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

letter, making a detailed and specific claim to an area of savannah and forest of which
it was requested the villages be given joint ownership (Amerindian Lands Commission
1969: 213). The commission rejected the claim as excessive, and beyond the
management capabilities of the communities, and recommended the designation of
discrete, but contiguous, reservations over a far smaller area. (Amerindian Lands
Commission 1969: 71-93).
The land actually awarded covered most of this recommendation, but excluded
the area of land between the reservations of Aishalton and Awarewaunau. The
present-day leaders of these villages have decided to continue to assert their claim to
the entire area originally requested, and over the course of this study this translated
into action. Following the example of the Upper Mazaruni communities, they
requested the assistance of the APA in securing funding and technical assistance for
the undertaking of a land-use mapping project over the area in question. I have since
heard from the region that this has been achieved and the mapping project is
underway. The Lands Commission also received, and also rejected, a less precisely
defined claim for joint ownership of lands from the villages of Sand Creek, Shulinab
and Potarinau (Amerindian Lands Commission 1969). I have been told that these
communities, along with the other villages of the South-Central District, including the
untitled villages of Rupunau, Parikwarawaunau, Katoonarib and Shiriri, have since
joined forces to pursue a joint land claim. The claim has apparently been submitted to
the government but has not so far progressed any further.
3.3.2 Local attitudes to conservation
The various data collected on local attitudes to conservation reflected a diverse
range of local opinion, both within and between villages. With a small number of
exceptions, formal and informal village leaders considered conservation of biological
resources to be of great importance. This was mainly expressed in utilitarian terms,
emphasising the need to ensure continued supplies of natural resources upon which
people depend for subsistence. Many people also emphasised the importance of
cultural conservation in these terms, clearly demonstrating that they considered this
subject to be inseparable from that of biological conservation. The concept of
independence was often mentioned, both in terms of an ideology emphasising self-
sufficiency and as a practical necessity. For example, some people pointed out the
value of local knowledge of medicinal plants, given the limited nature of formal health
care facilities available in most parts of the region. More abstract considerations were
also mentioned by some, including the importance of conservation for maintaining the