Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

species of subsistence importance. The other was to conduct interviews with several
different people on a focal group of species. This focal group consisted of those
species that exemplified the criteria listed above, and comprised the majority of the
most important game animals, along with all but the smallest members of the primate
order. Reasonable quantities of ecological information collected in scientific studies
have been published for many of these species. In the case of primates, one study
presents ecological data collected in Suriname for all eight species found at the site
of the present study (Mittermeier and Roosmalen 1981). For commonly hunted
animals, some - particularly the ungulate species - have been fairly well-studied, but
generally in locations at vast distances from Southern Guyana, and in very different
habitats (see references in chapter seven for details).
Most interviews conformed to a standard format. Each would begin with either of
the questions: "What do you know about.....(species x)", or "What can you tell me
about....(species x)". In some cases when the subject of the interview was chosen by
the interviewee, this first question was anticipated by the interviewee and therefore
omitted. In any case, the interviewee would be allowed to talk uninterrupted for as
long as desired; I would intervene at this stage only on rare occasions when I
determined the interviewee to have deviated excessively from the topic in hand. This
was an exceptional occurrence, as in some cases such deviation proved to be a
source of useful information which might not have emerged in the course of a more
structured interview.
Following the first stage, I would ask the interviewee to expand upon or clarify
certain points raised in the initial response. A series of specific questions would then
be asked on a set of subjects which I considered to comprise a basic overview of the
ecology of any animal species. Essentially, the questions corresponded to those that I
would hope to address were I engaged in a conventional programme of research on
the synecology of the animal in question. Subject areas covered were diet ("What
does it eat?, "Does it experience food shortage at any time and if so what does it eat
then?", or "What is its most important food?"), dispersal behaviour of frugivores
("Does it plant or spread any seeds", or "What happens to the seeds it eats?"), social
behaviour ("How many move together?"), predation and competition ("Does anything
eat it?" and "Does it have any enemies?"), reproduction ("when does it give birth?",
"How often can it give birth?" and "How many young does it give birth to at once?"),
classification (Does it have any partners?", and given a positive response to the
previous question, "Why do you say these are partners?"), and human use ("Do