Resumen

ZENT, Egleé L  y  ZENT, Stanford. Impactos ambientales generadores de biodiversidad: Conductas ecológicas de los hotï de la sierra maigualida, amazonas venezolano. INCI [online]. 2002, vol.27, n.1, pp.9-20. ISSN 0378-1844.

The hypothesis that vast portions of Amazonia are made up of anthropogenic rather than pristine ecosystems has gained wide acceptance in recent years, yet empirical studies of this phenomenon are still few. One unexplored aspect of this hypothesis concerns whether aboriginal human foragers have contributed to landscape modification. The present article addresses this gap by documenting the ecological disturbance behaviors of the Hotï people of the Sierra Maigualida, Venezuelan Amazon. The Hotï are a recently contacted group who traditionally inhabited an interfluvial forest region, were very nomadic, and subsisted mainly from hunting and gathering and secondarily from swidden horticulture. Although some contemporary Hotï groups have experienced cultural changes following contacts with westerners foraging continues to be a dominant part of the subsistence system. Five disturbance behaviors observed among the Hotï are described: harvest and dispersal of edible fruit trees, exploitation and manipulation of palms, management of palm grubs, gap cultivation, and honey extraction. Based on an analysis of these types of disturbance and taking into consideration the long period of time they have occupied this region, we infer that they have probably had a considerable impact on the composition, diversity and structure of the Maigualida forests. The findings are potentially significant for conservation planning by showing empirically how the subsistence activities of indigenous human foragers contribute to the creation and dynamic maintenance of biodiversity in Amazonian ecosystems.

Palabras clave : Ecosistemas Antropogénicos ; Alteración Ecológica ; Forrajeros Humanos ; Amazonas ; Bosque Tropical ; Hotï.