Helen S. Newing

Bushmeat hunting and management: implications of duiker ecology and interspecific competition

Duikers Cephalophus spp. are an important source of food and income throughout the forest regions of Central and West Africa, and current levels of hunting are probably unsustainable, at least near large settlements. The direct effects of hunting consist of two main aspects: overexploitation of target species, and incidental hunting of non-targeted or rare species because hunting is largely non-selective. There are many methodological and practical problems to a technical approach to overexploitation, and there are increasing calls for alternative measures such as zoning and enforcement of exclusive local resource rights. There is also increasing recognition of the need to ensure that hunting is more selective. This paper reviews current knowledge of duiker ecology and niche separation in order to assess likely indirect effects of these measures on different species. The main factor separating fundamental niches of sympatric species is body size, which limits dietary choice. Additional descriptive factors include anatomical features – particularly the jaw musculature and size of mouth and neck; activity patterns and habitat preferences within closed canopy forest. However, there is wide overlap of diets and broad tolerance of habitat disturbance by most species, and therefore niche overlap and interspecific competition may be high. In the Upper Guinean forest in West Africa, but not in Central Africa, differential use of closed canopy forest and secondary vegetation also appears to be an important factor in niche separation; three pairs of species seem to be separated primarily by this factor. Distributional variations in habitat use suggest that at least in the case of the yellow-backed duiker and the endangered Jentinks duiker, the separation is due to competition rather than to fundamental niche constraints. Selective hunting or zoning will thus have indirect effects on non-targeted species through changes in competitive dominance in different habitats.

Interdisciplinary training in environmental conservation: definitions, progress and future directions

The development of interdisciplinary approaches to environmental conservation is obviously related to interdisciplinary training in undergraduate and postgraduate conservation-oriented degree programmes. This paper therefore examines interdisciplinary training in environmental conservation, with a focus on conservation biology. The specific objectives are: (1) to analyse debates about the nature of ‘interdisciplinarity’ in conservation biology; (2) to examine the status of interdisciplinary training in current academic programmes in conservation biology; and (3) to make recommendations in terms of interdisciplinary or other non-natural science content that should be prioritized for inclusion in the curriculum. The term ‘interdisciplinarity’ has been used in relation to conservation training to refer to (1) any social science content; (2) vocational skills training; (3) integrative or practice-based exercises, sometimes with no indication of disciplinary content; (4) the (variously defined) ‘human dimensions’ of conservation, and (5) interaction between different academic disciplines (usually crossing the natural science–social science divide). In terms of training, the natural sciences have remained predominant in almost all reported academic programmes, but there now appears to be more coverage of non-natural science issues than previously. However the lack of consistency in the use of terms makes it difficult to assess progress. Further debate about curriculum development in conservation would be aided greatly by recognizing the distinction between the different aspects of non-natural science training, and treating each of them in its own right. Most degree programmes in environment-related disciplines specialize to varying degrees either in the natural sciences or the social sciences, and a comprehensive programme covering both of these in depth is likely to be problematic. However, some understanding of different disciplinary ?Correspondence: Dr Helen Newing Tel: + 44 1227 827034 Fax: + 44 1227 827289 e-mail: H.S.Newing@kent.ac.uk perspectives is increasingly important in a career in environmental conservation, and it is argued that, as a minimum, a primarily natural sciencebased undergraduate programme in environmental conservation should include: (1) an introduction to social science perspectives on the environment; (2) basic training in social science methods, research design and science theory; (3) vocational skills training, to the extent that it can be built into existing curricular components; and (4) integrative problem-solving tasks that can be used in relation to any or all of the above. A similar list could be constructed for social science-based environmental degree programmes, incorporating somebasic training in natural science perspectives. Postgraduate training programmes are more varied in what they aim to achieve in terms of disciplinary breadth; they can develop students’ existing specialist expertise, offer supplementary training to allow students to increase the disciplinary breadth of their expertise, or focus on the issue of interdisciplinarity itself.

European Health Regulations and Brazil nuts: Implications for biodiversity conservation and sustainable rural livelihoods in the Amazon

Abstract The Brazil nut industry comports with the principal objectives of European policy on development co‐operation (poverty reduction linked with environmental protection) and forest conservation (maintaining forest cover). However, European Regulation 1525–98 EC, which decreases acceptable levels of aflatoxins in Brazil nuts to 4 parts per billion, may cause a crash in the Brazil nut trade. Thus, European policies on food quality, development co‐operation and forest conservation are likely to operate a cross‐purposes. Brazil nut producer countries have questioned the legal basis of the Regulation in terms of scientific justification for the stricter limits on aflatoxin content and lack of conformity with international standards set by Codex Alimentarius. The EC has countered by invoking the precautionary principle. This article documents the debate in the context of the World Trade Organisations Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement and discusses the implications for the relationship between agendas of trade, environment and sustainable development.

Challenges in ICCA Governance: The Case of El Cordon del Retén in San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca

In October 2010, the Mexican National Protected Areas Commission (CONANP) presented the community of San Miguel Chimalapa (SMC), Oaxaca, with a certificate acknowledging their commitment to conserve an area of 15,328.54 ha (11.4 % of their land) for the next 30 years. This voluntarily conserved area (VCA) is called El Cordon del Reten and is located on the eastern edge of the community. The Chimalapas region is of international significance for biodiversity conservation, and the dedication of this area to conservation demonstrates the potential of community conserved areas to complement state protected areas in ensuring adequate covering of priority habitats and ecosystems. It offers a useful case study illustrating many of the challenges that have been highlighted elsewhere in relation to governance of Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCAs). Given that ICCAs are governed primarily, but not necessarily exclusively, by local and indigenous communities, they require new approaches to understand the complex interactions taking place within them. These interactions include the relationships between local people and external institutions working in the area as well as their links to broader social contexts, challenges, and outcomes.

Book Review: Rain Forest Exchanges: Industry and Community on an Amazonian Frontier. Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Enquiry

Within minutes of meeting the pacification expedition of the Brazilian Society for the Protection of Indians (SPI) in the late 1950s, the ‘uncontacted’ Bakajá Xikrin Kayapó asked to borrow their guns in order to hunt game for a celebratory feast. Contrary to expectations, they had been familiar with western goods for some 50 years, and had been actively managing their level of contact with the outside world since the late 19th century. Based on oral histories and archival sources, Rain Forest Exchanges gives a fascinating account of the way in which access to trade goods preand post-contact has driven fundamental changes in the social organization of the Xikrin – a breakdown in collective subsistence activities, increasing inequalities, and the transformation of the role of the chiefs – and resulted in production systems that are driven as much by politics as by subsistence needs. It provides an important insight into recent controversies surrounding the Kayapó, who gained a fearsome international reputation in the late 1980s as indigenous defenders of the forest only to be condemned by environmentalists when they were found to be conniving in illegal mahogany extraction from their reservations. As Fisher asks, ‘Why did it seem that Xikrin would sell their grandchildren’s environmental birthright just at the moment when reservations were finally being demarcated and boundaries guaranteed for generations to come?’ (p. 193). Rain Forest Exchanges argues convincingly that changing trade relations have caused an intrinsic inflationary demand for western goods, without which the social organization of the community and particularly the position of the chiefs would be undermined. The Xikrin appear to have first received western goods from Karajá communities along the Araguaia river in the late 19th century. By 1900 they appear to have had regular direct contact with the Brazilian settlers, and developed a dependency on trade goods useful in subsistence production – machetes, axes, and guns. Oral histories related by Xikrin elders are closely corroborated by written accounts of travellers from the period. However, following the collapse of the rubber boom the Xikrin suffered increasingly frequent armed raids by the Gorotire Kayapó, and finally decided they must forego access to trade goods and retreat away from the area of conflict. For the next 30 years they remained isolated from the surrounding world, practising traditional horticulture and hunting, and cherishing the few steel tools they had brought with them. However, an increase in armed attacks from neighbouring Indians – this time the recently pacified Cateté-Xikrin to the south – finally convinced them that they must re-enter trade relations in order to get ammunition to defend themselves. It was in this context that they greeted the SPI’s pacification mission in the late 1950s, and agreed to settle at an Indian Post. Several predictable changes occurred post-settlement that brought about an increasing reliance on manufactured goods. Households became heavily dependent upon the patronage of the chiefs, who had a virtual monopoly on the procurement and distribution of trade goods and were held responsible for any fluctuations in availability of goods. As a result, ties between male age groups were largely replaced by ‘men’s clubs’ ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY 1(4)