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In-Depth Information
New Lands (and Forms of Tenure) in the Tropics
The third map produced by da Cunha outlined a new property regime that defined the
spatial structure and labor system of the rubber world. This little sketch map seems in-
nocuous enough, but within it, once again, da Cunha articulated an emergent cultur-
al/institutional novelty, one that put formalized human
place
onto what might to out-
siders seem to be inchoate nature. He describes a technique and form of land tenure un-
known away from Amazonia, invented by the locals and evolved from ecological pe-
culiarities of the forest. This survey related to the distributions of trees rather than the
grids of land tenure and reflected forest realities unknown to European and agrarian sur-
vey. The sketch map outlined property boundaries not as land
area
but as
arboreal eco-
nomic space
. Only decades later, in the 1970s and 1980s, would these usufruct tenurial
forms convert to different property regimes amid bloody contention. The tenure model
described by da Cunha would eventually become the foundation for conservation units
known as extractive reserves.
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