145

Institutional Crafting and the Vitality of
Rural Areas in an Urban World:
Perspectives from a Japanese Community in the Amazon
Eduardo S. BRONDIZIO
Department of Anthropology, Student Building 130, Indiana University,
Bloomington, IN 47405, USAe-mail: ebrondiz@indiana.edu.

Abstract
This essay presents the story of the Japanese diaspora community of Tome-Açu in the Brazilian Amazon
as a basis for reflecting on the challenges of maintaining social and economic vitality of rural areas in many
parts of the world. Over the years, Tome-Açu farmers faced the struggle of finding viable land-use and economic systems to sustain their community, promote prosperity and engage the younger generations. Theyexperienced economic booms and busts associated with monoculture and global markets. They re-emerged
from economic collapse by developing a production system based on agroforestry systems and diverse land
use strategies. Tome-Açu farmers have cooperated to develop value-added industries for their production.
Notwithstanding their specific historical-geographical context, their ability to craft and re-craft cooperative
institutions, their agricultural experimentation with regional plants and forest products, and their entrepreneurship in creating value-added industries offer an opportunity to reflect on the potentials and challenges
faced by rural communities in an urbanized world.
Key words: agroforestry, Amazon, cooperativism, institutional crafting, Japanese-Brazilians, satoyama

1. Introduction
In 1928 a group of Japanese immigrants sailed from
Yokohama towards the Amazon, arriving in the city of
Belem from where they navigated to the interior to settle
in an area that became known as Tome-Açu. They
formed a community that has been recognized for its
economic vitality, cooperative organization and mosaic
of agroforestry systems. In many ways, their journey has
inspired Brazilians in general and Amazonian communities in particular. Their story came alive to me as I reflected on the ideas of my colleague Elinor (Lin) Ostrom,
whose work and life has also inspired (and inspires)
people around the world1). The story of Tome-Açu, andthe parallels I intend to raise with rural and coastal areas– the satoyama-satoumi – in Japan, reflect some of thecornerstone ideas of Lin Ostrom: the ability of local communities to self-organize, institutional crafting as a process and not an end in itself, the potential of polycentric
governance systems to link levels of organization andinstitutional diversity, and the importance of local resource managers and food producers within an urbanizing world.
I am using the term rural in this essay in a general way,considering that it is not necessary to stress that rural
Global Environmental Research
16/2012: 145-151
printed in Japan

communities around the world differ in historical, cultural, political and environmental contexts; that theirperspectives of well-being, expectations about the future,
and ability to thrive are relative to such contexts. I am
assuming that it is long past the time when talking aboutrural implied a sense of dichotomy with the urban. The
notion of rural (or urban for that matter) is situational, i.e.,
relative to a social and biophysical landscape and thesocial identity of people living in webs of rural-urban
continuum. There are, however, numerous parallels one
can draw on the transformation of rural areas andlandscapes in different parts of the world. This is theapproach I will take in this essay using as a foundation
the story of a Japanese diasporic community of TomeAcu and perspectives on collective action from Lin
Ostrom to reflect on the transformation of satoyamasatoumi landscapes in Japan.
The decline and transformation of rural landscapes,
the satoyama-satoumi, in Japan – illustrated by the
Satoyama-Satoumi Subglobal Assessment (Duraiappah
et al., 2012) and the subject of this special issue of Global
Environmental Research – call attention to the interdependence between rural and urban areas and the challenges of envisioning sustainability in an interlinked
world. Food policies, currency fluctuation and trade,©2012 AIRIES146

E. S. BRONDIZIO

industrialization and the lure of urban life and employment have emptied the Japanese countryside of its young
population and of a more active agro-resource economy.
As a result, it has promoted major changes in community
life, the abandonment of managed agricultural-forest
mosaic landscapes, and unprecedented forest re-growth.
These changes raise concerns about food security, themaintenance of ecosystems services such as throughirrigation water management, soil fertility and conservation, as well as the loss of local agro/biodiversity knowledge. The assessment calls attention to the invisible
dimension of these ecosystem services provided in theseproduction landscapes, invisible even though they
contribute to the well-being and security of a large
contingent of urban populations. In many ways, thetrajectories of satoyama-satoumi areas are iconic of thechallenges facing of rural areas around the world.
Notwithstanding their specific historical-geographical contexts, the story of Tome-Açu and their dedication
to institutional crafting speak to many of the challengesof the satoyama-satoumi in Japan. Over the years, TomeAçu farmers faced the struggle of finding viable land use
and economic systems to sustain their community andbring prosperity. After the Second World War, they
became one of the top global producers of black pepper
through large-scale monocropping. A price decline andthe spread of plant disease led to system collapse. They
re-emerged from this collapse into a new phase of production based on agroforestry systems focused onnational and global markets for Amazonian/ tropicalfruits. Tome-Açu farmers have cooperated to develop avalue-added industry for their agroforestry production.
Over 80 years since arriving in the Amazon, their story
offers many parallels to the current challenge of thesatoyama-satoumi in Japan. Their ability to craft andre-craft cooperative institutions, their agricultural experimentation with regional plants and forest products,
and their entrepreneurship in creating a value-addedindustry in the community offer an opportunity to reflect
on potentials of rural economies and the challenges ofsmall-scale production systems.

2. Institutional Crafting and the Making of aJapanese Amazonian Community
This story starts over 80 years ago in Yokohama whena group of Japanese families left Japan to an area locatedin the northern Brazilian state of Pará. This move waspart of a bi-national effort to settle Japanese families in
the Amazon, following a similar trend elsewhere in
Brazil, particularly the state of São Paulo2). They arrived
in the city of Belém, in the southern part of the Amazon
estuary in 1929 and started a journey along the river tothe site that eventually became known as Tome-Açu.
During this first migration trip 43 Japanese families(189 people) left Yokohama to arrive in a region with
only indigenous settlements and no modern infrastructure. More Japanese immigrants came later and some ofthe original settlers left for other parts of Brazil. They

arrived with the goal and challenge of forming fromscratch a prosperous community in a tropical and distantforest landscape.
They brought with them the desire to prosper in an unfamiliar tropical environment, a sense of family andcommunity life, and experience with farming systems
based on intensive satoyama practices. Their trajectory
was a difficult one, but over the years became known as
one of the best examples of economic success andenvironmental stewardship of the Amazon. Undergoinghardships during the first years of colonization, they
explored economic alternatives and different forms oforganization based on nuclear family work linked to astrong sense of community.
Starting their farms from scratch, they cleared forestsand experimented with annual and perennial crops. Success with crops varied and access to market remained
limited. They planted a variety of crops, including rice,rubber and cocoa, various kinds of produce, several
hardwood trees used for wood and/or oils, and various
fruit species. They sought to develop their own knowledge of tropical agriculture and to learn about the local
agro-environment. They faced significant difficulties
with the isolation of the region. The lack of a transportation network compromised the economic viability of
local production.
The community settlement was initially within thelimits of the municipality of Acará. In 1959 it became themunicipality of Tomé-Açu3), a process which started
early with their investment in crafting institutions toaddress collective problems and challenges. Having
problems storing and commercializing their rice, in 1931
they founded the Vegetables/Produce Cooperative (Cooperativa de Hortaliças) with the intention of stimulating
agricultural production and reaching the market in thecapital city of Belém. In 1935, this cooperative grew inimportance by organizing all settlement production andchanged its name to the Agricultural Cooperative of
Acará (Cooperativa Agrícola do Acará).
The first decade was marked by ups and downs in success. Diseases such as yellow fever and malaria affectedmany individuals in the community. For these and otherreasons many families left the community towards otherparts of Brazil. The Second World War posed anothermajor challenge for those families. After Brazil entered
the alliance the community was subjected to pressures
and was segregated by the Brazilian population; they
were blocked from having open access to markets fortheir products. During this period they focused on maintaining their own subsistence needs. With the war over, in
1947, the cooperative began to experience success withthe production of black pepper, a crop that was experiencing increasing demand in national and global
markets. Success with black pepper led farmers toreorganize the cooperative and legalize it as the Mixed
Agricultural Cooperative of Tome-Açu or CAMTA(Cooperativa Agrícola Mista de Tomé-Açu). CAMTA
remains an intrinsic part of the community today and anemblematic cooperative in Brazil. As one of the largest

Perspectives from a Japanese Community in the Amazon

global black-pepper producers, from 1947 to the early
1960s Tomé-Açu experienced a period of prosperity andgrowth. The cooperative made Brazil and the Amazon aforce in the global black pepper market. The period of the‘black diamond’ (black pepper economy) economy
brought a level of prosperity unimagined just few years
earlier. Yamada (1999) and Piekielek (2010) reported thatin 1956 the cooperative produced over 1,200 tons ofblack pepper with income averaging over US$45,000 per
member. The average production of black pepper bycooperative members during this period increased overten-fold.
In the midst of economic prosperity, serious problems
struck the black pepper production. During the early
1960s - the compounding effect of a fungal disease(Fusarium solani) and oscillations in national and international market prices led to the beginning of its collapse.
The story of this crash offers an invaluable lesson on
agro-biodiversity and resilience relevant to current discussions of expanding food production. To understandthis collapse, we need to understand the origins of theblack pepper economy of Tome-Açu. Initial experimentswith black pepper were based on a set of no more than 20
seedlings brought to Tome-Açu around 1933 by immigrants who collected the plants when the ship stopped in
Singapore for the burial of a passenger. These plants were
kept in backyards for years and at one point provided theseedlings to the initial development of the local black
pepper agriculture. According to local farmers, much of
the genetic basis (or the lack of) of the large-scale black
pepper economy that emerged in Tome-Açu originatedfrom these seedlings. The arrival of fusarium disease
spread quickly within the monocultural system. In a shortperiod, the production system that had successfully ledthem to wealth was leading now to an economic collapse
triggered by the compounding effect of a market decline
and ecological crisis.
Starting during the late 1960s, the collapse of theblack pepper economy forced the community to try otheragricultural products and their attention turned experimenting with other potential fruit crops from the Amazon
and other tropical regions. They turned their attention tocreating diverse agroforestry systems mixing perennials
like cocoa, acerola, rubber, oil palm tree, cupuaçu,
vanilla, biannuals such as passion fruit, papaya andmelon, among other native and exotic fruits and hardwood trees, in the hopes of spurring a new economic
cycle in the region (Homma, 2004). Black pepper
continued to be an important crop albeit at a smallerscale.
The 1980s, however, brought other challenges. The
market for tropical fruits, particularly Amazonian fruits,
was incipient and virtually nonexistent in Brazil. The
price of fruit in natura was low and disadvantageous
given their particular location. The macro-economiccrisis affecting Brazil during this period led to limited
economic activity and high risks associated with hyperinflation and shifting currencies. Attracted by the job
market and new labor legislation in Japan, hundreds of147

thousands younger Japanese descendants throughout
Brazil moved as dekassegui to work in Japan. The story
was no different in Tome-Açu as virtually every family
had members working in Japan. While increasingly
dependent on remittances, families felt the loss of laborfor intensive agroforestry and agricultural activities. This
was also a period of expanding logging operations andpasture conversion in the region, both of which resulted
in significant environmental change and no shortage ofsocial conflicts and violence to the area. In response, theyturned their attention to developing institutions such asorganized policing against robbery and crimes aimed at
the community. These changes and threats also forced
Japanese settlers to find a better economic position inregional and national markets for agricultural products.
The region was experiencing fast transformations. Like
Japan, the Amazon experienced an exponential growth inurbanization during this period (today over 75% of the
Amazonian population lives in cities, although most areconsidered ‘rural cities’). As dekasseguis starting to return from Japan, culture change and the attraction of
cities continued to represent a challenge to families andto the Tome-Açu community as a whole. The younger
generations were also increasingly attracted to cattle
ranching, an alternative not always considered desirable
by the older generations. Many first and second-generation migrants expressed their concerns with the longterm viability of their cooperative and the social values
they imprinted in the community.
Arguably, the cooperative system is the most important institution in Tomé-Açu. Members are committed
to maintaining the physical and institutional underpinnings of the cooperative and to give a portion of theirproduction in support. The importance and role of thecooperative has been closely linked to other local institutions such as the Cultural Association of Tome-Açu(ACTA). The latter has served as the binding for families
to maintain their social cohesion and to introduce new
Brazilian-Japanese generations into Japanese culture andlanguage. Along with CAMTA, the cultural association
forged strong ties to other communities in Brazil andJapan, and to Japanese government agencies supporting
development. Over the years, cooperation around community goals and links to supporting agencies in Japan
led to improvements in infrastructure and services suchas health, education and communication.
Since the early 1980s and during the 1990s, the community worked on improving infrastructure of communication and transportation. The cultural association
continued to expand their role and to welcome a newgeneration of Nipo-Brazilian families and children.
CAMTA carried out market research to study the potentials of their products in other parts of Brazil and thedevelopment of new products; they developed products(e.g., frozen fruit pulp, oils) and explored niches andforms of commercialization in supermarkets andrestaurants. During the mid-1980s, CAMTA inaugurated
the first processing plant to produce frozen fruit pulp,
paving the way to an expansion of frozen pulp export to148

E. S. BRONDIZIO

national and international markets. During the late 1990s
and early 2000s, the cooperative underwent a period ofchange. A younger generation started to take leadershiproles of the cooperative bringing new ideas and forms ofentrepreneurship. Membership was opened to nonJapanese descendents in an effort to expand participationand production. A second processing plant was inaugurated in 2002 processing a wider array of fruits andproducts. They aggregated the value of their fruits bytapping into their nutritional qualities and promoting
them to a national population with a taste for unfamiliarand exotic produce. They promoted Amazonian fruits
such as cupuacu, graviola, tapereba and other tropicalfruits such as acerola (‘Caribbean cherry’) unknown tomost Brazilians at the time. Cacao production, which
expanded significantly during the late 1970s, continued
to be an important product for the cooperative. They
understood the key function of value aggregation andcaptured revenues in different segments of a market chain.
The globalization of acai palm fruit (Euterpe oleracea)
during the late 1990s opened further and promising
opportunities for CAMTA to build upon their experience(Brondizio, 2008). Familiar with export standards andprocedures, sanitary regulations, and marketing, they led
global exports of acai pulp to expanding markets in the
United States and Japan. Along with acai and a variety ofother fruits, small scale production of black pepper
continues to be part of local farming portfolio, planted byover 90% of cooperative members. The economic impactof the cooperative is particularly visible when placed
within a regional context. Piekielek (2010) reports that ina survey of CAMTA members in 2005 the average
income, generated mostly from farm production, wasapproximately US$36,226 although it ranged from
US$4,000 to US$150,000. Comparatively, income percapita in the municipality during the same period
averaged around US$1,500. The median farm size among
members has also increased significantly from previous
decades to around 200 hectares of land, although mostproperties are reportedly smaller. In addition to farm sizeand portfolios of agricultural activities, cattle ranchingalso started to play an increasing role. Yamada and Gholz(2002) and Batistela et al. (2012) reported that the average income of small farmers (property of 10-20ha)in Tome-Acu was comparable to median-size (4001,200ha) ranching operations in the region.
The agroforestry systems in Tome-Açu continued to
evolve along with changes in the Amazon as a whole, andbecame an example of landscape management based on
productive land use mosaics. Increasingly, CAMTA
farmers have developed systems including cattle ranching and hardwood, but without losing sight of the anchor
provided by production and export of fruit pulp and products, as well black pepper. Virtually all producers
associated with CAMTA (around 245 in 2010) work withagroforestry systems and principles of productive landscape mosaics, such as that of the satoyama in Japan.
Based on a series of field inventories (over 120 sampling units), Batistela et al. (2012) and Bolfe et al. (2009)

reported on the environmental dimensions of agroforestry systems in the region. For instance, from its
initial phase of development to intermediate to matureagroforestry systems, the number of families/species
increased from 8/9 (first two years) to 15/19 (2-12 years)
to 25/40 (over 12 years). A proportional increase wasobserved in terms of basal area, average canopy height,
and percentage of canopy cover. These agroecologicalcharacteristics are also reflected in the above groundbiomass and its carbon storage potential. Their studies
showed that above- ground biomass and carbon increased
from 6.13Mg C/ha to 22.6 Mg C/ha to 42 Mg C/ha to120.9 Mg C/ha, respectively, the latter comparable toadvanced secondary vegetation in the region. Furthermore, Bahia et al. (2010) reported that the use ofchemical products was lower in areas with agroforestry
systems, with 20% of producers reporting such uses.
In sum, the story of Tome-Açu agroforestry systems
has become relevant to the Brazilian Amazon as a whole,
both as an example of intensive biodiversity-richproduction landscape systems built upon regional andtropical species, and as an example of local value aggregation in a global economy. In fact, Tome-Açu agroforestry is perhaps the most used example of a sustainable
alternative to deforestation and agriculture developmentin Amazonia. In a region marked by an economic historyof extractivism, extensive land use practices, andcontinuing emphasis on the export of raw material, they
have shown an alternative pathway to a new regional
economy, one based on locally controlled transformative,
industries.

3. The Challenges of Economic and Social
Vitality in Rural Areas
Tome-Açu is not free from problems or failures, andwhile I highlight its history as inspiring, my intention is
not to romanticize it. In fact, their struggle to overcome
odds throughout their history, as they do now, is whatmakes their example broadly relevant today. They haveconfronted (and still do) opportunities and pitfalls ofglobal market connections and the pressures of socialchange within and around their community. They haveconfronted these challenges through a continuous process of re-crafting institutions, through experimentation
with diverse land use systems, and through a concern
with creating employment opportunities and engaging
the younger generations (Piekielek, 2010). Their efforts
illustrate the importance to rural communities of building
strategic partnerships, regionally, nationally and internationally, and maintaining a spirit of entrepreneurship andself-governance. Perhaps what is most relevant is that
Tome-Açu families understand the importance of adding
value to their products at the local level and inserting
their products in national and global value-added chainsable to create employment locally and increase the rate of
return on their products; they have sought to build commercialization networks in Brazil and abroad, so thattoday their products reach markets throughout the coun-

Perspectives from a Japanese Community in the Amazon

try and abroad.
It is interesting to consider the emphasis on land use
mosaics and agro-biodiversity that characterizes TomeAçu’s agroforestry systems today, not unlike the land use
mosaics associated with satoyama-satoumi landscapes inJapan. Their diverse production base, including various
forest, agricultural products and increasingly cattle
ranching, has been a fundamental strategy to get higher
payoffs. In a world experiencing an exponential increasein creation of protected areas, productive mosaic
landscapes such as in Tome-Açu and as in the satoyamasatoumi offer an alternative view of reconciling agriculture and conservation. These are issues to be carefully
considered by programs aiming at payment for ecosystem services (PES) such as REDD+ (programs to
reduce greenhouse gases emission through avoided
deforestation and degradation), which in some cases maylead to the replacement of active agricultural-forest production landscapes for idle subsidized rural economies.
Lin Ostrom called attention to the importance ofrecognizing social capital4) as distinctive from otherforms of capital, and the role of shared cognitive understanding that forms the basis of social capital in local
communities (Ostrom & Ahn, 2003; Brondizio et al.,2009). Three key characteristics of social capital areuseful to understanding the underlying process ofinstitutional crafting in Tome-Açu, as well as the challenge of maintaining social capital in rapidly diminishingsatoyama-satoumi communities in Japan5). First, social
capital improves with proper use and deteriorates rapidly
with disuse. Second, social capital is not easy to see andmeasure, and it is hard to construct through externalinterventions; and, third, social capital operates mosteffectively when it is organized in complementary forms
at multiple levels.
Social capital – as referring to the value of trust
generated by social networks to facilitate individual andgroup cooperation on shared interests and the organization of social institutions at different scales – involves
continuous investment and participation, increasing inimportance and value proportionally to the engagementof participants and their investment in maintaining reciprocity and trust (Ostrom & Ahn 2003; Brondizio et al.,2009). When facing problems and discussing solutions
together, community members develop mutual understanding, shared language, trust and commitment thateventually decrease the transaction cost in developing
collective action. Experience from one task, including
previous failures, facilitates the group to confront new
situations. Experience also leads a group to appreciate theparticularity of each situation and the importance ofadapting and changing institutions to confront new
situations. These issues are key concerns to satoyamasatoumi communities experiencing rapid population
decline, interruption of the transmission of knowledge,
and lack of investment in local institutions of resource
management. Unused social capital deteriorates rapidly
and is not easily replaceable by external intervention.
Here we see the importance of a two-way process149

between and among communities, civil society, andgovernment. The latter tends to be more effective in improving forms of physical capital such as infrastructure,public services or fiscal incentives, but it is mostly
ineffective in creating social capital at the community
level. It is encouraging in Japan to see the emergenceof urban groups and programs supporting satoyamasatoumi communities in rural and coastal areas(Duraiappah et al., 2012). Volunteer groups and school
programs helping to maintain irrigation infrastructure
and managing agricultural and forest areas illustrate theemergence of new forms of social capital. This is not
sufficient, however, to restore the overall social vitality
and viability of rural communities and economies, nor isthe sole influx of financial capital. Aging rural areas
throughout the world experience the conundrum of
economies of remittances. In the case of the satoyamasatoumi, local cultural memory carries inestimableknowledge of socioecological systems management,
agro/biodiversity, and skills and technology. The very
nature of socioecological landscapes in Japan is intrinsically linked to cultural knowledge held in rural communities and individuals linked through a variety ofsocial networks. The departure of young family members
to urban areas changes patterns of interaction and as aconsequence the myriad ways that cultural knowledge
and social capital are passed from one generation to thenext. The loss of satoyama-satoumi landscapes andcommunities, and its various consequences for (agro)biodiversity and ecosystem services, also represents
major changes in cultural identity in Japan.
It is important to remember that rural to urban migration in Japan is not happening in a cultural-historicalvacuum as the sole result of economic shifts and trade
policies during the last 50 years; not least, it has been partof a broader process of breaking rigid social hierarchies
and ascribed social roles across gender, age and classlines. While the exercise of individual expectations
represents an important reason behind urban living, itworks in tandem with the lack of social role valorization,access to infrastructure and amenities, economic vitality
and opportunities for entrepreneurship in rural areas.
These are areas where external intervention – be it fromgovernment, civil society or interest groups - can be
helpful in setting up incentives for entrepreneurship andconditions to facilitate new rural economies to become
attractive, without trying to generalize solutions todiverse regional situations.
The reality of satoyama-satoumi areas requires one tosee that social capital operates most effectively when it isorganized in complementary forms at multiple levels(Brondizio et al., 2009). Social capital present or absent
at one level may enhance or retard the effective development of social capital at other levels. This implies
two-way solutions that include multiple forms of private-public and private-private partnerships, such asnecessary to manage today’s complex and interwined
rural-urban landscapes (Ruseva & Fischer, 2012). Localorganizations are able to draw on horizontal linkages

150

E. S. BRONDIZIO

with other organizations to establish effective cooperation, and to pro-actively create vertical linkages, as
illustrated by Tome-Açu institutions. Effective interaction, however, requires coordinating mechanisms andinstitutions that facilitate cross-level interaction; theseare slower to emerge.
The challenge ahead of Japan in restoring the vitalityof satoyama-satoumi communities and landscapes is tobuild a shared notion of their sociocultural and ecologicalvalue today and for the future. This includes promotingsocial and economic incentives that drive the interest ofyoung generations in exercising their individual expectations, creativity and entrepreneurship in their own
communities, i.e., to guide an economy that recognizes
the value of ecosystem services and that promotes
value-added transformations of local resources and abetter position in local to global market chains.

4. Final Remarks
Arguebly, the relevance of rural communities andlandscapes has never been so vital to a society organizedin high densities, dependent on external provisioning offood (often from vulnerable global networks), facing
scarcity of water and resources; the great 2011 earthquake and tsunami of eastern Japan, and related disasters,
have reminded us of the vulnerability of urban areas todisasters and events. The story of the satoyama-satoumi
in Japan calls for a broader view of sustainability, onethat recognizes that we live in a world of functional
interdependencies (Young, 2006), where links between
urban and rural, local and global are an intrinsic anddynamic part of the system. Reconciling a new notion ofrural with today’s urban-based society is one of the main
challenges in crafting new visions of sustainability. What
are the roles of rural areas and managed landscapes insustaining provisioning, cultural, and regulating services
to regional urban networks? In what ways can rural areas
continue to provide attractive employment to regional
populations? What is the role of managed rurallandscapes in buffering and mitigating natural disasters
and climate change?
Like Tome-Açu, rural communities are not passive
and static. Throughout the world, households and communities have used a range of strategies to maintainsocial, cultural and economic vitality in rural areas amid
a constantly transforming world (Netting, 1993). They
have searched for strategies to cope with the needs ofproduction and subsistence, the lack of social services
and infrastructure, the pressure of competing externalmarkets, and the challenges of maintaining the interest ofyoung generations in agricultural and community life. Aspart of this process, the notion of rural is changing
drastically along complex fluxes of people, ideas andresources through networks of rural and urban areas,from local to global scales. We, as society, are at thecrossroads of global environmental change and sustainability. Lin Ostrom often called attention to the dangers
of simplistic solutions or deterministic views that disre-gard the importance of institutional diversity (Ostrom,
2005, 2007). She always reminded us that while institutional crafting is a bottom-up process, it is facilitated orconstrained by higher-level institutions and policies. The
stories of the satoyama-satoumi in Japan and that ofTome-Açu in the Brazilian Amazon motivate us toconsider alternative visions that value the vitality of rural
areas in an urban world.

Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitute to Rodrigo P.F.
Pedrosa, Brian Gilley, Maiko Nishi and Ryoko Morimoto
for their motivation and constructive comments on earlier
drafts of this essay.
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Notes
1)

This essay was written in her memory.
My account of Tome-Açu history is based on ethnographic
research I carried out in collaboration with colleagues during the
1990s and benefits from a series of publications about the region
including Yamada (1999), Batistela et al. (2012), Uhl and Subler(1988), CAMTA Relatos Historicos (1967), Piekielek (2010),
Tsunoda (1988), Yamada and Gholz (2002), and Homma (2004).
3)
Tome-Açu is closely linked to the neighboring municipality of
Quatro-Bocas; the two towns are almost an extension of eachother. Several farms and cooperative activities are located in
Quatro-Bocas.
4)
It is not the intent of this article to discuss the polysemic natureof the term social capital; see Brondizio, Ostrom and Young(2009) for definitions and consideration of different concepts ofsocial capital.
5)This section is partially based on Brondizio, Ostrom and Young(2009).

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Eduardo S. BRONDIZIO
Eduardo S. BRONDIZIO is a Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology,
where he has served as Department Chair from2005 to 2012, and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Sciences at the School of Public andEnvironmental Affairs, Indiana UniversityBloomington. At Indiana University, he is associated with the Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental
Change (ACT) and the Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy
Analysis. For over two decades, his work has focused on the Brazilian
Amazon, and involves studying (longitudinally) the formation andtransformation of rural families and communities as they interact withgovernment policies and development programs, regional and global
markets, and demographic and environmental change. He has written
extensively on environmental anthropology and human-environment
interaction, household and land-use change, Amazonian small farmers andglobal markets, rural development and peasantry identity, and geospatial
analysis and integrative multi-level methodologies. He is also involved
with several collaborative and comparative international research
programs examining human dimensions of global environmental change,sociocultural dimensions of ecosystem services, and efforts to develop
collaborative frameworks for socio-ecological systems research.

2)(Received 1 July 2012, Accepted 9 August 2012)