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

CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION
10.1 Summary of thesis
The research on which this thesis is based was concerned with the potential
contribution of ethnoecology to development and conservation. As the review of the
literature in the first chapter showed, this is a subject which has been given much
attention in recent years, thanks to its well-established importance in providing for
the collaboration and empowerment of local people in development, and helping to
ensure that initiatives are appropriate to local lifestyles, competencies and
aspirations. However, there is a great need for field data on ethnoecology and all
aspects of local knowledge in order to evaluate objectively its strengths and
limitations, and thus work towards its practical application in development. This thesis
contributes to providing such data. In it, particular attention is given to the nature of
the interaction between ethnoecology and scientific biology: ethnoecology is to be
evaluated in the light of a possible complimentary relationship between the two,
which could allow for their integration in practice.
In chapter two, it was argued that development initiatives in Guyana, as
promoted by government, industry, international financial institutions and NGO’s, had
failed to recognise sufficiently the potential contribution of indigenous knowledge to
the immense problem of reconciling short- and long- term economic needs with the
upholding of the rights of Amerindian populations to maintain their lifestyles,
economic independence, and tribal identity, and the related need for maintaining
biodiversity and ecological functions at national and regional levels. The past, present,
and potential future contributions of indigenous knowledge and skills to the national
economy were noted. I also noted that much talk promoting attention to indigenous
knowledge in development in Guyana, as elsewhere, is rhetorical, and that there is a
shortage of empirical data that could be used to evaluate competing arguments and
provide a guide for concrete action.
Chapter three continued this theme at the local level: that of the Rupununi
region, where the Guyanese population of Wapishana people reside and where this
study was located. In this region, not unusually in Guyana, actual and potential
threats to indigenous security and land tenure exist in the form of diverse outside
interests in its natural resources. Mineral exploration and extraction and large-scale,
outsider-led conservation projects are chief among these, while industrial logging
remains a future possibility. Wapishana people, like Amerindian groups in Guyana as a
whole, are asserting their interests via claims for land extension and an insistence on