Amazonian conservation across archipelagos of Indigenous territories.

Indigenous stewardship is essential to the conservation of biocultural diversity, yet conventional conservation models often treat Indigenous territories (ITs) as homogeneous or isolated units. We propose that archipelagos of Indigenous territories (AITs), clusters of ITs that span geographies but are connected through shared cultural or political ties maintained by Indigenous nations, are crucial for understanding and enhancing conservation strategies that recognize the complexity of Indigenous stewardship. We classified 3572 ITs in the Amazon into 4 categories-single or multiple nations with either singular IT or AIT-to assess their spatial heterogeneity, governance, and conservation potential.

The effects of market integration on childhood growth and nutritional status: the dual burden of under- and over-nutrition in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon.

Objectives: Market integration is an important source of cultural change exposing indigenous populations to epidemiologic and nutrition transitions. As children and adolescents are biologically sensitive to the health effects of market integration, we examine community variation of anthropometric indicators of nutritional status and growth among a cross-cultural sample of Kichwa, Shuar, Huaorani, and Cofán indigenous groups in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon.

Methods: We measured height, weight, body mass index (BMI), upper arm circumference, and triceps skinfolds of 186 children and adolescents aged 2 to 18 years from seven communities.

Contrasting colonist and indigenous impacts on amazonian forests.

To examine differences in land use and environmental impacts between colonist and indigenous populations in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon, we combined data from household surveys and remotely sensed imagery that was collected from 778 colonist households in 64 colonization sectors, and 499 households from five indigenous groups in 36 communities. Overall, measures of deforestation and forest fragmentation were significantly greater for colonists than indigenous peoples. On average, colonist households had approximately double the area in agriculture and cash crops and 5.