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

freedom and independence of local people, and the amenity value of nature. One
toushao, for instance, told me how he lamented the decline in songbirds around his
village, and that he was now trying to regulate their trapping for sale to outsiders,
which he considered to be the cause.
Some people also raised the issues of conflicts between conservation goals and
human needs. Predation upon livestock by big cats, especially jaguar and puma, and
the possible danger these animals present to people, were the most commonly raised
of these. Several tales of life-threatening encounters between people and big cats
appear to be in circulation among the villages, and in one village it was reported that
a puma had on one occasion attacked and killed a child travelling to school. Farm
predation by white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) was an issue of concern for
some people, especially in Sand Creek, where hunting of this species appears to be of
somewhat less importance than elsewhere.
Negative attitudes to conservation were also expressed by some people
concerned that it could amount to restrictions on their activities imposed from
outside. Clearly this is a somewhat different definition of conservation to that
employed by those whose opinions are cited above. In conversation with people who
expressed this opinion, I found they generally agreed with the type of utilitarian
perspective described above, although not everyone considered that existing
subsistence practices could cause damage to or depletion of natural resources. The
notion of outsiders intervening to impose limits, geographical or otherwise, upon local
subsistence activities was one which was, in my experience, universally rejected by
people in the South Rupununi. However, many people also opined that the provision
of technical assistance by outsiders with expertise related to conservation, in order to
assist local decision-making in this respect, could be valuable and welcome.
The local reaction to the dispute concerning Kaiteur National Park is instructive in
this respect. News of this, circulated by national indigenous organisations, reached
Maruranau at a time when I was away from the village for an extended period
between my two main fieldwork sessions in Guyana. The situation in Chenepau was
obviously one for which there was much local sympathy, and some people started to
raise concerns that I would advocate or otherwise somehow try to introduce a similar
measure there. On my return to the village, I was obliged to address this issue at one
of the regular public meetings organised by the council. The outcome was ultimately
favourable, as it provided me with a useful opportunity to contrast former approaches
to top-down conservation to the community-led approach based in human resource
use with which my work is broadly concerned.