Anders Sirén

The Relation Between Income and Hunting in Tropical Forests: an Economic Experiment in the Field

Hunting in tropical forests is both a major cause of biodiversity loss and an important food source for millions of people. A question with important policy implications is how changes in income level affect how much people hunt. This study, which was carried out in an indigenous community in the Amazon, explored the relation between income and consumption of wild meat using an economic experiment in the form of a lottery, and involved the local people, not only as experimental subjects, but also in the interpretation of results. The results suggested that an increase in steady employment, rather than in income alone, may lead to the substitution of non-hunted foods for wild meat. The kind of social learning that participation in this type of economic experiment implies may potentially affect the way people manage resources in real life.

Mapping environmental variation in lowland Amazonian rainforests using remote sensing and floristic data

This article describes a method for detailed mapping of ecological variation in a tropical rainforest based on field inventory of pteridophytes (ferns and lycophytes) and remote sensing using Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) imagery. Previously known soil cation optima of the pteridophyte species were first used in calibration, i.e. to infer soil cation concentrations for sites on the basis of their pteridophyte species composition. Multiple linear regression based on spectral reflectance values in the Landsat image was then used to derive an equation that allowed the prediction of these calibrated soil values for unvisited sites in the study area. The predictive accuracy turned out to be high: the mean absolute error, as estimated by leave-one-out cross-validation, was just 7% of the total range of calibrated soil values. This method for detailed mapping of natural environmental variability in lowland tropical rainforest has applications for land-use planning, such as wildlife management, forestry, biodiversity conservation, and payments for carbon sequestration.

History of natural resource use and environmental impacts in an interfluvial upland forest area in western Amazonia

Much of the research done on environmental impacts by Amazonian indigenous peoples in the past focus on certain areas where archaeological remains are particularly abundant, such as the Amazon River estuary, the seasonally inundated floodplain of the lower Amazon, and various sites in the forest-savannah mosaic of the southern Amazon The environmental history of interfluvial upland areas has received less attention. This study reconstructed the history of human use of natural resources in an upland area of 1400 km2 surrounding the indigenous Kichwa community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon, based on oral history elicited from local elders as well as historical source documents and some modern scientific studies. Although data is scarce, one can conclude that the impacts of humans on the environment have varied in time and space in quite intricate ways. Hunting has affected, and continues affecting, basically the whole study area, but it is now more concentrated in space than what it has probably ever been before. Also forest clearing has become more concentrated in space but, in addition, it has gone from affecting only hilltops forests to affecting alluvial plains as well as hilltops and, lately, also the slopes of the hills.

Experiences from harvest-driven conservation: Management of Amazonian river turtles as a common-pool resource

Understanding what causes variability in the outcomes of common-pool resources management and governance has important policy implications for biodiversity conservation, in particular for the conservation of wild plants and animals subject to harvest. We report an exploratory study focusing on Amazonian river turtles as a common-pool resource under harvest-driven conservation and management efforts in Peru. Based on document analysis, literature review and a series of interviews, we describe the management program as a social process and identify the most important governance and management outcomes achieved (increased turtle abundance and benefits for harvesters, harvester formalization), factors hindering and facilitating the program implementation (four natural and three societal factors), and key governance actions behind the program outcomes (awareness and capacity building, crafting and enforcing rules). We then highlight the existing knowledge gaps and the needs and possible means to address particular risks related to turtle management on a harvest-driven setting.

Palm Leaves, Sustainability, and Dignity

Palm leaves are commonly collected for roof thatch in Amazonia. In the Bobonaza River valley in Ecuadorian Amazonia, the leaves of the wayuri palm ( Pholidostachys synanthera ) are of particular importance. Compared with alternative roofing materials, such as tin plates, thatch is preferred by many because of its local availability and its welcome cooling effect on house interiors. Increasing demand, however, has led to depleted palm populations and increasing distances to areas of extraction. Although locally designed management rules are in force, these are not fully effective, because they only regulate the intensity of harvesting events, but not the intervals at which leaf harvest may take place. Therefore, the cumulative effects of repeated harvest seem to be detrimental to the long-term viability of palm populations. Harvest rules and clarified property rights related to palm leaf resources have also been implemented in Peruvian Amazonia, where irapay palm ( Lepidocaryum tenue ) leaves are massively collected to supply urban areas for roofing.

Changing and partially successful local institutions for harvest of thatch palm leaves

AbstractIn some cases, users of common-pool resources (CPR) successfully govern and manage these for collective benefit but in other cases they fail to do so. When evaluating the success of local institutions for CPR management, however, researchers have not always clearly distinguished between success in terms of compliance and endurance, and success in terms of the socio-economic and environmental outcomes of the management. This study focused on the governance and management of wayuri palms (Pholidostachys synanthera robusta), whose leaves are harvested for roof thatch, in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Combining ethnographic methods with field botanic inventory, it was shown that although local institutions regulating leaf harvest had existed for longer than living memory, and the degree of compliance was high, they did not prevent exhaustion of the resource base, only delayed it.

Assessing sustainability is just one component of many in the quest to achieve sustainability

ASSESSING SUSTAINABILITY IS JUST ONE COMPONENT OF MANY IN THE QUEST TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABILITY Classical approaches to assessing the sustainability of bushmeat hunting in tropical forests have serious limitations, according to van Vliet et al. (2015); they therefore suggest that “resilience approaches” are needed in order to incorporate complexity in such sustainability assessments. As examples of such approaches they list companion models, fuzzy-logic cognitive mapping, and multi-agent-based models. The authors, however, fail to distinguish between assessing sustainability and the much broader quest of achieving sustainability. According to the authors, companion modeling and fuzzy-logic cognitive mapping are, respectively, methods for supporting collective decision-making and for collaboratively building conceptual models. These methods may well have a potential to contribute to achieving sustainability, but assessing sustainability is something else.

A Conceptual Primer to Wild Species Harvest

We define wild species harvest as the extraction of wild organisms or parts thereof from the ecosystem, with the main motivation for this being the perceived value of the extracted matter. When discussing wild species harvest it is important to understand the meaning of the concepts biodiversity, ecosystem services, and sustainability. Biodiversity is a term sometimes used colloquially and not in a very precisely defined sense, but there is also a mathematical definition of species diversity, which takes into account the number of species as well as how evenly abundant the species are in a particular area. The term ecosystem services refers to everything ecosystems do that somehow is valued from the perspective of humans, be it e.g. primary production, climate regulation, provision of natural resources, or others. Sustainability, finally, refers to the potential of an ecosystem to support the extraction of some of its components, or any other human activity, over prolonged periods of time.

Chapter 5 – Fishing in and Fishing out the Amazon

Fish are a very important part of the diets of people in rural and urban Amazonia Fisheries are therefore essential for Amazonian economies on both subsistence and commercial levels. They contribute to employment and support important commodity chains, including fishing, transport, trade, and processing. Most of the commercially important fish species are migratory and the seasonal flooding of lowland Amazonia is very important for the migrations and life cycle of many fish species and affect fishing practices. Commercial and subsistence fishing is important in the region of Loreto in Peruvian Amazonia, where all fishing is based on simple catch and storing technologies, including the use of gill and seine nets as well as the use of ice for storing fish. The abundance of many of the most wanted large-bodied fish species has decreased. The migratory nature of the most important Amazonian fisheries, the lack of enforcement of rules and the deficient coordination among the different actors distributed over the vast distances of waterways complicates the quest for sustainable fishing in the region.

Determinants of Wild Fish Consumption in Indigenous Communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Abstract This paper analyzes the socioeconomic determinants of consumption of wild fish among the Kichwa and Shuar indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The results of a random-effect linear model show that the consumption of wild fish is higher for households with younger heads that do not have off-farm work and reside far from urban centers, in communities with low population densities. Although various actors promoting aquaculture in the region often claim that it helps to relieve the pressure on wild fish stocks, no statistically significant effect of the consumption of cultivated fish on the consumption of wild fish could be shown. Thus, our analysis suggests that public policies and development interventions which increase access to off-farm employment can both improve local livelihoods and conserve biodiversity, but that the same affirmation cannot be made for the promotion of aquaculture.