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

Wapishana communities in which he worked (Singh 2000). In my own research
situation, one of my host villages responded to their fears of biopiracy by requesting
that I promise not to pass on any information given to me about medicinal uses of
plants. A written agreement was subsequently made to the effect that I remove all
references to such information from my fieldnotes prior to allowing them to be read
by any third party. This contradicts somewhat one of the regulations concerning the
obligations of foreigners conducting research in Guyana: that a full copy of fieldnotes
is deposited with the EPA prior to departure from the country. Thus the ironic
situation arose that I was unable to discharge, in full, an obligation to the Guyanese
authorities imposed largely as a result of legitimate concerns relating to international
biopiracy, because of local-level concerns about the prospect of biopiracy within the
country. This provides some indication the complexity of the issues faced in relation
to the commercialisation of indigenous knowledge. Clearly a great deal of work lies
ahead for both national authorities and indigenous representatives, as they work
together to devise protocols relating to possible commercial applications that are
equitable and satisfactory to all concerned. Until this is achieved the economic, and
ideally conservation, potential of this intellectual resource is unlikely to be realised.
Another non-timber forest product whose commercial potential is not currently
being realised is the Brazil nut, fruit of the forest tree Bertholletia excelsa. Large-
scale extractive industries based upon this product are already established in Brazil
and Bolivia. The annual commercial production from these countries is estimated to
average around 50,000 tonnes. Around 200,000 people are thought to be involved in
the commercial harvest, which involves the collection of fruits from approximately 2-
3 million trees in an area of 2-3 million hectares (Clay 1997: 246-252). A large-scale
conservation programme based in Peru seeks to develop further the value of the
Brazil nut harvest as a tool for the protection of vast areas of forest spanning an area
shared by Peru, Bolivia and Brazil (Ortiz et al. 1998). The botanical potential, at least,
for such an operation also appears to exist in southern Guyana.
Many Wapishana people reported to me the existence of vast stands of Brazil nut
trees deep in the forests of the basins of the Rewa, Kwitaro, Essequibo, Kujuwini and
Kassikaityu rivers 1 , but these are currently exploited only for subsistence purposes.
1 The existence of these stands could be important in the context of the Wapishana land
claim mentioned in chapter 3.3.1. Balée (1989: 9) considers stands of Brazil nut trees,
Bertholletia excelsa, to be unambiguous indicators of prior human modification of forests.
The stands in question therefore exist as a result of the activities of people presumably
ancestral to the present-day Wapishana (see chapter 3.2.1), and provide evidence in