ECOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY - RAIN-FOREST EXPLOITATION AMONG THE EMBERA-CHOCO

The protection and management of the humid tropical lowlands must involve the participation of the peasant and indigenous cultures that exploit these fragile areas. Small-scale indigenous, lowland tropical rain forest cultures have evolved a complex system of cosmology and subsistence technologies that have permitted hundreds of years of continuous exploitation of the rain forest. This article explores how the Embera, a lowland tropical rain forest culture that practices subsistence horticulture, fishing, hunting and gathering have maintained over many centuries a system of exploitation and dynamic ecological equilibrium that ensures the continuous availability of essential forest resources. Political, economic, technological and cosmological changes in the last two decades have disturbed traditional patterns of exploitation. Land managers can use indigenous knowledge and technologies as important factors in developing planning policies.