Scientific-technological knowledge maintains the anthropocentric power-pattern and exploitive attitude with regard to nature, but sustainability science asks for an integration of territorial and decontextualized knowledge systems. Visual participatory methodologies involving diverse local stakeholder facilitate dialogue on environmental and sustainability issues. Inspired by visual ethnography and mediated discourse analysis, the present article uses semiological analysis to reconstruct the depicted narratives on the nature-society system in drawings representing “regional development”. The drawings were elaborated in a series of participatory workshops involving university faculty and students, regional government and non-governmental organizations and farmers from local communities in the northern Amazonian region of Peru. The analysis reveals a prevailing anthropo and technology ...