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

The basis thus exists within the existing social-ecological system for a continuing
reconciliation of subsistence needs and the maintenance of local biodiversity and
ecological processes (cf. Posey et al 1984; Moran 1993b; Hipwell 1998; Berkes
1999). However, the current social-ecological system also appears to be vulnerable,
in various ways, to degradation as a result of change. From within, isolated and small-
scale instances of resource degradation, and of local depletion of certain species,
show the system to be vulnerable to disruption by changes in technology,
subsistence practices, and belief system (cf. Appell 1997). From without, large-scale
changes in land use threaten to affect indigenous land tenure and the broad
ecological context within which it operates (chapters, 2.4, 2,6, 3.1, 3.3). This thesis
is largely concerned with the possible contributions of ethnoecology to the resolution
of the problems thus raised.
The ethnoecological and ecological data sets compared in this study (chapters 6
and 7) are compatible to a large degree (cf. Agrawal 1995), correspond closely in
detail (cf. Townsend 1995; Ponte Johansons 1995; Ferguson et al. 1998; Myrmin et
al. 1999; Huntington et al. 1999), and exhibit features that support the hypothesis
that they are complementary (DeWalt 1994; Kalland 1997). The ethnoecological data
set was limited in certain subject areas amenable to investigation by scientific
methods, and the latter can thus help to fill gaps in the former (Sillitoe 1998;
Donovan and Puri n.d.; Puri 2001). These limitations also caution that ethnoecology is
best employed as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, scientific methods.
The use of ethnoecology in generating baseline data that can form a starting point
for ecological investigation was demonstrated (Posey 1990: 54-55; Townsend
1995), as was the application of existing skills to the collection of ecological data (cf.
Marks 1994, 1996; Hill et al. 1997). The latter also highlights the fact that the type
of explicit knowledge of ecology that forms the core of the data upon which this
thesis is based is not an isolated phenomenon. Rather, it is one outcome of a body of
practices relating to use of the natural environment that is generated by, and thus
depends upon, a particular type of relationship between .a human society and its
natural environment.
The implications of the dependence of ethnoecology upon its social-ecological
context are two-fold. First, the preservation of ethnoecological knowledge systems
depends on the continued integrity of the societies in which it is found. Its
contributions to the resolution of regional, national and global problems can not be
realised if the rights of its bearers to maintain their cultural distinctiveness are not
upheld. Second, ethnoecology can be a tool for the equitable engagement of these