The Tejo River Basin is located in the Micro-Region of Alto Juruá, Cruzeiro do Sul county, Acre State, approximately 9 of South latitude and 72 of West longitude, with an area of approximately 4,200 Km2. The area is geographically very different and isolated due to its proximity to the Peru border, the seasonally which makes it hard to access the area and its location in the hydrologic network between the right side of the Juruá and the Jordão River Basin.
The Tejo River Basin has a dense tropical rainforest coverture which keeps the soil humid and under the shade constantly. Nevertheless, its pedogenic processes are very particular in consideration to the rest of the Amazon region, because in the other areas you find eutrophic Cambisoils and eutrophic Podzolic, besides red Brunizen spots and even Vertisoils, which potentially can offer an elevated exchange of cations for the rainforest (BRASIL 1976;BRASIL 1977).
The relief has many hills and the reduced space occupied by rivers and streams, resulted in the installation of a hydrological network with a dense dendrite pattern and with the recycling of elements in the forest contributing to keep a high fertility in the regional area.
The ecological rhythms are marked by the rain, which are reduced in the winter but have an annual around 2,200 mm. The mean temperatures also are reduced between June and August and the annual mean which are relatively reduced in terms of Amazon, are around 25° C during the year.
Following the tendency observed in the rest of the Acre State (FUNTAC 1990), the vegetal coverture of the Tejo River Basin is still well preserved, despite the great number of trails and rubber-tapper "colocações" inside the forest. On the other hand, the wildlife is in a delicate situation because of the constant pressure of poaching activities by rubber-tappers, which have the wildlife as its main protein source and probably has eliminated some native species from the area. The animal resources, besides the availability of rubber trees and water resources, is one of the main limiting factors on the settlement of "colocações".
The occupation process of the area has been very intense in the end of the last century, during the golden days of the rubber cycle, by migration movements from the northeastern region of Brazil. In 1989, the estimated population was 4,000 inhabitants, living specially along rivers, and having the animal and vegetal extractives as its main living activity.
New ways of social organization have appeared, such as the case of the Rubber Tapper's Association in the Tejo River Basin, to reduce the role of the intermediate in the latex commercialization, but despite this, local inhabitants still face a variety of problems, such as lack of resources on the areas of education, basic sanitation, health and rural extension, depending greatly on commercial centers such as Cruzeiro do Sul.
