This article highlights a form of integrated traditional and modern knowledge for tropical timber exploitation that has received little attention in academia. Whereas most studies explore local cultures' adaptation of exogenous knowledge introduced by the state or NGOs, this case study reveals the way that off-farm wage laborers successfully capitalize on knowledge accumulated from seasonal and boom-time employment.

During the 1980s and 90s, in the Amazonian floodplains of Amapá, Brazil, locals learned valuable technical, managerial and marketing skills in forestry from their experiences working in the region’s hardwood timber boom. After the industry bust, workers returned home to their smallholder farms and adapted these external ideas to their traditional swidden-fallow agroecological systems. Importantly, these laborers returned with a new sense of appreciation for the economic potential of properly managed wood resources. The resilient and diversified resource management systems that resulted contrast with the former timber industry in that they operate on a much smaller, more efficient and sustainable scale; they harvest and process six times as many species; and they feature simultaneous management of food and forest crop production. Two biographical examples of individuals that prosper through hybridized strategies for lumbering and milling are provided to illustrate economic success in the wake of a collapsed industry.

Amazonia is accustomed to oscillations in economic, political, biophysical, and social conditions, and this contemporary small-scale industry encompassing local producers, processors and consumers has once again transformed the rural economy and filled a market niche. The authors point to three characteristics of smallholder farmers that support this process: 1) they adapt to globalization and market changes through borrowed knowledge; 2) this knowledge adoption is opportunistic, improvisational and innovative; and 3) their cultural body of knowledge is constantly evolving.

Prepared by Megan Glore