Traditional knowledge and practices: an ethnoconservation approach

Biodiversity conservation in Brazil is based on the imported model of national parks that excludes people, particularly traditional communities from their territories. This exclusion is not only physical, often through forced migration but also sociocultural that includes the whole way of life based on small scale agriculture and fishing, forest gathering and community work. Traditional knowledge on plants., animals, soils is also not taken into consideration on conservation areas planning and management. The main consequence of this exclusion is that the State loses support from these communities that should be considered their main allies in biodiversity conservation. This paper aims at analyzing the role of traditional knowledge and practices within a new model of biodiversity conservation that would be more democratic, socially inclusive and more adapted to developing countries situations. This model is called here ethnoconservation.