Brazil Anthropology: Environmental Conservation & Indigenous Peoples

July 31 - August 21, 2009

ANTH498C / ANTH698C / LASC448C

The University of Maryland Study Abroad Office is pleased to offer this unique ethnological field course in cooperation with the indigenous Kayapo community of A'Ukre and NGO Associação Floresta Protegida (AFP) in the southeastern Amazon rainforest. The course will address biodiversity concepts, tropical forest ecology, conservation of Amazonia, and the role of the indigenous Kayapo in the protection of their lands.

The Amazon basin is the largest remaining tract of tropical rainforest in the world. A number of indigenous groups of the Brazilian Amazon now participate in arrangements of “partnering” with outside entities, intended to increase security of their lands. Students will visit and work with one such innovative partnership in which indigenous peoples participate at every level of decision-making and knowledge-sharing.

The Kayapo territories of Pará and Mato Grosso state provide a striking example of the efficacy of indigenous organization and strategic partnering in creating an effective barrier to the wave of deforestation and fires sweeping across the southeastern Amazon basin. The indigenous Kayapo, who depend on the forest for their livelihoods, have been working to protect their lands from invasion and deforestation since their first contact with outsiders fifty years ago. Since demarcation of their lands, the Kayapo of the Terra Indígena Kayapo have actively contested their land rights and frontier expansion, defending the 2,000 km border against invasion by ranching, logging, gold-mining and land fraud (grilhagem). Recently the environmental NGO Conservação Internacional has partnered with the Kayapo to strengthen border monitoring and to implement sustainable economic development. Today, Kayapo lands form a virtual barrier to widespread deforestation from agriculture and logging.

The Pinkaiti Research Station has been in A'Ukre, center of the Kayapo Indigenous Area, for over 15 years. During this time, researchers have studied the sustainability of local hunting practices and their impact on fauna. In a rare partnership with Pinkaiti, the University of Maryland has arranged for a small class of students to visit this reserve, live among the Kayapo, and be taught by them along with researchers. This course presents an extraordinary opportunity for students to study indigenous conservation at a multi-landscape scale, as well as a unique indigenous-NGO partnership to protect their lands.

Dr. Janet Chernela
Faculty Director

Prof. Janet Chernela is an anthropologist who has worked in the Brazilian Amazon for over twenty-five years. She is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Latin American Studies Center of the University of Maryland, and teaches classes in anthropological approaches to the environment, and the indigenous peoples of Brazil. Dr. Chernela is a former faculty member of the Dept. of Ecology at the Brazilian Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) in Brazil and has worked with environmental NGOs in conservation projects among indigenous peoples. She is author of the book, The Wanano Indians of the Brazilian Amazon: A Sense of Space.

The project will also rely on the leadership and expertise of the ecologist who founded the research station among the Kayapo, as well as assisting ecologists, anthropologists, translators, and Kayapo.

For questions about the application, registration and pre-departure logistics, please contact Shoshana Griffith, a Program Assistant in the Study Abroad Office.