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

the most interesting questions. Did these people act as ecological mediators,
prescribing patterns of activity that formed adaptive responses to changing
ecological circumstances? And if so, what were the mechanisms by which ecological
change was perceived and decisions made as to how to act upon it? Accounts given
by informants in the present study alluded to the use of non-ordinary states of
consciousness to engage with the spiritual entities responsible for regulating human
ecological relations, though unfortunately it appears that thorough documentation of
these practices among the Wapishana may no longer be possible.
Intriguing as these ideas are, the possibility of determining whether and how the
activities of shamans related to ecological reality appears no longer to exist. The
question of whether Wapishana resource use can be considered to represent a
system of management must therefore be considered in more mundane terms. The
element of conscious individual choice appears to be slight, although it is worth
pointing out that a shaman’s skills are not entirely esoteric, and knowledge of certain
techniques appears to be shared by numerous individuals. Many people are able to
self-regulate their relationships with nature spirits via their own knowledge of
‘blowing’ (chapter 5.2), and regulation of subsistence activities by these methods
appears to include some element of individual choice. However, I found no case in
which people demonstrated any explicit awareness of ecological functions associated
with such activities. If they do encode conservation strategies, these are based on
cultural knowledge encoded implicitly in accepted rules of behaviour, rather than
individual awareness and manipulation of the emergent properties of the subsistence
system.
Some evidence of conscious management was observed in the cases reported
relating to usage of iguana and tortoise (chapter 4.5.1). This was clearly self-
conscious and calculated, based upon the application of ethnoecological knowledge,
and may be regarded as a form of incipient domestication of these species.
Ethnoecological data indicates that large numbers of wild species make use of
human-modified habitats (chapter 6.4). Populations of agoutis (Dasyprocta agouti,
Agouti paca, and Myoprocta acouchy) within the farming area may also be considered
to blur the boundary between wild and domesticated, though in this case no
conscious intent appears to be involved. The dependence on anthropogenic
environments—crops, old farms, and domesticated trees— of all three species found
locally is exceedingly high, according to informants (chapters 6.3.5, 6.3.6). It would
be interesting to make a formal comparative study of their ecology within and outside
the farm area to determine the extent to which distribution, diet, behaviour and