The basin of the Rio Branco River, as part of the western region of the Guiana Shield, is not only a region of great ethnic and cultural diversity but also was a stage for colonial disputes between Spain, Portugal, England and the Netherlands. This condition led to the production of a considerable volume of accounts by travelers, naturalists, geographers, ethnographers and cartographers who described the landscapes and the interactions between species over time, thus reflecting changes in attitudes and perceptions about nature and how humans influence the natural environment. The challenge here is how to operate a decentering and produce a polyphonic and less anthropocentric history of these interactions and their transformations. While many accounts emphasize potential economic exploitation, viewing the environment as a storehouse of "natural resources," others pose as "altruistic" observers who generated cultural and natural taxonomies. It is possible to glimpse the exchanges between species and interpret processes that at least partially eluded the eyes of these Eurocentric observers.