Abstract
Siona-Secoya hunters of the northwest Amazon strive to maximize short-term yields to provision their households with meat. The observed patterns of hunting more closely resemble the predictions of optimal foraging theory (OFT) than they do a conservation ethic. In the past the Siona-Secoya worried little about conservation because they believed that good shamans attracted abundant game. When hunting was poor, shamans performedyagé ceremonies and appealed to supernatural gamekeepers for the release of more animals from the underworld. The sustainability of Siona-Secoya hunting was aided by factors such as low human population density, dispersed settlements within large hunting territories, settlement movement, and limited hunting technology. Today, increasing involvement in the national economy is leading the Siona-Secoya to invest more time in agriculture and wage labor, and less in traditional foraging activities. Colonization, deforestation, and industrial pollution now pose the greatest threats to wildlife in eastern Ecuador. Because of these changes, the Siona-Secoya are becoming interested in environmental protection and conservation. Several of their efforts to protect forest resources and mitigate pollution are discussed and evaluated.
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My research among the Siona-Secoya has been supported by the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Florida International University Foundation, Inc., Cultural Survival, Inc., and the Latin American and Caribbean Center and College of Arts and Sciences of Florida International University. Host-country affiliations were provided by theInstituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and theInstituto Nacional de Colonización de la Región Amazónica Ecuatoriana. Analysis of the data during a sabbatical was supported by the School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico and a Resident Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am indebted to all of the Siona and Secoya people who cooperated in the study, and especially E. Piaguaje, E. Lusitande, and J. Lusitande, who were research assistants.
William T. Vickers is a professor of anthropology at Florida International University. He has conducted ethnological fieldwork in Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico, focusing primarily on the human and social ecology of native communities. He has published many articles and monographs on this research and has also served as a consultant to the government of Ecuador on the demarcation and legalization of communal lands for indigenous people. He recently received a Fulbright Scholar award for research on Siona-Secoya ethnohistory.
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Vickers, W.T. From opportunism to nascent conservation. Human Nature 5, 307–337 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734164
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734164