Cows versus rubber: Changing livelihoods among Amazonian extractivists

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Geoforum 38 (2007) 1233–1249

Cows versus rubber: Changing livelihoods amongAmazonian extractivists

David S. Salisbury a,*, Marianne Schmink b

a Geography and Environmental Studies Program, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, United Statesb Tropical Conservation and Development Program, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida,

319 Grinter Hall, P.O. Box 115530, Gainesville, FL 32611-5530, United States

Received 31 May 2006; received in revised form 3 March 2007

Abstract

The livelihood strategies of former rubber tappers in the Amazon region are rapidly shifting from extraction of non-timber forestproducts to mixed systems based on agriculture and small scale cattle ranching. Using a combination of participatory methods and Geo-graphical Information Systems, a case study in western Acre, Brazil explores how rubber tapper livelihood strategies may be changing,and the implications of these changes for land use and forest cover. Field (cattle pasture and agriculture) expansion and the decline offorest extractivism present challenges to many regional conservation and development projects such as sustainable settlement projectsand extractive reserves seeking to develop forest-based livelihood alternatives to limit deforestation. Sustainability goals require research-ers and policy makers to address the still experimental status of these forest-based organizational units, the heterogeneity and dynamismof extractivist livelihoods, and the necessary importance of small-scale cattle ranching for insurance and income generation among manyformer and current extractivists.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Amazonia; Brazil; Cattle; Conservation; Extractivism; Extractive reserves

1. Introduction

Tropical forests play vital roles in contributing to biodi-versity, carbon cycles, hydrology, and climate patterns(Serrao et al., 1996; Laurance et al., 2001). The BrazilianAmazon rainforest, containing 40% of the world’s remain-ing tropical forest, is particularly important in maintainingglobal and regional systems. However, the Amazon rain-forest’s average annual rate of deforestation increased toalmost 2.4 million hectares a year by 2003 (Lauranceet al., 2004). Shifting agriculture and extensive cattle ranch-ing are responsible for 80–85% of Amazonian deforestation(Serrao et al., 1996). While large-scale cattle ranches causethe majority of cattle-related-deforestation in the Amazon

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doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.03.005

* Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.S. Salisbury), schmink@

tcd.ufl.edu (M. Schmink).

basin, small farmers are also intimately involved in cattleproduction and pasture formation (Hecht and Cockburn,1990; Downing, 1992; Faminow, 1998; Walker et al.,2000; Toni et al., 2005) and are the most mobile deforestersin the Brazilian Amazon (Almeida and Campari, 1995).Over the last few decades both farmers and ranchers haveexpanded their cattle operations in response to incentivesprovided by development policies, increased demand forbeef from regional and international markets, and theproduct’s economic characteristics as a low input, lowlabour, mobile, and liquid asset (Arima et al., 2006; Kaim-owitz et al., 2004; Toni et al., 2005).

By contrast, rubber tappers (also known as forest‘‘extractivists’’) are associated with ecologically friendlyland use practices (Allegretti, 1994; Menezes, 1994; Hall,1997). The traditional extractivist livelihood strategies ofrubber tapping and Brazil nut harvesting rely on standingforest, and the rubber tappers have been the focus of new

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1234 D.S. Salisbury, M. Schmink / Geoforum 38 (2007) 1233–1249

land reform and resource management policies based ontheir forest-based culture and practices. This case studyexamines how a community of rubber tappers respondedto a crisis in rubber production changing both their incomegenerating strategies, and the forested landscapes wherethey live. This study and others cited in the discussion findrubber tappers increasingly expanding field-based activitiessuch as agriculture and small scale cattle ranching. Thisdynamism and diversity of extractivist livelihoods mustbe better understood if organizational units such as extrac-tive reserves and sustainable settlement projects are toattain some measure of sustainability. The sustainabilityof these and other populated conservation units is of criti-cal ecological importance given their size and strategiclocation: extractive reserves now cover an area the size ofPortugal, indigenous lands make up 20% of the closed can-opy forest, and many parks remain populated within theBrazilian Amazon. This importance is underscored byrecent macro-scale research finding reserves inhabited bytraditional peoples to be, so far, ‘‘the most important bar-rier to Amazon deforestation’’ (Nepstad et al., 2006, p. 65).

We first review the history of settlement/colonizationprojects and extractive reserves in the Brazilian Amazon,sketch the geography and policy context of the state ofAcre, and introduce the Jurua Valley research site, the firstSustainable Settlement Project (PDS) in Brazil. We thenshow the results from a case study that combined participa-tory methods and GIS-based analysis to examine land usein 1990, 2000, and a forecast of the land use that site resi-dents hoped to pursue in 2010. This is followed by a discus-sion of these findings in light of other studies. Finally, theconclusion summarizes the key contributions of this paperand considers the policy implications and future researchissues related to these livelihood changes.

2. Colonization and land use change in the Western Amazon

2.1. The emergence and impact of Amazonian settlement

initiatives

The sustainable settlement project or PDS1 in this studyis one of the Brazilian government’s newest models in theAmazonian colonization project genre. While a numberof scholars have described details and contradictions inAmazonian colonization and development efforts, herewe briefly review the evolution of colonization models toprovide background for the PDS and extractive reserves(Moran, 1981; Smith, 1982; Schmink and Wood, 1992;Almeida and Campari, 1995; Simmons, 2002). Beginningin the 1960s, the Brazilian government and regional elitespromoted large-scale economic development policies inthe Amazon that supported timber, mining and ranchingindustries through infrastructure, public financing, conces-sions, tax credits and fiscal incentives (Bunker, 1985). The

1 Projeto de Desenvolvimento Sustentavel.

government also promoted managed in-migration, but thiswas overshadowed by commercial and speculative interests(Mahar, 1979), and overrun by the spontaneous in-migra-tion of some 300,000 settlers arriving in the 1960s (Katz-man, 1977). Land speculation and in-migration increasedas the rising cost of agricultural land in the south of Brazilencouraged southern farmers to buy land along the Ama-zon frontier (Schneider, 1995).

In 1970, the government created The National Instituteof Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) in anattempt to facilitate development initiatives and modernizethe existing tenure regime (Mueller et al., 1994). INCRA’smandate prioritized large-scale land sales and titling overcolonization schemes (Bunker, 1985). As the number oflarge commercial projects increased in Amazonia so didrural unrest and spontaneous settlement (Schmink andWood, 1992). In response to government dissatisfactionwith this cycle, INCRA introduced a series of colonizationmodels in the 1970s and early 1980s. While successful atstarting colonization projects, INCRA often failed to pro-vide colonists with the promised services and infrastruc-ture. A pattern soon emerged where each of the failedmodels was supplanted by a new simplified version to dif-fuse INCRA’s costs and responsibility while bringing landinto the market through titling (Schmink and Wood, 1992).Following dissatisfaction with the first and most ambitiousmodel, the integrated colonization project (PIC) (Smith,1982), INCRA supplanted them with a streamlined versioncalled directed settlement projects (PADs). The inability ofINCRA to keep pace with PADs led to the creation of sim-pler models in 1980 and 1986 called rapid settlement pro-jects (PARs) and settlement projects (PAs) thatessentially regularized invaded areas (Mahar, 1981), espe-cially in areas of social tension (Schmink and Wood,1992; Mueller et al., 1994). In subsequent years, INCRAturned to an array of new colonization project models thateither largely legalized existing areas of spontaneous colo-nization such as colonization centres (NC), land title pro-jects (PCT), and projects of land regularization (PF) orrelied on cooperatives or municipalities to assist in projectmaintenance, respectively with cooperative action projects(PACs) or cocoon projects (Projeto Casulo) (Guerra,2002). Despite the new models, many colonist families con-tinued to be inadequately prepared and poorly assisted.Families often chose to leave projects due to an inabilityto survive, or an unwillingness to struggle on, sometimeseven when their economic situation was improving andtheir farms productive (Almeida and Campari, 1995).Many outgoing families moved to new, still forested, settle-ment fronts, selling out to a more affluent second genera-tion of migrants (Schneider, 1995) and pressuringtraditional populations already living in the forest.

INCRA created a markedly alternative colonizationmodel called the extractive settlement project in 1987, leg-ally transformed into the agro-extractive settlement project(PAE) in 1996. This exclusively Amazonian model cateredto extractivist populations living in the forest, and sought

D.S. Salisbury, M. Schmink / Geoforum 38 (2007) 1233–1249 1235

to build on their traditional skills and land tenure with col-lective land use and usufruct rights, instead of individualtitles and lots, while still providing settlement servicesand infrastructure. This was the first INCRA settlementmodel to incorporate landscape-level resource managementplans to protect forests, similar to the extractive reservesdescribed in Section 2.2.2.

In 1999 INCRA created the sustainable developmentproject (PDS), a model also emphasizing sustainabilityand conservation, settling selected populations in areas ofenvironmental importance such as buffer zones. The PDSencourages a participatory process involving settlers,INCRA, non-governmental and governmental organiza-tions to select production strategies only after balancingthe land-use suitability of the area with the aptitudes ofthose to be settled. While the PDS model focuses on thesettlement of traditional agriculturalists on individual lotsin lands perceived to be uninhabited, the participatory nat-ure of the model allows planners to also recognize the cur-rent inhabitants of a targeted area, in this case formerrubber tappers, and formalize their land tenure. The PDSSao Salvador in western Acre, the focus of this case study,is the first example of this experimental model (Camara,2002a; Minzenberg, 2005) and contributes to our under-standing of land use and livelihood system dynamicsamong former rubber tappers in this new kind ofsettlement.

2.2. The evolution of contemporary rural land-use

in the state of Acre

2.2.1. The geography of AcreAcre, the westernmost state in all of Brazil, comprises

3.2% of the Brazilian Amazon or 153,149 km2 (Fig. 1),but only 10% (16,000 km2) of the state’s land cover hadbeen deforested by 2000 (INPE, 2000). Acre consists oftwo main watersheds, drained by the Jurua River in thenorthwest and by the Purus and Acre Rivers in the south-east. The Jurua Valley lacks Brazil nut trees (Bertholletia

excelsa), an important food and income source for rubbertappers in the Purus/Acre Valley (Kainer et al., 1998).Transportation networks also differ between the two val-leys as the BR-364 remains largely unpaved2 west of thePurus River, in addition to being impassable much of theyear, while the Acre River portion of the Purus/Acre Valleyhas a network of all weather roads including the BR-317which leads to the Bolivian and Peruvian borders andbeyond (Brown et al., 2002; Conover, 2003).

According to the 2000 census, the population of Acrewas 557,226 people (IBGE, 2005) with the majority beingof mixed indigenous, European and African heritage. TheJurua Valley was the less populated Valley with only157,536 people concentrated largely along an extensive net-

2 The BR-364 is being paved but the region’s lack of rock, among otherfactors, delay the process.

work of rivers. The Purus/Acre Valley, in contrast, con-tains the capital city of Rio Branco, with 226,134inhabitants, in addition to large towns along the pavedroads (IBGE, 2005). Due to the lack of all weather roads,the major markets for the Jurua Valley have historicallybeen downriver in Manaus rather than east towards RioBranco.

2.2.2. Rubber tappers and extractive reserves

While indigenous Amazonians used the latex from therubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) previous to European con-tact, it was the discovery of the vulcanization process in1839, followed by the invention of the pneumatic tyre in1888 that increased industrial demand and brought therubber boom to Acre. Tens of thousands of immigrantscame in two main waves: 1870–1920 (Weinstein, 1983;Bakx, 1988) and the early 1940s (Martinello, 1988) to joincoerced Amerindians in tapping the prolific rubber trees ofAcre’s forests. After the second boom ended in 1945, therubber economy struggled as contradictory Brazilian gov-ernment policies alternated in helping or hurting produc-tion (Dean, 1987). Production slowed drastically with thesuspension of the national rubber credit program in 1971,the cancellation of protectionist policies in the 1980s(Almeida, 1996) and finally of price supports in the early1990s (Fearnside, 1989). At this point, the traditional rub-ber concessionaires lost or sold their landholdings andmoved on to other enterprises. As the traditional rubbersystem unraveled, rubber tappers either deserted the forestor adapted by expanding, diversifying, and commercializ-ing their formerly subsistence production.

Even as traditional patrons abandoned both their rub-ber estates and their tappers in the forest, road building,incentives and low land prices brought outsiders fromsouthern Brazil interested in clearing forest for cattleranching (Kainer et al., 2003). These outsiders soon cameinto conflict with the rubber tappers living in their newlypurchased lands. In response, tappers began organizing inthe 1970s with initial support from the Catholic Churchand the Confederation of Rural Worker’s Unions (CON-TAG) before eventually developing a resistance strategycombining non-violent confrontations with the promotionof standing forests as viable development alternatives andthemselves as keepers of valuable forest knowledge (Hechtand Cockburn, 1990; Esteves, 1999; Allegretti, 2002;Kainer et al., 2003). The methods and message of the tap-pers attracted environmental and human rights groups whoin turn brought international attention to the cause (Keck,1995). In 1985, these allies helped form the National Rub-ber Tapper Council (CNS) to push for preserving rubbertapper livelihoods through forest preservation, puttingthem at the forefront of Brazil’s emerging ‘‘socio-environ-mental frontier’’ of alternative Amazon developmentvisions (Becker, 1990, p. 28). One CNS leader, Chico Men-des, forged alliances with Brazilian and internationalNGOs, and was able to spread the rubber tapper messagein depositions before the Inter-American Development

Fig. 1. Map of the state of Acre in the Brazilian Amazon.


Bank in Miami and the Senate Appropriations Committeein Washington in addition to receiving medals from theUnited Nations and the Better World Society (Shoumatoff,1990). CNS’s lobbying efforts paid off when INCRAdeclared the first PAE in 1987. Then following Mendes’tragic assassination in 1988, the first extractive reserve,Reserva Extractivista Alto Jurua, was declared in 1990.

With the creation of Unini Extractive Reserve in 2006,federal extractive reserves3 in the Brazilian Amazon nownumber 38, covering almost 10 million hectares throughoutthe region4 (IBAMA, 2007). While the growth of the reservemodel, with over 100 extractive reserve applications in pro-cess (Vadjunec, 2006), attests to their popularity among pol-icy makers, the reserves are still experimental and face manychallenges (Cardoso, 2002; Ehringhaus, 2006). The creationof Extractive Reserves generated immediate debate over theeconomic and conservation viability of both extractivismand organizational units built on sustainable use of non-timber forest products. Directly after their creation, severalstudies found extractivism, and thus extractive reserves, tobe immediately and highly competitive economically withgreat potential for long term sustainable development(Gradwohl and Greenberg, 1988; Schwartzman, 1989;Peters et al., 1989). This line of reasoning enhanced argu-ments centred on the reserves’ ecological potential to main-

3 At least 20 extractive reserves covering over 1 million hectares alsoexist at the state level in the Brazilian Amazon (Hall, 1997).

4 The entire country of Brazil contains a total of 50 Federal ExtractiveReserves covering over 10 million hectares (IBAMA, 2007).

tain standing forest (Nepstad et al., 1992), to preserve thediversity and genetic stock of biological resources (Almeida,1994), and to provide environmental services for ecosystemregulation (Brown et al., 1992). While these argumentsattracted conservationists to the reserve cause, the rubbertappers themselves focused more on the social potential ofreserves to generate employment opportunities (CNS,1993; Hall, 1997), preserve subsistence livelihoods (Alleg-retti, 1990), foment local participation in national policydecisions (Schwartzman, 1992), and support cultural valuesand local knowledge (Cunha and Almeida, 2002).

Leading the other side of the debate, Browder (1992)warned of the idealization of extractivism, extractivists,and extractive reserves as a panacea for Amazon conserva-tion. This critique centred on the poor historical record ofextractivism, and its challenges for economic and ecologi-cal sustainability. Homma’s (1992) investigation of histor-ical extractive economies found them unsustainable due toan inelastic supply, inevitable overharvesting of the prod-uct, and the rapid growth of both industrial and domesti-cated substitutes, while Romanoff (1992) highlighted thechronic debt of rubber tappers. Other researchers centredon the economic weaknesses of extractive products suchas low demand (Browder, 1990), low density and yield(Peters, 1992), the tappers’ over reliance on just a few prod-ucts (Fearnside, 1989), in addition to the extensive natureof extractive systems (Anderson, 1992) built around distantmarkets (Browder, 1992). Critiques of the conservationpotential of the reserves centred on biotic impoverishmentthrough harvesting (Nepstad et al., 1992), the presence of

5 The Worker’s Party or Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) is also theparty of the Brazilian President, Lula, and the Minister of the Environ-ment: Marina da Silva, 2002–2006, the daughter of rubber tapper parentsand a native of Acre.


agriculture and animal husbandry in the rubber tappers’portfolio of livelihood strategies (Anderson, 1989; Brow-der, 1990), and the small scale of the reserves in relationto the entire basin (Browder, 1990). More recent researchon biotic impoverishment suggests overzealous extractionof Brazil nuts and palm fruits may already threaten thelong-term survival of these economically important species(Moegenburg and Levey, 2002; Peres et al., 2003).

Despite this more recent research, the debate over theeconomic and conservation viability of extractive reservesand extractivsm remains inconclusive in part because of alack of recently published data on the livelihoods of extrac-tivists, particularly those within extractive reserves andsimilar organizational units. While research on extractivereserves (Fearnside, 1989; Allegretti, 1990, 1994; Anderson,1994; Wawzyniak, 1994; Brown et al., 1995), and rubbertapper land use and livelihoods (Brown et al., 1992; Roma-noff, 1992; Kainer and Duryea, 1992; Almeida and Mene-zes, 1994; Almeida, 1996) abounded in the 1990s whenthe reserves were being created, relatively little has beenpublished on the changes underway since implementation(Brown and Rosendo, 2000a; Cardoso, 2002; Ruız-Perezet al., 2005; Goeschl and Igliori, 2006). Most of these recentstudies focus less on livelihoods than on politics and prop-erty rights, specifically on the relations between institutionsand actors (Brown and Rosendo, 2000b), institutions,actors and the global political economy (Cardoso, 2002),the market economy and property rights (Goeschl and Igli-ori, 2006), and degrees of empowerment (Brown and Ros-endo, 2000a). Where livelihoods within reserves areaddressed, the debate continues, with Brown and Rosendosaying extractive reserves, ‘‘. . .have yet to be proven viablein terms of providing secure and sustainable livelihoods forforest dwellers like the rubber tappers’’ (Brown and Ros-endo, 2000a, p. 225) and Ruız-Perez et al.’s 10 year assess-ment of the Alto Jurua Reserve noting ‘‘. . .positiveconservation and development outcomes. . .’’ (Ruız-Perezet al., 2005, p. 218) despite dramatic shifts in income gen-erating activities and land use.

Twenty years have passed since the Brazilian govern-ment first created settlement projects and reserves basedon sustainable extractivism, and despite their popularity,questions remain concerning their sustainability. Are thesereserves a barrier to deforestation? How have the residentsof these organizational units adjusted to the unraveling ofthe rubber system just as these units were formally estab-lished? This paper approaches the sustainability debatedirectly by addressing the livelihood changes taking placewithin a sustainable settlement project. Our analysis cen-tres on a community case study whose rubber tappersmay be shifting from forest to field-based economic strate-gies. We explore the rationale behind their livelihoodtrends before introducing studies demonstrating similarresults in extractive reserves. Unpublished reports (Camara,2002a; CNS/FUNTAC/CIDA, 1992; CNS, 1993; Irvingand Millikan, 1997) and unpublished theses, dissertations,and conference proceedings (Allegretti, 2002; Campbell,

1996; Castelo, 1999; Ehringhaus, 2006; Esteves, 1999;Garrafiel, 2004; Gomes, 2001; Ludewigs, 2006; Salisbury,2002; Sassagawa, 1999; Souza, 2006; Stone, 2003; Vadjunec,2006; Wallace, 2004) provide valuable information to doc-ument the changing nature of extractivist livelihoods andhow these changes might affect forest cover and sustain-ability goals. These nuanced studies provide critical infor-mation given the heterogeneity, dynamism and variedmicro-economies of extractivist livelihoods and their for-ests (Barham and Coomes, 1996; Coomes and Barham,1997). While the social value of extractive reserves for rub-ber tappers and the superior conservation value of reservesin comparison to the expanding cattle ranches that spurredtheir creation are undisputed, residents may not be practic-ing the same livelihoods envisioned by reserve proponents.Substantive shifts in livelihood strategies underscore theneed for policies to account for the dynamism of Amazo-nian livelihoods rather than trust in static organizationalunits. This in turn highlights why these sustainability initia-tives must still be considered experimental even as they areincreasingly critical for mitigating deforestation and con-serving biodiversity (Nepstad et al., 2006).

2.2.3. Acre’s forest government

Nowhere in Brazil are rubber tapping and extractivereserves more important than in Acre, whose forests nur-tured the rubber tapper social movement and where over17% of the state territory is encompassed in extractivereserves (Fig. 1). The state government since 1998, a Work-er’s Party-dominated5 administration that calls itself the‘‘Forest Government’’, has drawn on this extractivist his-tory and culture to pursue policies promoting forest-baseddevelopment (Kainer et al., 2003; Viana, 2004). The ForestGovernment now administers a state with over 45% of itsterritory in federal or state conservation units and indige-nous reserves (Fig. 1) (Government of Acre, 2000; Ferreira,2004; IBAMA, 2007). A key component of the state’s strat-egy is policies to support existing extractive activities(including rubber and Brazil nuts) while developing ‘‘neo-extractivism’’: using improved technologies and infrastruc-ture to exploit timber and non-timber forest products inways that are compatible with the traditional lifestyle ofrubber tappers but provide for a better quality of life(Rego, 1999; Kainer et al., 2003). The first policy measureadopted by the government after taking power in 1999 wasthe Chico Mendes Law, which provided environmental ser-vices compensation, in the form of an additional paymentper kilo of rubber, for producers with official documentsand membership in appropriate associations and coopera-tives. Later initiatives built on this law by developing astate-wide network of producer cooperatives strategicallyfocused on potential non-timber forest products and their


prospective markets (Garrafiel, 2004; Kainer et al., 2003).The government also invested heavily in improved timbermanagement (especially after re-election in 2002) with thecreation of state forests, the diversification of forest pro-duction, the expansion of the forest product chain, andan additional emphasis on forest management for educa-tional and technical institutions. This forest-based develop-ment agenda also included other important measures suchas furniture production poles in the major cities and newfactories: to process Brazil nuts, to produce condoms ofnative rubber, and to manufacture certified flooring. Theimpacts of these policies, however, remained limited bythe state’s uneven distribution of roads and other basicinfrastructure (Fig. 1). Within the broader scenario of for-est-based development policies, livelihood strategies andland use in remote communities like those in PDS Sao Sal-vador continued to change in response to the dynamics ofmarket opportunities and household production goals.

3. Data and methods

We conducted field research in the 282 km2 PDS SaoSalvador in July and August of the year 2000. Dense trop-ical forest (82%) dominates the PDS with varzea (seasonalfloodplains) being the other principal land-cover (Camara,2002b). The PDS is bounded by the State of Amazonas tothe north, the Serra do Divisor National Park and theNukini Indigenous Territory to the west, and various rub-ber estates to the south and east (Fig. 1). The PDS, once arubber estate made up of remote tapper households, in2000 consisted of 10 communities of former rubber tappersdistributed along the Moa and Azul Rivers and several oftheir tributaries. In 1999 each community containedbetween five and 24 families with a total population ofapproximately 500 people in the PDS (Camara, 2002b).

The PDS Sao Salvador is the result of collaborationbetween INCRA, The Brazilian Agricultural Research Cor-poration (EMBRAPA), Agroforestry Research and Exten-sion Group of Acre (PESACRE), the Executive Secretary ofForests and Extractivism of Acre (SEFE), the Municipalityof Mancio Lima, IBAMA, SOS Amazonia, and local peo-ple. The PDS goal is to settle rural people permanently in

Table 1Institutional contributions to the formation and consolidation of PDS Sao Sa

Date Action

1994 Grassroots organization formed by local1998 Site identified for relocation of park resi1999 PDS model created1999 Agricultural credit made available for lo1999+ Socio-economic survey and participatory2000 Environmental suitability studies2000 Field research2001 PDS Sao Salvador created2003 Additional 25,000 ha added to PDS Sao2004 Individual lots demarcated

Sources: Borges (2003), Camara (2002b), Guerra (2004), Minzenberg (2005) aa Fundo Constitucional de Financiamento do Norte (Constitutional Financ

a settlement project that is economically, ecologically, andsocially sustainable. Similar to an extractive reserve orextractive settlement project, the PDS’ vision for incomegeneration relies on deriving income from standing forestwith a goal of limiting deforestation, although the modeldiffers in important ways such as its emphasis on individualprivate holdings instead of collective use rights.

Sao Salvador falls within the Serra do Divisor NationalPark’s 10 km buffer zone. In 1998, SOS Amazonia ear-marked Sao Salvador as a destination for the resettlementof park families. INCRA had recognized the uncertainland tenure status of Sao Salvador since 1994 (Guerra,2002), and through discussions with SOS Amazonia andPESACRE began looking at ways to simultaneously for-malize land tenure and satisfy the area’s buffer zone relatedecological requirements. Thus, institutional collaborationand fieldwork began in Sao Salvador even before INCRAcreated the PDS in June of 2001, as detailed in Table 1(Guerra, 2002). PESACRE conducted a rapid socio-eco-nomic survey before beginning the participatory planningprocess (Camara, 2002b). Then EMBRAPA analyzed thesoils, vegetation and hydrology for agricultural, agrofor-estry, and agroecological potential (Valentim et al., 2000).More detailed studies followed, focusing on marketing pat-terns, community fisheries, and wildlife and hunting prac-tices (Camara, 2002a; Fragoso et al., 2002; Shaeff, 2002).This sort of detailed prior diagnosis, unprecedented inINCRA’s settlement projects, revealed that Sao Salvador’spopulation already pressured key natural resources, andthe resettlement plan was abandoned in favour of a pro-gram to formalize tenure and create a management planfor existing residents. During the field research, the PDSwas still undemarcated and in the opening stages of crea-tion, with initial participatory meetings addressing the firstcomponents of a management plan. Residents and institu-tions had yet to decide on the type of land tenure, the sizeof landholdings, and the sources of income that best fit theneeds of the communities and the goal of sustainability.

Based on a long history of collaboration with the Uni-versity of Florida, PESACRE invited us to participate inthe planning process of the PDS and selected three of the10 communities as potential research sites. Our proposal,

lvador

Institution

farmers Rio Moa Agricultural Societydents SOS Amazonia

INCRAcal farmers FNOa

work begun PESACRE/communitiesEMBRAPASalisburyINCRA

Salvador INCRAINCRA

nd Valentim et al. (2000).ial Funds for the North).

6 CBERS (China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite) is described in detailat www.inpe.br.


although limited to two months, stressed the importance ofunderstanding livelihood transitions over time (Coomesand Barham, 1997), and thus centred on an in-depth studyof people’s perspectives of land use and income in 1990,2000, and 2010, in order to analyze the potential implica-tions of livelihood trends on the landscape. The researchinitially focused on the Triunfo community (a pseudonym)because Triunfo residents were interested in the project,and Triunfo was the least understood community in thePDS due to errors in the RADAMBRASIL base map(Salisbury, 2002). Fieldwork not only established all ofthe households of Triunfo to be entirely within the PDS,but also Triunfo to be the largest and most diverse commu-nity in the PDS. Within Triunfo, household selection waspurposive rather than random, choosing 12 of the 24households, in order to capture the diversity of geographi-cal distribution, length of residence, gender and age of thecommunity’s residents and households. All of the house-holds, like the great majority of those in Triunfo and SaoSalvador, had either derived most of their income fromrubber tapping in the past or were headed by a man under30 who, as a teenager, had tapped rubber alongside hisfather. About half of households were from Sao Salvadoritself or nearby on the Moa River although some hadmigrated from rubber estates elsewhere in the Jurua Valleyoften with a brief hiatus in the town of Mancio Lima. Theaverage age of the heads of household in the study was 43.5years with their partner’s at 35.5 years (Salisbury, 2002).These families had an average of 4.5 members and hadlived on average 16.7 years in Triunfo.

Salisbury stayed with each household in the sample forthree days and focused each day’s data collection on a dis-cussion of land use in 1990, 2000, and potential land use in2010. Field methods consisted of a combination of partic-ipatory methods, ethnography, participant observation,point collection with a Global Positioning System receiver(GPS) and remote sensing. This suite of methodologies wascritical to the research due to the previous failure of surveymethods in Triunfo (Camara, 2002b) and the politicallysensitive climate surrounding the formation of the PDS.The existing tension between the neighbouring park’s resi-dents and management, the influx of foreign researchersinto the PDS, and the failure to include Triunfo withinthe project had made Triunfo residents both anxious toobtain land title and fearful of losing their place to foreignconservation concerns. The three-day stay with each familyallowed the researcher to gain the confidence of residents,and understand the respective households through theirparticipation in household mapping, matrices of resources,historical timelines, and land use walks (Slocum et al.,1995; Colfer et al., 1999; Salisbury, 2002). The combinationof these methods with ethnography, key informant inter-views, point collection, and remote sensing allowed theresearcher to overcome instrumentation effects commonto the application of just one methodology.

The matrix of resources was particularly important ingauging the diversity of income earning activities and the

relative importance of each across the sample (Colferet al., 1999). Residents identified and then helped Salisburydraw all of the past, present, and potential income earningactivities in the community on 12 in. · 12 in. cards: for atotal of 47. For each time phase of the research (1990,2000, and 2010) the resident selected the appropriate cardsfrom the 47 options, and then, after being given 50 mark-ers, placed the markers on the cards depending on thedegree of economic importance for the time phase beingdiscussed. Thus, each income earning activity could beassigned a numerical rating based on its economic impor-tance to the household. The aggregated data from the sam-ple represented ‘‘community income’’ and could be brokendown into percentages based on the different income gener-ating activities and the amount of markers placed on each.The reconstruction of past income and the forecasting offuture income relied heavily on household mapping, histor-ical timelines and land use walks to enhance resident mem-ory and stimulate thoughts on future scenarios. Additionalinterviews with informants outside of the sample confirmedthe major trends captured in the matrix of resourcesmethodology.

Over the three days of mapping their land use on paperand in the field (over 60 individual fields were mapped withGPS), Salisbury introduced to the household a colour print-out of the portion of an August 1999 Landsat 7 5-4-3 bandcomposite image containing their community’s lands. Onthe third night the household mapped on the printout theiranswers to the question: ‘‘Presuming that you receive theland that you want, what activities will you be doing in2010, and where and to what extent will you be doingthem?’’ In all cases residents chose to model their landuse in 2010 on the land they occupied in 2000. While fore-casting future income generating activities is an inexactmethod due to the possibility of unforeseen events chang-ing economic patterns and land use, we find this methodol-ogy useful to identify the land use and economic activitiesinformants would prefer to pursue given a continuation ofthe status quo: preference and desire being a criticallyimportant if difficult to quantify variable concerning thepractice of land management. Therefore, the graphs andmaps forecasting 2010 should be analyzed less for their pre-cision than their identification of the major income gener-ating strategies and land uses residents wished to pursue.At the conclusion of the fieldwork, GPS points docu-mented present and future land use, household location,land cover, hydrography, and community limits, amongother data. Salisbury used these points, the Landsat image,and ancillary data to construct a Geographic InformationSystem for analysis of real and potential changes overtwo decades (1990–2010) in Triunfo. Finally, in order toassure the reliability of the 2010 forecasting methodologywe qualitatively analyzed a 2005 CBERS6 satellite image

http://www.inpe.br


to compare anticipated changes to real changes over the 5years following data collection.

Fig. 2. Triunfo community income sources in 1990, 2000 and 2010(forecasted).

4. Results: 1990–2010 extractivists diversify

Results at the household level found variance betweenhouseholds depending on endowments, history, and lifecy-cle of the household, but here we concentrate on the com-munity scale to identify the major trends most suitable forcomparison in the discussion. Fig. 2 shows how thereported income sources differed across the three referenceperiods; it demonstrates a diversifying forest economy inTriunfo already in 1990, with rubber no longer the eco-nomic mainstay of the previous decades. One informantrecalled the community’s reaction to the end of rubberdemand in the late 1980s, ‘‘we all became sad and didn’tknow what to do. We began planting corn and rice andselling manioc flour.’’ In 1990 only 66% of the householdstapped rubber, with 39% of the total income7 derived fromrubber production. The majority of their income resultedfrom other subsistence strategies that had supplementedtheir food and shelter in the rubber tapping era. Theirdiverse portfolio of land use strategies proved critical: asone former tapper said, ‘‘I’ve been a farmer all my life.’’

Tappers who traditionally had raised crops for con-sumption (annual and perennial) in home gardens andsmall plots, allowed animals to range in palm swamps8

(pigs) and home gardens (poultry), felled timber for houses,and hunted game for food soon found a market for theseproducts. Free range pig raising contributed 17% of com-munity income, followed closely by annual cropping with16%. Manioc, rice and corn dominated the annuals groupwith over 90% of the earnings in that category. Less impor-tant sources of income included poultry (chickens andducks), wages associated with the harvesting of timber,9

perennial crops such as bananas, game meat,10 retirementpensions,11 and even cattle.

7 Income here does not include consumption. All foods produced forsale are also consumed at home.

8 The palm swamp or baboca is a favourite habitat for the free range pigsas it contains a high density of stands of fruit bearing palms such as theburiti (Mauritia flexuosa), acai (Euterpe oleracea), bacaba (Oenocarpus

bacaba) and pataua (Oenocarpus bataua) palms.9 The transition from rubber tapping to timber extraction is documented

elsewhere in the Jurua Valley (Almeida and Menezes, 1994; Almeida,1996). Labor associated with timber harvesting was one of the primarysources of wages in the region during this period.10 Hunting for commercial purposes is illegal in Brazil, but peccary, deer,

paca, and tapir found a ready market for meat and pelts in Mancio Limaand Cruzeiro do Sul. Sale of game meat by Sao Salvador residents mostlystopped when it became a PDS (Eric Minzenberg, personalcommunication).11 Brazil has a retirement law paying one or two minimum salaries if one

is over 60 or physically unable to work. This pension is accessible to thosewith proper documentation who had a lifelong employment in agricultureor as a rubber tapper (Almeida, 1996).

By 2000, no one in the village of Triunfo was tappingrubber (Fig. 2).12 Also in decline, compared to the 1990income data, were other income generating activities rely-ing on the forest: free range pig raising, wages associatedwith timber extraction, and hunting. Instead, the formertappers’ most important source of income was annualcropping (40%). Annual crops, particularly manioc, alsoserved as the basis for subsistence feeding both familyand livestock while earning income. Triunfo residents alsoincreasingly derived income from perennial crops (13%),poultry (12%), cattle (5%), and as they aged, retirementpensions (10%). The abandonment of rubber tapping wasnot viewed as a bad thing by the majority of Triunfomen. One former tapper said, ‘‘Life is better now. Nobodyleaves to work in the middle of the night. I would doexactly what I am doing now if the price of rubberimproved.’’ Residents recounted the dangers of pre-dawnrounds on the rubber trails by reminiscing about snake biteand tree fall. Another tapper said, ‘‘During the time of rub-ber the tapper suffered a lot, now we don’t have anythingbut we suffer less.’’ Women, less likely to have tapped rub-ber, focused on the security rather than the workplace haz-ards of the rubber epoch with one resident recalling herchildhood, ‘‘during the time of rubber we did not lackfor anything.’’ Indeed, the one man still interested in rub-ber tapping echoed this, ‘‘It was a good time. The boss paidfor everything, but I’ve lost faith in the return of rubber.’’This loss of an economic safety net would force tappers tosearch for alternatives.

Changes that took place in the 1990s significantly re-organized the landscape in Triunfo, as extractive activitiesdeclined and new opportunities arose. Triunfo was nolonger a collection of isolated rubber tapper settlements(colocacoes), but instead a series of small farms distributed

12 While the formal sample contained only half of the communityhouseholds, the length and intense nature of the fieldwork allowedSalisbury to interact with the entire community and gain an understandingof land use throughout.

Fig. 3. Triunfo land use by area in 2000 and 2010 (forecasted).


along the Triunfo Creek.13 In 1998, before becoming aPDS, the inhabitants of the rubber estate had organizedinto riverside communities to take advantage of a federalprogram (Programa Belo Horizonte) that donated toolsand equipment to rural communities. The Triunfo commu-nity also grew from 13 (1990) to 24 households (2000) asyoung families split from their parents’ households and rel-atives moved from nearby towns and rubber estates inhopes of gaining a title in the PDS. Three of the sample’shouseholds had left what are now the Extractive Reservesof Alto Jurua and Riozinho Liberdade as rubber pricesplummeted during the early 1990s (Ruız-Perez et al., 2005).

One result of the move into riverside farms and thegrowth of annual cropping was the free range pigs’improved access to fields of manioc and corn. Pigs oftenranged into the neighbour’s fields in 2000, and in two casesdestroyed all the crops within. This may explain the lack ofgrowth in income derived from pigs in 2000. Income fromtimber or timber wages was also hard to come by in 2000,as much of the accessible timber had been harvested byrubber patrons in the last decade as they searched for eco-nomic alternatives to rubber collection. Finally, residentsof Triunfo stopped selling game meat due in part to height-ened enforcement of the ban on commercial hunting andthe increasing difficulty of finding game due to communitygrowth and the corresponding hunting pressure on covetedspecies like tapir (Tapirus terrestris), white collared peccary(Tayassu tajacu) and paca (Agouti paca). In 2000, PESA-CRE and residents throughout the PDS began addressingthe decline in game by brainstorming community huntingrules (i.e. the ban of hunting with dogs, etc.) and workingto develop and implement game management plans. Whileforest based income sources declined in 2000, these formertappers still used the forest extensively for subsistence pur-poses. The collection of fruits, oil and fibres, and huntingfor game are just a few examples.

How did respondents envision their land use changing by2010 (Fig. 2)? Given the uncertainties inherent in forecast-ing future actions, we find the 2010 data useful for identify-ing the preferences of informants rather than exactlypredicting their land use in 2010. Nevertheless, the prefer-ences of local land managers certainly influence the alloca-tion of their labour in an undecided future. In the 2010forecasted data, residents planned to focus less on annualcrops and pig raising. Triunfo residents envisioned annualcropping as a means to pursue longer term investments likecattle and perennial crops. Still, projected income for cattleaccounted for less than 15% of the total projected for 2010.Informants intended to diversify their production, and pre-dicted that much of their income would be derived fromperennial crops such as coffee, biriba, lemon, papaya, coco-nut, avocado, and graviola. The diversity in annuals and the‘‘other’’ category also would increase, with crops like beans,

13 Ruız-Perez et al. documented similar patterns of relocation from theinterior to the riverside among rubber tappers in the Alto Jurua (Ruız-Perez et al., 2005).

sugar cane and jerimum, and domestic animals like sheepand goats, playing a larger part. Poultry was projected toremain a stable income source, while pensions wouldincrease due to aging. The economic activities most associ-ated with the rubber tapper era were expected to continue todecline (pigs) or were no longer expected to be part of the2010 Triunfo cash economy at all (rubber, hunting, andwages associated with timber).

Cattle were the least important provider of incomeamong the field-based income generating strategies, yet,as seen in Fig. 3, cattle had by far the largest amount ofland dedicated to them (pasture) in both 2000 and 2010.This is in part due to the residents’ desire to increase theirherd (average head per household soared from 5.1 to 46.6by 2010) rather than sell cattle for income purposes. Thisdesire to increase herd size was also reflected in the amountof total pasture (349 ha) informants forecasted for 2010.Although producers hoped to significantly increase theamount of land in production, the distribution of land infield types would remain relatively similar as annual cropsremained important, followed by perennial crops and homegardens. The new addition to the field types in 2010 was thepig run: three informants planned to fence in palm swampsto continue raising pigs without menacing neighbouringfields. While unforeseen economic events like policy shiftsor commodity price changes could certainly change thecommunity’s 2010 land use and income generating activi-ties from that predicted here, the most important point isthe community’s shift in mentality and interest from anextractive past to a more diversified future focused increas-ingly on fields rather than forests. This shift in mentality,expanding fields, and the general utility of the forecastingmethod was supported by analysis of remotely sensed2005 imagery of the community.

Fig. 4 maps how the dramatic expansion of land in pro-duction (600%)14 over the 10 years between 2000 and 2010

14 Gomes recorded a 625% increase in pasture over a three year period(1995–1998) in one rubber estate in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve(Gomes, 2001).

Fig. 4. Model of land use for Triunfo community in 2000 and 2010(forecasted).


might play out on the Triunfo landscape. In 2000, the 63fields and gardens mapped produced over 70% of the sam-ple’s income (annual and perennial crops, poultry, and cat-tle). The majority of the productive fields contained annualcrops (57%), with the rest devoted to pasture, perennialcrops, and home gardens. In the 2010 model, the fieldsexpanded in both size and economic importance as 77%of the community’s income would become field based.

In 2004, after a multi-year participatory process investi-gating a number of tenure options, INCRA demarcatedeach PDS household’s land into a 20 ha lot representingthe maximum area available for deforestation. Communitylands outside and between the individual lots were set asidefor required forest reserves and permanent protection areasalong watercourses. Residents chose this tenure system,similar to INCRA agricultural colonization models else-where, over the communal land and extractivist lots foundin IBAMA extractive reserves. The 20 ha limit means thatsome Triunfo households’ 2010 predictions exceed the cur-rent legal maximum of land clearing allowed by law on for-ested Amazonian property. It is uncertain if the forestclearing trend will be confined by this poorly enforced

law, the lot size, or ameliorated by new policies or prod-ucts, given current constraints to livelihood systems.

These results demonstrate the changes in land use pat-terns during the last two decades in Triunfo. With thedecline of rubber as an economic mainstay in the 1980sand 1990s, these former rubber tappers turned first to otherforest products (timber, game) and the raising of free-rangepigs. The most isolated residents also moved from the inte-rior of the forest to more accessible homesteads along theriver. Agriculture and cattle raising gradually expandedin the place of forest-based livelihood strategies, leadingto aspirations for extensive forest clearing. One informantremembered the changing nature of economic security,‘‘I bought a cow with my rubber earnings when I was 16.The next year rubber began to drop. It was difficult, butI was single and had pigs. When rubber did not earn any-thing I began commercial hunting. Now (in 2000) I have 18head (of cattle).’’ These former tappers survived the fall ofrubber due to their conversion of formerly subsistenceactivities into income streams. Without rubber and theinsurance built into its debt peonage system, residentsturned to animal husbandry for a social and economicsafety net and now look to expand cattle for a variety ofreasons addressed in the following discussion.

5. Discussion: cows versus rubber

Former rubber tappers interviewed in Triunfo portrayeda trend of increasing diversification of income sources andland use following the aftermath of the rubber crisis.Although the results are necessarily limited to one smallcommunity, research elsewhere in Amazonia has docu-mented similar diversification trends at the end of resourcebooms (Barham and Coomes, 1996; Coomes, 1995;Coomes and Barham, 1997). The trends of diversificationand cattle expansion are also found in a variety of studiesinvolving extractivists in the Brazilian Amazon. Here werelate our own modest study to a surprising number ofpapers documenting similar trends throughout Acre andbeyond during the last 20 years. For example, a survey ofall the PDS communities in 1999 found most had aban-doned rubber five years before, diversifying into timberand game exploitation, as well as agriculture and pig-rais-ing (Camara, 2002b, p. 30). Indeed, the decline in demandfor rubber ended a livelihood centred on this resource,leading former tappers to turn increasingly to the produc-tion and sale of manioc flour, as the local variety is famousfor its quality throughout the Amazon and is the principalcash and subsistence crop of small producers in north-west Acre (Minzenberg, 2005). By 2000 no households inany of the 10 communities of PDS Sao Salvador weretapping rubber (Eduardo Amaral Borges, personalcommunication).

The last decade of the 20th century was a transitionalperiod for rubber tappers throughout the Brazilian Ama-zon. The Brazilian government’s abandonment of protec-tionist policies towards rubber caused prices to decline


from US$ 1.8/kg in 1982 to US$ 0.4/kg in 1992 (Almeidaand Menezes, 1994), just as the extractive reserves in Acrewere being consolidated. The decline in rubber, despitestate government policies to support the extractive econ-omy, forced rubber tappers to consider other economicalternatives. This transition could be seen not only in Tri-unfo, but also within the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve(CMER), where agricultural plot size increased markedlybetween 1985 and 1989 (Peralta and Mather, 2000). Rub-ber tapping became less economically important over time:in the Alto Jurua Extractive Reserve (AJER) only 54% ofreserve households were tapping trees in 1990, with thisnumber falling to 48% in 1992 (Almeida, 1996). Rubberproduction was also low in the AJER and the CMER with1991 rubber production values of 28% (Almeida, 1996) and35% (CNS/FUNTAC/CIDA, 1992) respectively.

Annual crops also took on a growing importance forrubber tapper income during this period. A PDS-wide sam-ple found 86% of residents interviewed to declare maniocas their principal income source15 (Guerra, 2002). Farthersouth, in the AJER, residents gained 59% of their pri-mary-sector cash income from annual crops in 2000 (pri-marily beans) as opposed to only 15% from rubber(Ruız-Perez et al., 2005). Likewise, across the state, a studyof gross income in the CMER found 49% of income to bederived from agriculture versus 18% for extractivism (Cast-elo, 1999).

Extractive reserves and settlement projects, even onesoriented towards sustainability like the PDS, are distinctland tenure types with almost certainly divergent futures.However, this comparison of past, present, and formerrubber tappers demonstrates marked similarities in thediversification of cash economies across land tenure typesin the state of Acre. Former and current rubber tappersmoved from a primary past focus on rubber to a more var-ied portfolio of income sources relying principally on agri-culture (although products differed by region). Extractioncontinued to be vital to all for subsistence purposes butthose in extractive reserves showed a greater, albeitreduced, reliance on these products for income. In theAJER rubber production may be slightly improving(Ruız-Perez et al., 2005) while eastern Acre’s Brazil nutresource have been a consistent income earner for extrac-tivists (Campbell, 1996) with 2005 prices unusually high.16

Livestock, like both annual and perennial agriculture, alsohas been a part of the rubber tappers’ production. Chick-ens, ducks, pigs and cattle are increasingly important ele-ments for income and subsistence for current and formertappers. Here, in this discussion, we focus primarily on cat-tle because it is the land use that most directly threatens theforested landscapes of former rubber estates while also

15 75% of the Triunfo sample declared annual crops as their principalincome source.16 Brazil nut prices in Rio Branco rose to 10 times their previous price in

2005.

serving an important insurance role for risk averse smallproducers.

Traditionally, it was not uncommon for rubber tappersto have a few head of cattle on the rubber estate. While cat-tle were not a major source of income in the early 1990s,the declining price of rubber encouraged rubber tappersto expand their herds (Government of Acre, 2000) oftenwith income derived from the sale of annual crops likemanioc, corn, rice, and beans. Indeed, 26% of residentsin the AJER raised cattle in 1991 (1062 total head)(Almeida and Menezes, 1994), while livestock provided9% of 1992 production values in the CMER (CNS/FUN-TAC/CIDA, 1992) and livestock raising was one of severalactivities commonly practiced by residents of the Rio Caj-ari Extractive Reserve in the early 1990s (Mattoso and Fle-ischfresser, 1994). In 1990 some younger Triunfo rubbertappers began buying heads of cattle with their rubberearnings, foreshadowing the livelihood transition ahead.One informant was 16 in 1990 when he bought his firsthead of cattle. Over the next 10 years, this cow alone addednine calves to his herd, which numbered 18 in 2000.

A recent study of the expansion of cattle in Acre con-cluded that, in the absence of institutional restrictions,there is an inexorable tendency for it to continue, evenwithin the extractive reserves (Toni et al., 2005). Between1990 and 2003 the Acre cattle herd expanded17 by an aver-age of 12.7% per year, the second highest rate in all ofBrazil (Arima et al., 2006). An important factor drivingcattle expansion among rubber tappers, as well as othersmall producers in Amazonia, was the availability of creditincentives, especially after the FNO18 credit program beganin 1989 (Toni, 1999; Toni et al., 2005). In the PDS, Guerrafound 58% of her 2002 sample eager to take advantage ofthe FNO credit program to invest in cattle (Guerra,2002); 14 residents had received credit, while 64 others wereawaiting approval. Gomes (2001) also described rubbertappers in the CMER using rural credit for investment incattle. In 2000, residents of Triunfo actively sought toobtain credit for the purchase of cattle. During fieldworkhalf of the resident households sent a representative to fillout the paperwork necessary to apply for credit. They wereeager to emulate a resident who received financing in 1999:on reception of credit he immediately bought calves forbeef production and opened 7.7 ha of forest for pasture.19

Still, the growing popularity of cattle raising among rub-ber tappers is not uniform, as former rubber tapper house-holds and communities, like Amazonian households andcommunities elsewhere, are highly heterogenous with adiversity of livelihood strategies and income streams(Coomes et al., 2004). For example, the shift towards cattle

17 In 2003, cattle outnumbered humans in Acre with 1.87 head of cattlefor every person (Arima et al., 2006).18 Fundo Constitucional de Financiamento do Norte (Constitutional

Financial Funds for the North Region).19 These pastures are the two largest ‘‘cleared land’’ polygons on the 2000

map in Fig. 4.

20 Authors’ translation.


raising is more pronounced in Triunfo than in some otherareas of Sao Salvador, where a 1999 study found only 9%of households possessed cattle, although cattle were clearlyexpanding (Camara, 2002b, p. 31) as only three years laterGuerra (2002) found 28% of her PDS wide sample to raisecattle. Indeed, some PDS communities specialized in cattlewhile other communities had virtually none. This varianceis not unique to the PDS as studies increasingly find cattleranching to be growing in popularity, albeit unevenly,among former rubber tapper households. For example,cattle were also popular in the AJER where 41% of familieshad cattle in 2000, a 51% increase from 1990, with an aver-age of eight head per family (Ruız-Perez et al., 2005).AJER residents earned about 9% of their primary-sectorcash income from cattle while Triunfo residents’ had 5%of total cash income from the same source. Gomes’(2001) surveys of four rubber estates within the more acces-sible and deforested areas of the CMER in 2000 discoveredrubber settlements to contain an average of eight head ofcattle, 7 ha of pasture and 2 ha of fields. While a tapper set-tlement (colocacao) might occasionally contain more thanone household these figures are much larger than Triunfohousehold averages: 5.1 head of cattle, 3.8 ha of pastureand 1.6 ha of fields. More recent fieldwork by Ludewigs(2006) and Vadjunec (2006) also found current and formerrubber tappers to be increasingly deriving their incomefrom cattle ranching in an Acre settlement project andthe CMER respectively. Vadjunec (2006) sampled 120households in the CMER and found the percentage of fam-ilies raising cattle to have grown from 4% in 1994 to 90% in2004.

Despite the growing numbers of cattle, their overallimpact in 2005 on forest cover in the Alto Jurua and ChicoMendes Extractive Reserves appears relatively small, withIBAMA reports indicating 3% of the CMER deforestedfor cattle pasture (Brianezi, 2005) and Ruız-Perez et al.(2005) finding less than 1% in the AJER. Thus, givenhigher deforestation rates outside the reserves (Nepstadet al., 2006) these reserves do mitigate deforestation, butgiven the dynamism of their residents’ livelihoods how longwill this be true? The low deforestation numbers might beattributed primarily to the enormous size of the reserves,their low population densities and the out migration of res-idents to urban centres. The growth in pasture may soonchallenge the deforestation limits articulated within themanagement plans of sustainable settlement projects andextractive reserves alike: for example, each CMER coloca-cao must remain at least 95% forest. In addition, demandfor cattle from both the AJER and CMER appears to begrowing as meat dealers are now traveling into the reservesto purchase cattle on the spot (Brianezi, 2005; Ruız-Perezet al., 2005).

Studies also indicate that cattle are expanding more rap-idly among young households less tied to the extractivistactivities of the rubber period (Gomes, 2001; Salisbury,2002). This trend is especially important for an alreadyyoung population, as over half of Triunfo residents were

under 18 years old (57%) while a census of PDS residentsin 1999 found 59% to be under the age of 18 (Camara,2002b). Gomes (2001) found similar results in the CMERwhere, in addition to a young demographic profile (63%under 21 years of age), there was a strong correlationbetween having sons to work the land and deforestation.This correlation rings true in Triunfo also, where one resi-dent said, ‘‘with financing and a son to work by my side, Iwill have 20 head of cattle by 2010.’’ Again, while this pre-diction may not happen due to unforeseen events, thequote certainly sums up the mindset of many Triunfo res-idents. Of particular importance to Triunfo and the PDSis the newest generation of male residents who have notlearned how to tap rubber, but rather how to earn incomethrough primarily field-based activities. This may also beincreasingly true of young residents within extractivereserves.

The economic rationality of cattle ranching for Amazo-nian smallholders, who see it as one component of a com-plex livelihood system, is distinct from that of commercialranchers (Loker, 1993; Smith et al., 1995; Andersen et al.,2002). Cattle are perceived as a mobile, non-labour inten-sive investment with useful byproducts, incurring onlymarginal costs needed for pasture establishment afterannual cropping. In Acre, cattle are a high status, liquidinvestment that can be sold immediately in a time of crisis,but sales can also be delayed if necessary as the growingurban centres of Rio Branco and Cruzeiro do Sul createa consolidated regional market for beef (Toni et al.,2005). Extractivists are aware of the benefits of cattle, withthe residents of Triunfo echoing this last, insurance, func-tion in particular, ‘‘A guy with livestock has cash in hand.I got sick and had to go down river twice with pigs in thecanoe to pay for my medicine.’’ Another resident, anelderly widow of a WWII rubber tapper, said, ‘‘I don’t likebeef and I don’t like milk, but cattle are the way to go.Sometimes you’re in a tight spot and the vermin (cow) isworth more.’’ PESACRE employee and agronomist, Edu-ardo Amaral Borges (cited in Avila, 2006), found this tobe true throughout the PDS, ‘‘Cattle are a true savingsaccount for residents because the herd grows over time.Residents sell their cattle for medicine, to buy a motor oreven to buy a house in the city’’.20 Cattle provide these for-mer tappers and their families with year-round insuranceagainst injury or sickness, something no current forest oragricultural product provides. Cattle are now filling theinsurance function once fulfilled by the rubber bosseswho advanced medicine and credit to needy tappers inreturn for future labour.

While this case study focuses on just one community offormer rubber tappers in an INCRA sustainable settlementproject, the presence (CNS/FUNTAC/CIDA, 1992; Neps-tad et al., 1992; Almeida and Menezes, 1994; Castelo, 1999)and growth (Sassagawa, 1999; Gomes, 2001; Vadjunec,


2006) of cattle ranching in the IBAMA extractive reservesof Acre suggest the need for more studies on changes inrubber tapper livelihoods throughout the Brazilian Ama-zon in order to understand the scope and permutationsof this trend. To be effective, these studies will need toincorporate the heterogeneity of the physical and humangeography of the Amazonian regions occupied by formerand current rubber tappers; however, research cannotdelay if it is to suggest timely informed alternatives to thiscurrent inclination to raise cattle. An additional incentiveto cattle ranching amongst Acre smallholders could beimproved access to markets in Peru. Currently, paving isunderway of the BR-364 to Cruzeiro do Sul21 and the Peru-vian side of the BR-317. Integration meetings between Peruand Brazil identified beef and cattle byproducts as primarypotential exports to Peru (Rodrıguez Cuadros et al., 2004).Pacific markets could also come into play with continuedroad paving across Peru, as eastern Amazonian beefexports have recently surged to satisfy markets in Europe,the Middle East, and Russia (Kaimowitz et al., 2004).

While studies demonstrate the continued importance offorest products for extractivist communities, as well as con-tinued strong cultural ties to the forest (Cardoso, 2002;Cunha and Almeida, 2002; Ehringhaus, 2006; Minzenberg,2005; Wallace, 2004), and the role of reserves in mitigatingdeforestation (Brianezi, 2005; Ruız-Perez et al., 2005; Neps-tad et al., 2006), the increasing popularity of cattle ranchingamong former tappers is a challenge to organizationalforms like the PDS and the extractive reserves. The growthof cattle within these units demonstrates how, for many res-idents, forest products alone cannot be relied upon to main-tain an economically sustainable livelihood. The greatergrowth of field rather than forest-based activities revolvesin part around timing, scale, and adaptation. The cuttingof the Brazilian rubber subsidy simultaneous to the creationof extractive reserves undermined the sustainability of thereserves and the traditional livelihoods of their inhabitants.Similarly, the creation of the PDS in this study occurred justas credit became available for residents interested inexpanding cattle production. The increasingly field-basedlivelihoods resulting from this unfortunate timing demon-strate the adaptability of residents confronting risk andopportunity. To date the impacts of their changing liveli-hoods on deforestation, biodiversity, and fragmentationhave been overlooked or ignored in part due to the lownumber of residents living within these large organizationalunits and the small number of published studies directlyaddressing land use. However, these impacts will be increas-ingly visible if the newer generations continue to expandboth their herd and their pasture for insurance and income.

Given these controversial findings result from a partici-patory methodology, it is worth reflecting on some of the

21 The regional government of Ucayali, Peru is lobbying to connect theBR-364 to their capital city of Pucallpa. Brazilian politicians are alsoinvestigating the possibility of the BR-364 potentially bisecting the Serrado Divisor National Park.

limitations of these methods. The greatest limitation ofthe implemented methodology was the time required: thethree days needed for each household limited our samplesize. The trade-off in depth versus breadth was that, with-out such an investment, we would not have confidence inour projection of land use and income streams 10 years intothe future. The process of mapping past and present activ-ity provided the nuanced understanding of land cover, landuse and livelihood dynamics necessary to interpret thefuture models. The three days also facilitated the gradualintroduction of remote sensing and global positioning sys-tem technology into the participatory process. Anotherlimitation involved the economic analysis, where the focuson income could have benefited from more attention to theallocation of time and capital. Furthermore, since the field-work took place before rather than after the designationand demarcation of land tenure within the PDS, the studywas unable to incorporate land use constraints such as legalforest reserves in the model. However, in the absence offormal title, PDS residents participated enthusiastically inthe research in part because they hoped the mapping pro-cess would help to solidify their tenure status.

6. Conclusion

This case study, and other research cited in the discus-sion, found former and current rubber tappers raising cat-tle to generate income and increase their family’s security.This transition from rubber to cattle has not been well doc-umented in the literature, although policy makers, donors,researchers, and residents alike in Acre are increasinglyaware of the growing importance of cattle in these units.Small scale cattle ranching became an important compo-nent of the diversification of livelihoods after the declineof rubber. During this diversification, some former tappersfound cattle to be profitable, and also to provide a criticalsource of year-round insurance missing since the dissolu-tion of their rubber-based patronage system. Policychanges played an important part in this transition, as gov-ernmental price supports for rubber were abandoned in the1990s. In some cases, rural credit incentives also hastenedthe transition to cattle ranching. The continued expansionof pasture challenges the function of extractive reserves asbarriers of deforestation. This pasture expansion may be‘‘the greatest threat to the biological integrity of extractivereserves’’ (Nepstad et al., 1992, p. 12) and extractivesettlements.

Despite these findings, the debate over the economic andconservation viability of extractive reserves continues. Thepotential impact of new policies and the dynamism ofAmazonian markets and livelihoods offer opportunitiesfor change. New policies, products and markets couldinfluence land managers to slow or reverse pasture expan-sion. This study highlights the flexibility of local land man-agers who continually adjust their strategies to minimizeeconomic risk, based on their particular endowments, his-tory, and knowledge and the opportunities and constraints


present, both market driven and not (Coomes and Barham,1997). The agents of these decision making processes are aheterogeneous and supple Amazonian people (Coomeset al., 2004) whose variance, and fluid identity and classmay not exactly fit into organizational units largely basedon extractivism or extractivists.

Given the importance of these and other populatedreserves for environmental (Nepstad et al., 2006) and cul-tural (Cunha and Almeida, 2002) conservation, Acre’s For-est Government holds out hope that these worrying trendscan be slowed or reversed. It remains to be seen if the gov-ernment’s promotion of improved forest friendly technolo-gies, markets, infrastructure, and subsidies, and theextractive reserves’ implementation of their individuallytailored management plans, can provide viable alternativesto the expansion of cattle.

In the meantime, the presence of cattle within extractivereserves does not signal the failure of the reserves butrather reminds us of their still experimental status, andthe need for additional research and policy making to focuson the dynamism and heterogeneity of land use withinthese populated units. The extractive reserves are ‘‘dynamiclaboratories’’ for investigating human-environment inter-action (Allegretti, 1990, p. 263), and require timely policieswith appropriate feedback mechanisms to adjust to chang-ing markets, policies, environments, and livelihoods. Nosuch mechanism was in place when cattle began to supplantrubber as a source of family security. Now policies mustalso adjust to a new generation who has greater experiencewith cattle raising than rubber tapping.

As the Forest Government’s environmental and land usepolicies attempt to grapple with these difficult problems,they confront many limitations (personnel and resources),as well as all the controversy and uncertainties inherentin the new concepts of sustainable development, sustain-able timber management, neo-extractivism, and extractivereserves (Browder, 1990, 1992; Homma, 1992; Rice et al.,1997; Sant’Ana, 2004). Their success will depend on thecapacity to innovate and adapt, and to confront growingglobal and national pressures for Amazonian resourcesthrough policy experiments that protect Acre’s forestsand lead to improved lives for the state’s rural and urbanpopulations.

Acknowledgements

We thank EMBRAPA, INCRA, SETEM/UFAC, andparticularly PESACRE and Eduardo (Cazuza) AmaralBorges for their logistical and intellectual support duringfieldwork. This work would not be possible without theinvaluable participation and friendship of the people ofTriunfo and Sao Salvador. The research was supportedby the Charles Wagley Research Fellowship, the ForeignLanguage and Area Studies Fellowship, and the Universityof Florida Latin American Studies and Tropical Conserva-tion and Development programs. TCD Program facultyand students, as well as Drs. Michael Binford, and Nigel

Smith provided valuable insight during the data analysis.We are grateful to Foster Brown, Peter Dana, ValerioGomes, Raissa Guerra, Brian King, Greg Knapp, EricMinzenberg, Jacqueline Vadjunec, Richard Wallace andthree anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpfuland thoughtful reviews of earlier versions of this manu-script. The errors contained herein are the responsibilityof the authors.

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Cows versus rubber: Changing livelihoods among Amazonian extractivists

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