Protected areas, Amazonian traditional people and new conservationist arrangements

Abstract

The acknowledgement that it is possible to reconcile lifestyles of Traditional Peoples and Communities (PCT) with the conservation of biodiversity has triggered the creation of legal mechanisms in favor of the permanence of these subjects in their lands. Nevertheless, protected areas continue to be disputed spaces, on which social interests are projected on the territory, as a means of material and immaterial production of life, interests in designating those spaces exclusively for environmental protection and interests in commerce, which permeates many of the encouraged practices in Conservation Units. In this article, I will present the character such conflicts assume in Tapajós National Forest (Flona Tapajós), where the "right to stay" imposed conditionstothe population, i.e., restrictions of use and the introduction of new practices that have changed the relations of the community as well as the socioeconomic dynamics of the place.