Restauração de paisagens culturais: cosmovisão das populações indígenas e áreas prioritárias para restauração florestal no Mosaico Gurupi

Abstract

While deforestation results in huge losses, restoration of these spaces reestablishes connections between living beings and carries out a profound cultural rescue. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the connections established between the modeling performed for prioritizing areas for restoration and their local reinterpretation in terms of indigenous territoriality and cultural vulnerability, thus highlighting the social side of restoration. The study area (13,000, 032.79 ha) was delimited around the “Mosaico Gurupi” region (1,799, 639.32 ha), the main intact forest remnant of the Belem Endemism Area (AEB), overlapping the states from Para and Maranhão. This research embraced ethnographic elements of the indigenous populations that live in that region (Awa-Guajá, Ka’apor, Tembé and Guajajara) as well as ecological and social criteria, which were analyzed through multicriteria modeling using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique as a tool to define priority areas for restoration. Indigenous perceptions were also included with translations from the indigenous languages of the participating ethnic groups of some recurring terms in this theme. Most of the protected areas presented areas of highest priority in multiple scenarios, increasing the probability of natural regeneration. There is no area of highest priority coinciding with the three scenarios, which would represent the greatest possible chance of restoration success for the study area, as it would jointly meet different restoration objectives. In the study area, 17,354.07 ha were classified as a very high ecological demand for restoration in addition to highest probability of natural regeneration (scenarios 1 and 2), and in this same region 4.77 ha were classified as highest probability of natural regeneration and highest cultural benefit (scenarios 2 and 3). Until 2019 the study area as a whole had 9,536,772.37 ha (73.33 %) of its area deforested (subject to restoration) and the Mosaico Gurupi had 357,462.8 ha (19.86 %) deforested, demonstrating the great need for restoration in the region. It is therefore recommended to start restoration in areas of the highest priority in terms of cultural benefits in the Mosaico Gurupi, where the probability of natural regeneration is greater and where the main stakeholders, the indigenous population, are committed to restoration measures as well as involving other actors.