Summary Agricultural practices provide information revealing the relationship between a human group and the forest. This study describes and analyses the agricultural pathway considering that the actions materialise the main socio-cultural characteristics of the waorani of the Ecuadorian Amazon: freedom of action and personal autonomy. The participating observation and identification of the plants grown in two waorani villages during 15 months of research allowed the socio-cultural and ecological aspects of the Roza-tumba-pudre system to be identified. The practice of this agricultural system is not common in other parts of the world, being relatively unknown and underestimated due to its productivity. This article presents a case of study of the roza-tumba-pudre system registered in cultural cosmovision, farming practices and representations that are maintained despite contact with other types of agriculture. Waorani continue to carry out these agricultural practices because they are in line with their own conception of the dynamics of natural resource transformation.