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The global environmental conservation community recognizes that the participation of local communities is essential for the success of conservation initiatives; however, much work remains to be done on how to integrate conservation and human well-being. We propose that an assets-based approach to environmental conservation and human well-being, which is grounded in a biocultural framework, can support sustainable and adaptive management of natural resources by communities in regions adjacent to protected areas. We present evidence from conservation and quality of life initiatives led by the Field Museum of Natural History over the past 17 years in the Peruvian Amazon. Data were derived from asset mapping in 37 communities where rapid inventories were conducted and from 38 communities that participated in longer term quality of life planning. Our main findings are that Amazonian communities have many characteristics, or assets, that recent scholarship has linked to environmental sustainability and good natural resource stewardship, and that quality of life plans that are based on these assets tend to produce priorities that are more consistent with environmental conservation. Importantly, we found that validating social and ecological assets through our approach can contribute to the creation of protected areas and to their long-term management. As strategies to engage local communities in conservation expand, research on how particular methodologies, such as an assets-based approach, is needed to determine how these initiatives can best empower local communities, how they can be improved, and how they can most effectively be linked to broader conservation and development processes.

Objectives: Public health interventions can be improved by understanding peoples’ explanatory models of disease. We explore awareness and perceptions of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and options for preventative actions in young adults living in rural Andean communities. Methods: We used convenience sampling to select 46 men and women from communities in Cajamarca (Peru). Subjects participated in eight focus groups where they discussed their understanding and perceived causes of CVD as well as barriers and pathways to healthy lifestyles. Results: Fresh foods, physical activity, unpleasant emotions, and healthcare access were cited as important determinants of healthy lifestyles. Barriers to healthy diets included lacking nutritional knowledge, fluctuating food prices, and limited access to foodstuffs. Women felt particularly vulnerable to CVD and identified gendered barriers to manage stress and engage in sports. Low health literacy, poor doctor-patient relationships, and long distances prevented participants from fully accessing healthcare. Conclusion: CVD prevention interventions should consider local knowledge of these diseases and of healthy lifestyles, and harness ongoing programmes that have successfully promoted good nutrition in children and pregnant women. In concert with public-private parterships, governments should include disease prevention interventions for the entire family.

This article examines the relationship between cultural changes, socioeconomic status (SES), and psychobiological health outcomes among the Awajún, an indigenous group living in the Peruvian Amazon. Specifically, it documents how historically important markers of status for the Awajún, such as spiritual visions and war-time success, were replaced by Western markers of status including occupation, income, education and Spanish-language use. These changes are linked to the broader political-economic and social agendas of Peruvian government officials and American missionaries who sought religious conversion and economic gain in the deepest reaches of the Amazon. The resulting socioeconomic hierarchies have implications for the health community, men with lower SES tended to have higher Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) antibodies, indicating suppressed immune function, and both men and women with lower SES tended to have higher reported psychological stress levels. This critical biocultural analysis suggests that existing socioeconomic hierarchies in Awajún communities are the result of active colonial, evangelical, and capitalist efforts and shows that local histories and social spheres \"get under the skin\" to influence the mind and body, [lifestyle change, socioeconomic status (SES), psychological stress, Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) antibodies, Amazon, Awajún] Este artículo examina la relación entre cambios culturales, estatus socioeconómico (SES) y los resultados de salud psicobiológicos entre los Awajún, un grupo indígena que vive en la Amazonia Peruana. Específicamente, lo documenta cómo históricamente importantes marcadores de estatus para los Awajún, como visiones espirituales y el éxito de la guerra, fueron substituidos por los marcadores importantes, incluyendo la ocupación, ingresos, educación y la lengua española. Estos cambios están vinculados a las agendas política-económicas y sociales, más amplio de funcionarios del gobierno peruano y misioneros estadounidenses, que buscaban la conversión religiosa y beneficio económico en las áreas más profundas de la Amazonia. Las jerarquías socioeconómicas resultantes tienen implicaciones para la salud y el bienestar de mujeres y hombres Awajún en el presente. Independientemente de otros factores relevantes, como la edad y comunidad, los hombres con un SES más bajo tienden a tener más anticuerpos del Virus de Epstein - Barr (EBV), que indica suprimieron la función inmunológica, y tantos hombres y mujeres con bajo SES, han reportado un mayor nivel de estrés psicológico. Este análisis biocultural crítico sugiere que las jerarquías socioeconómicas existentes en las comunidades Awajún son los resultados de los esfuerzos activos de coloniales, evangélicos y capitalistas y demuestra que las historias locales y esferas sociales \"meterse en la piel\" para influir cuerpo y mente.

Water insecurity, the inability to benefit from affordable, adequate, reliable and safe water, is one of the greatest contemporary threats facing humans. While ‘water insecurity’, as a concept, is globally recognized and serves an essential function in policymaking, it does not capture the multiple, relational connections between Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and water systems. We contend that studies of water insecurity and health among IPLCs can be improved by applying a systematic approach to the concept of waterscapes. The term waterscape describes the socio‐natural relations between humans and water. To make examining waterscapes more systematic and to draw attention to the importance of health within waterscapes, we use a four‐tiered socio–ecological approach to describe the multi‐level interactions between IPLCs and local water systems in the Amazonian watershed. We then apply this four‐tiered model to the case of the Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon to identify the specific health impacts of disrupting the Xingu River waterscape. Applying the four‐tiered socio‐ecological approach to the Belo Monte case study showed that this dam led to flooding and compromised water quality that local people associated with an increased risk for chronic health conditions, such as kidney and renal diseases, and vector‐borne diseases, such as dengue. Displacement due to the dam threatened food security, economic security, community cohesion and the cultural survival of multiple IPLCs along the Xingu river. Our approach uncovers not only the direct consequences of the dam on water insecurity but also the broader implications for community well‐being and cultural integrity, addressing the diverse challenges arising from human‐water interactions. The four‐tiered approach for assessing waterscapes offers a framework that enables a comprehensive examination of the intricate relations between water and humans. While there are overlaps among the levels, this framework is applicable to other situations where mining, oil extraction and the construction of hydrovías are substantially altering local waterscapes. Tools such as this one can promote more meaningful engagement between researchers, policymakers, and IPLCs in defining the range of outcomes to be considered in social and environmental impact assessments. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Resumen La inseguridad hídrica, la incapacidad de beneficiarse de agua disponible, adecuada, confiable y segura, es una de las mayores amenazas contemporáneas que enfrenta la humanidad. Si bien la ‘inseguridad hídrica’, como concepto, es mundialmente reconocida y desempeña una función esencial en la formulación de políticas, no llega a integrar las múltiples conexiones relacionales entre los Pueblos Indígenas y Comunidades Locales (IPLCs) y los sistemas hídricos. Sostenemos que los estudios sobre inseguridad hídrica y salud entre los IPLCs se pueden mejorar aplicando un enfoque sistémico al concepto de paisajes acuáticos. El término paisaje acuático describe las relaciones socionaturales entre los seres humanos y el agua. Para hacer que el análisis de los paisajes acuáticos sea más sistémico y así llamar la atención sobre la importancia de la salud en los paisajes acuáticos, utilizamos un enfoque socioecológico de cuatro niveles para describir las múltiples interacciones entre los IPLCs y los sistemas acuáticos locales en la cuenca del Amazonas. Luego aplicamos este modelo de cuatro niveles al caso de la represa de Belo Monte en la Amazonia brasileña para identificar los impactos específicos en la salud de la alteración del paisaje acuático del río Xingú. La aplicación del enfoque de cuatro niveles al estudio de caso de Belo Monte demostró que esta represa provocó inundaciones y comprometió la calidad del agua. La población local asoció esta situación con un mayor riesgo de enfermedades crónicas, como las enfermedades renales, y enfermedades vectoriales, como el dengue. El desplazamiento debido a la represa amenazó la seguridad alimentaria, la seguridad económica, la cohesión comunitaria y la supervivencia cultural de múltiples pueblos indígenas y comunidades locales a lo largo del Xingú. Nuestro enfoque descubre no sólo las consecuencias directas de la represa sobre la inseguridad hídrica, sino también las implicaciones más amplias para el bienestar de la comunidad y la integridad cultural, abordando los diversos desafíos que surgen de las interacciones entre los seres humanos y el agua. El enfoque de cuatro niveles para evaluar los paisajes acuáticos ofrece un marco que permite un análisis exhaustivo de las intrincadas relaciones entre el agua y los seres humanos. Si bien existen superposiciones entre los niveles, este marco es aplicable a otras situaciones en las cuales la minería, la extracción de petróleo y la construcción de hidrovías están alterando sustancialmente los paisajes acuáticos locales. Herramientas como ésta pueden promover una participación más significativa entre investigadores, formuladores de políticas y pueblos Indígenas y comunidades locales a la hora de definir la gama de resultados que se deberían considerar en las evaluaciones de impacto social y ambiental. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

In the last century, unprecedented ecological and cultural transformations have changed the lifestyles of humans across the globe. An issue of significant anthropological interest is to understand how these changes relate to the health and wellbeing of individuals living in indigenous communities in transition. This study uses a critical biocultural approach to investigate the relationship between lifestyle change, vulnerability, and health among the Awajún of the northern Peruvian Amazon. To do so, it pursues three primary objectives. First, it advances a critical biocultural approach by identifying and applying methods from critical medical anthropology and biocultural studies. Second, this study synthesizes perspectives from these two fields to arrive at a new interpretation of the concept of vulnerability that foregrounds the importance of focusing on indigenous populations in transition, the utility of a quantitative ‘risk-based approach’, and the need to use empirical approaches to measure vulnerability. Finally, it builds on this new interpretation of vulnerability to create the Index of Vulnerability (IoV), a multidimensional measure of stressor exposure that connects the social and ecological sphere to human perceptions and biology. For this investigation, 225 Awajún adults between the ages of 18 and 65 years of age were recruited from four communities located along Marginal Highway 5N in the province of Amazonas, Peru. Narratives, surveys, anthropometric measurements, and finger-stick blood samples, were collected from participants to investigate the relationship between lifestyles, vulnerability, and health. The Index of Vulnerability was found to be significantly associated with perceived stress, somatic symptoms, and depression in women and with BMI, summary skinfolds, and triglyceride levels in men. The range of mental and physical health outcomes associated with the Index of Vulnerability indicates that it is a useful, theoretically-informed measure of stressor exposure that has significant predictive value in an indigenous Amazonian population in transition.