Beautiful gardens: agrobiodiversity Mebêngôkre-Kayapó in globalization times

Abstract

Nowadays, traditional societies of the Amazon experience strong changes that cause direct effects on traditional agricultural systems such as the trend toward homogenization of species and techniques along with a greater reliance on market. However, Amazonian agricultures still are diversified and valuing diversity. The article describes the particularities of Mebêngôkre-Kayapó agriculture from a methodology developed with tools from anthropology, geography and ethnobotany in Indian villages of southern Pará. The current management of agrobiodiversity is analyzed through the organization of the fields in space and time and from surveys conducted with a focus on diversity in the level of species and varieties of crops. The results show that a large number of plants is still cultivated and confirm the vitality of indigenous knowledge on agrobiodiversity, even in change time. The principles of partition, conservation, reproduction, and making of Mebêngôkre biodiversity are associated with the concept of 'beauty' (mex), that values, far beyond landscapes and agricultural techniques, the good condition of social networks within and outside the village, as well as essential Mebêngôkre values.

Keywords

• Agriculture
• Biodiversity
• Mebêngôkre
• Kayapó
• Amazon