Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thoughts on the future of Amazonia : the region, residents, researchers, and realities / Michael J. Balick -- Romance and reality : the first European vision of Brazilian Indians / John Hemming -- Constructing tropical nature / Nancy Leys Stepan -- Demand for two classes of traditional agroecological knowledge in modern Amazonia / Charles R. Clement -- Fire in Romania, 1998 - politics and human impact : what role for indigenous people in Brazilian Amazonia? / Elizabeth Allen -- The Cerrado of Brazilian Amazonia : a much-endangered vegetation / James A. Ratter, J. Felipe Ribeiro, and Samuel Bridgewater -- A review of Amazonian wetlands and rivers : valuable environments under threat / Christopher Barrow -- Fragility and resilience of Amazonian soils : models from indigenous management / Peter A. Furley -- Is successful development of Brazilian Amazonia possible without knowledge of the soil and soil response to development? / Stephen Nortcliff -- Fragile soils and deforestation impacts : the rationale for environmental services of standing forest as a development paradigm in Amazonia / Philip M. Fearnside -- Concurrent activities and invisible technologies : an example of timber management in Amazonia / Christine Padoch and Miguel Pinedo-Vásquez -- Institutional and economic issues in the promotion of commercial forest management in Amerinidian societies / Michael Richards -- Collect or cultivate - a conundrum : comparative population ecology of ipecac (Carapichea ipecacuanha (Brot.) L. Andersson), a neotropical understory herb / Jan Salick -- Extractivism, domestication, and privatization of a native plant resource : the case of jaborandi (Pilocarpus microphyllus Stapf ex Holmes) in Maranhão, Brazil / Claudio Urbano B. Pinheiro -- Peasant riverine economies and their impact in the lower Amazon / Mark Harris -- Conservation, economics, traditional knowledge, and the Yanomami : implications and benefits for whom? / William Milliken -- The commodification of the Indian / Alcida Rita Ramos -- Euphemism in the forest : ahistoricism and the valorization of indigenous knowledge / Stephen Nugent -- What's the difference between a Peace Corps worker and an anthropologist? A millennium rethink of anthropological fieldwork / Joanna Overing -- Traditional resource use and ethnoeconomics : sustainable characteristics of the Amerindian lifestyles / Clóvis Cavalcanti -- Enhancing social captial : productive conservation and traditional knowledge in the Brazilian rain forest / Anthony Hall.