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

population dynamics are affected by human modification of the forest. Fruit trees
planted by humans provide food for many species of forest animal, and some of these
are able to propagate and effect dispersal without human assistance and can be
considered to have become naturalised. On the other hand, populations of some non-
domesticated trees are subject both to accidental dispersal and to more conscious
manipulation of their populations. (chapter 6.4)
The human relationship with predators of livestock may also be considered to
include some acts of conscious management (see chapter 4.6). It is an ecological
intervention conducted with a precise goal in mind: the reduction of predation
pressure on domestic animals, which it appears to achieve successfully. The killing of
large felids not specifically known to be consuming livestock, as a consequence of
their perceived status as competitors, is a more ambiguous case. Certainly it is an
intervention intended to have specific ecological consequences: reducing predation
pressure on game species valued by humans and thus increasing their availability to
hunters. However, in the absence of more information on the ecological effects, it
may be premature to draw any conclusion as to its efficacy, as there is no evidence
to show that this intended consequence actually results.
The results of this study suggest the existence of a system of management
neither explicitly recognised as such, nor expressed as a criterion affecting individual
decision-making about subsistence. Rather, it appears to be emergent at the group
level as a result of interactions among accepted techniques in subsistence,
particularly agriculture (chapter 4.2.6) and hunting (chapter 4.3.1), land tenure
(chapters 4.2.1 and 4.3.2), and symbolically encoded restrictions on the exploitation
of natural resources (chapters 5.3 and 5.5). However, the existence of such a system
can only be suggested, and not proven, on the basis of the evidence collected in this
study. Its existence can not at this point be assumed, particularly given that the
position exists that conscious intent on the part of individual actors is a necessary
feature of management. Although I believe the latter position to be logically flawed, I
can not refute it on the basis of supposition alone. More detailed study of the
relationship between ideology and practice with respect to subsistence techniques,
land tenure, and symbolic factors, and of the ecological outcomes of actual practises,
is required in order to resolve this question satisfactorily.