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

consultation on all matters affecting land use locally. Conservation is a key local
interest, provided that it is directed to the maintenance and improvement of local
lifestyles and ensures that control over decision making is in indigenous hands.
Chapter four explored the basis for this utilitarian interest in conservation, and
documented local use of natural resources for subsistence purposes. It showed that
Wapishana people employ a variety of subsistence strategies based around
agriculture, and also include some or all of the following: hunting, fishing, rearing
domestic livestock, keeping house gardens and cultivating fruit trees on the
savannah, and gathering wild products of both plant and animal origin. Direct
dependence on a wide range of local biodiversity and on a variety of ecological
processes in the forest ecosystem were demonstrated. There is evidence of local
depletion of some wild species in areas subject to the heaviest human usage. More
generally, however, exploitation of the forest appears to have remained within the
limits of ecosystem tolerance. The observed nature of the subsistence system
suggested that it could promote local biodiversity through the promotion of gap and
edge habitats. The consequences of this for human use were further explored in in
chapter 6.4, which combined ethnoecological data on the successional process in old
farms with data on the use of favoured species.
Chapter five considered the regulation of resource use, and described
endogenous components of a syncretic belief system incorporating elements of both
traditional and Christian belief systems. Despite the universal adoption of Christianity,
many elements of traditional Wapishana cosmology appear to have been retained.
Specific aspects of this belief system were examined for their potential conservation
functions, but in the absence of data on the ecological consequences of these beliefs
it was possible only to speculate as to whether such functions do indeed exist.
Chapter six was the first of three on ethnoecology. It reported the methods
employed and results obtained in a programme of research on ethnoecological
knowledge about twelve locally occurring species of mammals, for each of which
multiple informants were interviewed. The data set thus generated was rich and
detailed, but exhibited certain limitations. In some subject areas little or no
information of biological value was obtained. In some cases, information given was
either contradictory across informants or reported at a very low frequency. Critically,
analytical methods that could distinguish reliable and unreliable answers in these
situations were not available. The utility of ethnoecology as a method for generating
ecological data sets was confirmed, but the need to resolve this outstanding