Indigenous people of Amazonia have become the subject of an intense debate about whether native people enhance or degrade biodiversity and environmental health. In some more extreme critiques, Amazonian people are considered to be no better or worse than Westerners (Alvard 1995; Redford 1991). But modern Western society often views the relationship of native people to the environment as positive in contrast to its own. Assumed to be living in harmony with nature, it is thought that native people must have an innate conservation ethic and thus, are considered the natural stewards of the environment. This powerful belief is the Myth of the Noble Savage. Much of the debate about native Amazonia focuses on documentation of over hunting of game animals. Rather than being omniscient curators of their environment, it can be argued Amazonian people were environmentally friendly due to low, dispersed populations, plenty of resources, simple technology, and settlement mobility rather than an innate conservation ethic.
In studies debunking the myth, game animals are treated as a natural and immutable resource subject to unsustainable overexploitation. Historical ecologists point out that the important game animals feed heavily on fruits and nuts provided by the anthropogenic forests established by the past inhabitants of Amazonia. Oligarchy or forests of a single species, usually a tree valuable to humans and game animals, is attributed to past human management (Peters 2000). In addition, most contemporary hunter-gatherers rely on the economic species of anthropogenic forests, the landscape capital of their ancestors. Humans created the conditions for the “natural” resources that they are blamed for degrading.
While scholars debate humans as agents of conservation vs. humans as agents of degradation, historical ecologists eschew the distinctions and argue that humans are neither (Balee 1998; Balee and Erickson 2006b). Rather than possessing an innate conservation ethic of preservation, native Amazonians consciously exploited their environments for subsistence while practicing resource creation and management. The management, a form of multigenerational indigenous knowledge about the environment, is based on local practical indigenous knowledge. Some historical ecologists consider humans to be a keystone species: a species that plays a disproportionate role in ecosystem health and the abundance and availability of other species (Balee and Erickson 2006b).
Whether human activities degrade or enhance biodiversity often depends on how biodiversity and environmental health are defined and measured, the temporal and geographical scale used for comparison, and the standard or a benchmark to which altered environments can be compared and evaluated. Because the impact of human activities is so early, widespread, and profound in Amazonia, most historical ecologists argue that there is no appropriate pristine benchmark for comparison. In some cases, Amazonian people enhanced biodiversity and practiced environmentally sustainable practices; in other cases
The diversity of species was reduced and environments degraded. What may have been negative impacts over the short term and locally may actually enhance biodiversity over the long term and at the regional scales and vice versa. In many documented cases, human creation, transformation, and management of the Amazonia over thousands of years resulted in the high biodiversity that is appreciated today.
World History
