ENERGETICS MODELING IN DEVELOPMENT EVALUATION: THE CASE OF THE BAKAIRI INDIANS OF CENTRAL BRAZIL

This dissertation evaluates the impact of a mechanized agriculture project on the traditional subsistence system and the health and nutritional status of the Bakairi Indians of Central Brazil. Until the present, the Bakairi depended upon slash-and-burn horticulture in the gallery forests along the rivers of their reservation. However, in 1980 the Brazilian Indian Foundation (Fundacao Nacional do Indio) financed a project giving the Indians equipment, chemical fertilizers, and fuels to initiate industrial agriculture in the prairie areas of their reservation. Ecological anthropology theory is employed to describe the implications of this project. The indigenous system of production is defined within the parameters of the Bakairi reservation ecosystem. Then, the mechanized agriculture project is imposed on this system. This new subsistence system is evaluated in terms of the resulting cultural and ecological stresses and benefits.;These stresses and benefits are modeled using energy flow diagrams and energy circuit language. Interactions between the Bakairi and major components of their ecosystem are mathematically described. Then, the quantitative values of these interactions are varied over time through computer simulation. The results of these simulations indicate that reliance on only traditional subsistence methods or on traditional subsistence and limited industrial agriculture will eventually result in the population growing exponentially, peaking, and then rapidly declining. On the other hand, increased reliance on mechanized agriculture results in exponential population growth with a higher peak which is supported by the greater amount of calories from the prairie rice fields. After the population peaks, rapid decline follows in this scenario.