-number the urban population by a ratio of about 3:1 (Table 1). Absolute numbers have been relatively stable over the past 30 years.

Table 1 Resident population of APAMC (National Census data)
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Methods

The use of an ethnogeomorphic perspective we used in this study is not framed as a distinctive method to produce an end product. Rather, we used it as a geographical approach that first captures the ‘other’ landscape (the local point of view, different from the one of science), and then seeks to understand how local residents perceive and use environmental resources in the explicit recognition of divergent values, political interests, and power relations that underpin decision-making processes.

We conducted this research between 2013 and 2019. Early interviews using pre-elaborated questionnaires proved ineffective, as interviewees sought to offer “correct” answers to “please” the interviewer. So after processing the results of eight interviews in July 2013, we set these data aside and adopted a different approach. The subsequent semi- structured interviews built upon linguistic and thematic findings of the initial work, but we used a new methodology with a pre-established script about the focus of the interview, while leaving the informant free to express themselves in their own terms (Amorozo & Vietler, 2010). A total of eight survey sessions were conducted from 2014 to 2019 (one or two trips per year to different APAMC locations, interviewing 32 people in total).

We gave particular emphasis to work with farmers because they are in close contact with elements of the landscape and natural cycles in their daily lives, and such understandings recurrently inform decisions regarding use of resources. We gave priority to interviewing the oldest farmers at each site, as their contact with previous generations was considered to present best prospect for identifying inherited knowledge about landscape management. We had no exclusion criteria, but some farmers did not want to participate in follow-up interviews, citing previous problems and fines associated with the management of the protected area.

We conducted the interviews during working hours, preferably at cultivation sites. Our use of conversations rather than of questionnaires or structured interviews respected ethical concerns for the views and values of the interviewees. Informal conversations made use of open-ended questions, without the option of “yes or no,“ preferably in an environment where the interviewee has contact with aspects of nature, rather than in their homes or shelters (Posey, 1986). We began all interviews by asking about crop production and spatial and temporal variability in products and practices. Subsequent questions sought insights into environmental conditions, such as soil quality, topographic relations, and climate. As a follow-up, we asked specific questions about geomorphological, pedological, and hydrological processes not previously mentioned. Finally, we asked questions about future prospects, with specific emphasis on the relation among the protected area, agriculture, and forest. We interviewed some farmers more than once, with an interval of more than a year, to validate previously collected responses. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and differentiated into themes.

We used Content Analysis (Bardin, 2011) to analyse the “spoken” and “unspoken” contents of interviews. Such “between the lines” perspectives move beyond the constraints of written vocabulary and static images, potentially acting as logical triggers that support theoretical construction elaborated by interviewees about elements of nature. Following multiple conversations and interactions, the lead investigator extracted and constructed a collective “line of thought,“ while retaining individual concerns and insights (Bardin, 2011).

Of the 32 interviewees, only one was younger than 60 and only one was female. Typically in this region, women carry out domestic work while men tend to farming. All interviewees were born and raised in the Upper Macaé Catchment, and had learned land management through their parents, older siblings, and extended family members. Some participants have never worked outside the farm. However, others had additional jobs, typically in the service sector in urban areas (e.g., merchant, driver, mechanic, work assistant, painter, etc.), although they continued to maintain a local garden for food production. All interviewees are descendants of Swiss or German migrants, but many are no longer able to confirm the exact origin because of the miscegenation between the two nationalities in this area. No participants have direct experience in Europe. Although all are grandchildren or great-grandchildren of primary immigrants, and many had direct contact with the first immigrants, in their conversations they referred only to the previous generation, that of their parents.

Results

The interviews provided considerable insight into contempo?rary and historical agricultural practices and lifestyle values adopted by landholders. These findings were contextualized along?side relevant conservation legislation in the Upper Macae Catchment (APAMC). A unity of perspectives was expressed across the group as a whole. Within a few years of settlement, colonists had established a ‘workable’ set of land use practices in this area, building upon insights from indigenous farming practices. Cultivation practices changed little over several generations, with an emphasis upon crop production (mainly yams, manioc, corn, beans, bananas, cabbage, potatoes, etc.) for local consumption and distribution to nearby urban centers. Some individuals also practiced small-scale livestock production, including pig, poultry, and cattle breeding. None of the interviewees were involved in commercial forestry.

Farmers reported some variation in crop production in recent decades, related primarily to the uptake of new techniques, marketing structures, and competition with neighboring areas. Little to no concern was expressed for changes in biophysical attributes such as soil productivity or climate conditions. However, it was noted that properties were cultivated “to the tops of the hills”Footnote 1 in previous eras, whereas many of these areas now have forest cover (Fig. 3a). Farmers emphasized challenges with the accessibility of these areas, their lower productivity, and abandonment following inspection by APAMC managers and associated priorities for environmental protection through conservation measures (Fig. 3b).

Fig. 3
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Top of the hills now are covered by forest after the beginning of the management of the protected area

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Interviewees identified five distinct ethnogeomorphic compartments in the landscapes of the Upper Macaé Catchment (Fig. 4). “Várzeas” are floodplain areas of the valley floor. “Morro” are hillslopes that extend to near the ridge line. Farmers make no specific designation in terms of hillslope form (hills or escarpments) or elevation; the term simply applies to the slope itself. “Topos” refer to the highest areas of the slopes at the tops of the hills. “Baixo” (or low, in English) are flat areas, independent from position in the landscape. Finally, “Grota” are narrow and confined tributary valleys (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4
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Schematic representation of ethnogeomorphic categories of the landscape of the APAMC

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Fig. 5
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Ethnogeomorphic categories of the landscape of APAMC

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Rather than being expressed as direct linkages between land use practices and particular landscape features or attributes such as slope angle or valley confinement, adopted measures were indirectly articulated through secondary relations to soil properties, aspect, climate variability, etc. Traditional farmers characterize soils based on texture (“loam” and “land”) and color (yellow, red, and black). Loam (terra barro, in Portuguese) is a clayey soil with high content of organic matter. It is described as “sticky” - a soil that “glues” or “binds.“ “Land” (terra arenosa, in Portuguese) is drier, described as more “arid” with a greater proportion of silt and sand. “Mixed land” lies between “loam” and “land.“ Finally, “thin land” (terra puenta, in Portuguese) has a fine-grained texture with limited potential to bind together or retain moisture, thereby being readily transformed into “dust.“ Although the soil taxonomies do not directly match landscape segments, soils at the tops of the hills are considered to be bad for planting. As noted by participant D, these areas are “weaker to plant” while soils near the bottom of the valley have better properties as “everything goes down” to these lower areas, where soil particles, nutrients, and water accumulate.

Although farmers noted topographic impediments to mechanized (automated) agricultural production, heterogeneity in land use practices was expressed primarily in terms of microclimatic controls upon environmental dynamics. Higher areas were differentiated from lower areas in terms of their warmth, and associated variability in humidity and sunshine hours. These factors were key in determining “good” or “bad” land and associated soil quality.

Traditional farmers divide the land into two classes. The “soalheira” are north- or west-facing slopes that face the sun, thereby receiving the highest incidence of sunlight. As these areas are hotter and drier, it is difficult to grow some agricultural crops and irrigation is required, but once implemented the tillage develops quickly. In contrast, the “ruega” are south-and east-facing slopes with milder temperatures, lower solar incidence, and higher soil humidity. This name refers to Norway (Noruega, in Portuguese), a country subject to lower temperatures than Switzerland/Germany, the countries of origin of the first settlers. These slopes act as a barrier to cold and humid air masses from the South Atlantic. However, “ruegas” are not necessarily better for planting, as the sun “touches” these areas late, limiting exposure to the sun between 10 am and 3 pm between May and September. As a result, tillage on these slopes “takes longer to be born” (Participant L). Preferential crop production varies in different areas: cassava, manioc, and yams cultivation are favored on the “soalheiras”, while lettuce and cabbage cultivation are better on the “ruegas” (Fig. 4).

Although interviewees conceive of the landscape as a static entity, concerns for soil fertility underpin cycles of cropping and land use activity that seek to protect soil quality and maintain its productivity. Local knowledges emphasize that some soils “hold out” more than others (Participant D). In general, when the soil “is good,” it is not used for more than ten years consecutively, whereas “bad soils” are used for a maximum of three years (Participant D). Also, crop production practices are related to phases of the full and new moon as the best periods for planting, while growing and waning phases of the moon fail to generate good products, “bittering” or creating “shoots” in crops (Participant J).

Despite the lack of a direct topographically-induced relationship to land use practices, conservation-based legislation through two different legal instruments differentiated areas of permanent preservation (APP or legal reserve) on the top of the hills and along the rivers in the “várzeas” (floodplain areas) where cropping was not permitted anymore. Local farmers noted reduced water availability for agricultural production in response to enhanced forest growth associated with the implementation of APAMC Conservation Areas. In hyperbolic terms, they indicated that in decades past, at the time of their parents, “there was no forest” and all areas were dedicated to agriculture. Interviewees expressed concern that enhanced water uptake by forests in upland areas instigated development of gravity-fed drip irrigation practices to support agricultural production. Alongside land use changes, climate change has reduced water availability in recent decades, marked by increasing temperatures and reduced recurrence of morning fogs.

Use of fallow (an itinerant planting system in which cultivated areas are set aside and given time to rest/recuperate, thereby facilitating regrowth of vegetation) and fire in agriculture, known in Portuguese as “coivara” (the indigenous name for this practice), present a notable conflict between traditional (adopted) farming practices and the management of APAMC. Farmers report that they allow forest succession for three to ten years, depending on need, then cut it down, using fire to remove it, transitioning other areas into fallow. Organic matter is dried and burned on site, improving the soil for planting as ash provides nutrients that are stored in the plant biomass and reduces the acidity of the soil (Fig. 6). These agricultural systems represent sophisticated adaptations and ecological strategies: not only do they overcome the phosphorus deficiency in these tropical soils, they also produce high returns in terms of energy, reducing working time, accelerating nutrient cycling, and have relatively neutral long-term ecological effects (Oliveira, 2007). Participant E explains:

“O fogo prepara a terra, as cinzas são os nutrientes para a terra. Aqui é tudo orgânico, não usamos veneno. Até porque nós comemos o que plantamos.”

“Fire prepares the land, the ashes are the nutrients for the land. Here it’s all organic, we don’t use poison. Because we eat what we sow.”

Fig. 6
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The use of fire to recycle organic matter and as an agent of pest control

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Farmers had to abandon their traditional practices to conform to modern legislation. These laws state that if the forest grows to a certain stage, it can no longer be cut down, and they prohibit the use of fire in agricultural practices. The coivara practices, such as fallow, rotation of tillage, and the use of fire, were supplemented in recent decades by the introduction of modern chemical subsidies, mainly for pest control associated with management of the protection area. Fines were imposed upon those maintaining traditional practices, as described by Participant T:

“Enxadeiro sofre. Enxadeiro hoje é uma classe desclassificada. Para ‘o meio ambiente’ enxadeiro é criminoso.”

“Traditional farmer suffers. Traditional farmer today is a declassified class. For the ‘environment,’ a farmer is a criminal.”

Furthermore, the 2014 management plan (INEA, 2014) defined the “untouched” areas as dedicated to preservation, exemplifying principles of fortress conservation (Brockington, 2002). As shown in figure 7, protection of forests in preservation areas severely restricted the use of fallow and other farming applications (Villas Boas & Mattos, 2021).

Fig. 7
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Source: Landsat (2021), Mapbiomas (2020) and INEA (2014)

Landsat image and land use from 2010 and the zoning map published in 2014 delimiting the areas that can be used for agriculture.

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Farmers suggest several drivers of changing land use practices in the area. Old farmers indicate that the next generation no longer wants traditional lifestyles. For example, Participant T commented:

“(…) antigamente voce perdia seu emprego na cidade e a roça te acolhia. Hoje não existe mais isso. Quem quer encarar formiga, sol quente, cobra, chuva? É tão fácil ganhar dinheiro aí fora. Quem quer trabalhar na roça?”

“(…) in the past, you lost your job in the city and the countryside welcomed you in. Today, that no longer exists. Who wants to face ant, hot sun, snake, rain? It’s so easy to make money out there. Who wants to work in the fields?”

On the one hand, environmental protection measures reduce areas available for tillage. On the other hand, local aspirations are changing as the young people seeks jobs in urban areas, with only a few working as gardeners or housekeepers at holiday houses on what had been their family land. While some changes are adaptive, learning from experience, others are precautionary or reactive, abandoning some forms of practice in response to imposed conservation measures. As a consequence of these actions, forest regrowth has been accentuated (Fig. 8). Participant M made the following comment about the increase in the forested area:

“Isso aqui tudo vai virar mata e daqui a cinquenta anos vai ter muita fome. Porque tem muita coisa que vocês compram no mercado que a máquina não consegue plantar. Tem que ser com a mão. E se todo mundo sair da roça quem vai plantar?”

“Everything here will turn to forest and in fifty years there will be a lot of hunger. Because there are many things you buy in the market that the machine cannot plant. It has to be by hand. And if everyone leaves the fields, who will plant?”

Fig. 8
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Source: Mapbiomas (2020)

Land use and change from 1985 through 2019. APAMC was created in 2001.

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Discussion

According to Hoefle (2016), indigenous people had a view of nature that allowed dialogue between material and spiritual worlds and assigned divine manifestations to elements and processes that constituted ‘landscapes’. Although the initial colonizers of the Upper Macae Catchment, and subsequent generations, did not perceive landscapes in the same way as the indigenous populations, knowledge exchange surely informed the adoption and reproduction of agricultural techniques by settlers. The colonists and their descendants incorporated agricultural practices and techniques developed by the original peoples, with minor cultural changes such as the inclusion of certain foodstuffs brought by the Europeans. The rotation of crop areas, the practice of fallow land (or resting the land), and the use of fire demonstrate this cultural exchange, adapting to the new conditions in a humid tropical environment. These practices were maintained throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, prior to the creation of the protected area in 2001.

Since the arrival of tourists, or outsiders as the farmers call them, nature has been seen as a resource: rivers for water supply and leisure; forest for the aesthetic enhancement of the land. Agriculture is no longer seen as beautiful, or even necessary by those who go to APAMC for tourism. The management plan, supported from a scientific perspective, reflects the vision of urban social groups on natural elements and processes.

Marçal et al. (2022), using rivers as a reference, show how environmental paradigms and differing understandings of nature underpinned the evolution of environmental legislation in Brazil. From the second half of the twentieth century, perceptions of abundant and infinite resources were reconceptualized through environmental legislation that shows concern for finite natural resources. However, economic interests over-rode the understanding and needs of dynamic natural processes. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, assertions of an environmental crisis and international pressure resulting from conferences on the environment led to changes in Brazilian environmental laws.

Notionally, at least, the 2000 law for the creation and management of protected areas in Brazil incorporates popular participation in decision-making, and should allow the voice of local farmers to be heard. Villas Boas & Mattos (2021) identified three distinct understandings of nature in APAMC: (i) the contemplative and bucolic nature view, coming from urban social groups that seek the idyllic environment during leisure periods; (ii) the scientific approach to nature, adopted by the managers and understood as a bank of natural resources to be preserved; and (iii) the utilitarian aspects of nature, “intrinsically associated with daily life, understood as part of the wheels of life, with which the subject is directly related” (see Pearson 2016). This last perspective was expressed by farmers of European descent, according to which, protection of nature is necessary but its use requires a daily (ongoing) relationship.

APAMC’s management does not take family farmers’ understanding of the landscape into account. It imposed new institutional regulations, while manifesting ignorance and disdain for traditional knowledge, forcing farmers to change their practices. With less agricultural land to use, field rotation has been abandoned and the use of fire to clear the area and recycle soil nutrients is prohibited. The APAMC management plan determines which areas can be utilized by agriculture, while others must be preserved or isolated from direct use, thus constituting “forested islands” in its territory. Instead of considering ethnogeomorphic knowledge of “soalheira” and “ruega” slopes on the restriction of areas to plant or even allowing the exchange between forested and cultivable areas, maintaining a predetermined percentage of both, the management plan imposes a static approach to preservation that asserts a fortress conservation perspective (Brockington, 2002). Spatial and technical restrictions upon agricultural production align with typical practices of the green revolution, including the use of herbicides, chemical fertilizers and pesticides to maintain productivity. Impositions of new forms of socio-natures impacted directly upon the daily life and practices of citizens whose lifestyles have related to, and depended upon, natural resources of this area for centuries. Traditional practices that avoided contamination of soil and water, promoted the natural cycling of organic compounds, and maximized sustainable forms of profitability with low costs of production have largely been replaced.

Decisions about ‘what,’ ‘how,’ and ‘why’ to preserve go beyond academic questions and policies that seek to (re)create an idealized landscape (Sandbrook, 2015). In this instance, the formation of “forested islands” in the middle of a family farming matrix, one that was previously temporary and rotational, reflects a practical preservationist choice that is clearly orientated towards a “science-led ecocentrism” or biocentric perspective (Hunter Jr. et al., 2014). Such conservation strategies fail to incorporate understandings from social sciences or to take into account the landscape reading of the social groups that inhabited that territory before the creation of the protected area. Sustainable approaches to conservation incorporate local knowledge to build socially fair approaches to environmental protection, in what Buscher & Fletcher (2019) refer to as ‘convivial conservation.’

A more sympathetic approach to conservation would seek to maintain the area’s environmental processes in line with the quality of life and access to resources of the resident population. This sees conservation as an active process, not as a passive action – one that creates a new relationship between society and nature that meets the interests and understandings of diverse social groups (Sandbrook, 2015). Such practices protect nature in relation to local knowledges of working landscapes (Kremen & Merenlender, 2018; Rath & Ormsby, 2020), respecting biophysical and socio-cultural values without creating mechanisms of commodification of nature and commercial and instrumental values, such as payment for environmental services (Chan et al., 2016). Equitable approaches to conservation and environmental repair emphasize the mutual interdependence of human and environmental needs, applying integrative approaches to land and water management that relate scientifically informed policies to socio-cultural needs and aspirations through coherent, locally-owned endeavors.

Concluding comment

External imposition of a particular suite of values underpinned the designation of APAMC as a protected area. Our findings from this case study show how assertions of a rural idyll through a fortress conservation ethos are divorced from local understandings as revealed through semi-structured interviews with traditional farmers. Public power pressured by “outsiders”, a social group represented mainly by people from urban centers who seek leisure in this region, has pushed aside understandings of local farmers who interact daily with natural cycles and landscape elements in this region.

To date, despite the generative potential of the existing legislative framing in Brazil (Marçal et al., 2022), the construction and imposition of environmental laws fails to capture the foundation premises of a holistic perspective. Our study shows how contemporary management practices emphasise the protection of particular ‘elements of nature’ framed independently from their social, political, and cultural context. This echoes principles noted by Lave et al., (2014: 3), wherein political ecology is ‘much more political than ecology,’ and “it frequently privileges social processes/theories in the explanation of biophysical situations … (such that) ‘ecology’ is rarely an equal partner to the ‘political’.” Although they may be subjugated and despised, other ways of knowing nature that incorporate local (traditional) knowledges enhance prospects for more inclusive (participatory) approaches to conservation. This is not to suggest a return to a particular form of indigenous socio-environmental organization. Rather, we advocate practices that incorporate the use of elements of nature in ways that reflect local and cultural specificities. Nomothetic laws that consider nature merely as a resource fail to respect diversity, reinforcing spatially uneven development and perpetuating the human-nature dichotomy, as if the human were not natural and the natural were not human.

Sustainable development entails governance in partnership with local populations, embracing the possibility of a spiritual dimension through broader conceptualizations of ‘culture’ and ‘environment.‘ It is yet to be seen how participatory practices, public consultations, and the creation of decentralized committees will shape the modernization of such rural areas. Prospectively, building upon foundations laid by Ribeiro (2012, 2014), ethnogeomorphic understandings of landscapes can support approaches to conservation management that avoid the society-nature dichotomy, informing more harmonious environmental practices, policies, and laws in Brazil.