The use of and access to forest resources: The caboclos of the lower amazon and their socio-cultural attributes

Abstract

This chapter discusses the issue of natural resource use by riverine populations, presenting what the author has designated as an institutional analysis of the access to and use of forest resources by a section of Patos riverine community, in the Lower Amazon. Futemma pays special attention to the key role that the social networks, above all those woven around kinship and neighbourhood, play as they propitiate the access of local residents to the várzea and dry land resources. Another central aspect in the analysis carried out by the author is the flexible role played by formal land property (not shared by all of the community's households), in the sense of rendering viable access of all-depending on social relations-to the resources that are vital for the material survival of Patos residents. The author concludes that, over the state's formal rules (which has promoted and designed the agrarian land reform implanted in the area), a system of local rules and informal access to forest resources is superimposed, which tries to accommodate the social diversity and landscape, minimising inequalities among the small rural Patos producers. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.