The Ribereño people in sector Muyuy, Peru live on a tropical, biodiversity-rich floodplain that regularly undergoes drastic environmental change. This article explores the ways inhabitants adapt their land management practices to accommodate the demands and vagaries of a globalized economy as well as the geophysical shifts inherent to the location. Over a period of five years, the researchers gathered information from Landsat images, land surveys, historical archives, demographic censuses, interviews, participant observation, participatory map-making and biodiversity surveys to elucidate the relationship between these Ribereños and their ecosystem. Extensive plant and agrobiodiversity inventories were thorough in their inclusion of fields, forests, home gardens and fallows. Data analysis confirms that anthropogenic and environmental interactions combine in favor of biodiversity in this highly dynamic ecosystem. Ribereños characteristically respond to extreme natural processes and boom and bust market cycles with remarkable social, economic and environmental resilience and adaptability and the article describes some of these strategies. Implementation of large-scale agriculture schemes by development agencies have not endured in this area, as diversified Ribereño livelihoods continue to revolve around activities that reconcile production with conservation of biodiversity. The authors urge conservationists and development agencies to recognize Ribereño cultural practices and land management strategies as models for sustainable resource use, and to value their conservation techniques as resources in and of themselves.

Prepared by Megan Glore