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

Wapishana resident in indigenous settlements in Roraima numbers around 6,000
(Forte and Pierre 1994: 11-12). There has also been substantial emigration from the
traditional homelands. Many Wapishana from both sides of the border are resident in
Boa Vista, state capital of Roraima, and Guyanese Wapishana appear to be resident
throughout the country and beyond. Elsewhere in Region 9, many Wapishana people
are resident in Lethem, in Apoteri, the village located at the site of the former balata
depot at the confluence of the Rupununi and Essequibo rivers, and an ethnobotanical
study of the small settlement of Kurukupari on the Essequibo reported a Wapishana
presence there (Johnston and Colquhoun 1996: 183). I also met a Wapishana woman
who has married into and settled in Orealla village on the Correntyne River. In the
present study, many people reported relatives to be working in the mining areas of
western Guyana (see also ARU 1992: 29), or resident in Georgetown and other
coastal towns, and some also told of relatives who have emigrated to Venezuela,
Canada and the United States.
Figure 3.2. Population structure in South Rupununi villages in 1998
Within the South Rupununi, the majority of people are resident in twelve major
nucleated settlements (see figure 3.3), whose locations are determined by access to
forests for farming, and to a lesser extent hunting, and to year-round water sources.
All but one of these are numerically dominated by Wapishana people. The exception is
Shulinab (often referred to locally as Makushi village), whose residents are mostly