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

Figure 4.1. Map of Maruranau’s farming area
In practice it appears that permission to cut a farm along a particular road, when
sought, is rarely refused. However, this may be largely a result of the general
abundance of farming land in the village, as people report that the only circumstance
in which permission might be refused would be a shortage of available land. One
individual reported to me that he had encountered such a situation. For social
reasons, he would have preferred to farm along his father-in-law's road, but a
shortage of suitable sites there forced him to relocate to his father’s. Although I did
not witness this directly, I strongly suspect that he made the choice to move on his
3 Men are considered responsible for selecting the sites of their farms, though in practice