ETHNOBOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE ASSOCIATED WITH SWIDDEN AGRICULTURE: THE BASIS FOR TROPICAL RAINFOREST SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT ON BRAZIL’S SOUTHERN COAST

This study’s objective was to analyze the swidden agriculture system practiced by traditional mountain-dwelling communities of European immigrant forester-farmers in southern Brazil, in the Atlantic Forest Biome with the hypothesis that it is an indigenous-based ethnobotanical knowledge. From interviews and participant observation we conducted an ethnographic analysis and systematized their ethnobotanical knowledge associated with tropical forest and landscape management and compared their knowledge and management system with results from studies in northeast Argentina with traditional indigenous people. We discovered similarities in the cultivated agrobiodiversity; production techniques; classification of forest succession stages; and characterization of spaces in the landscape. We show that the local knowledge associated with tropical forest management practiced by the European immigrant forester-farmers, on the south Brazilian Coast, were adapted from indigenous knowledge, what permitted them to maintain their livelihoods managing forest resources during the time, even when facing different socioeconomic and environmental crises.