Maximilien Guèze

Presence and Purpose of Nonindigenous Peoples on Indigenous Lands: A Descriptive Account from the Bolivian Lowlands

Integration into the market economy changes indigenous peoples use of land and resources. We study one pathway leading to integration of indigenous peoples to the market economy: the entrance of nonindigenous peoples into lands inhabited by indigenous populations. We analyzed data from a survey (n = 779) in 87 Tsimane’ villages, an Amazonian society. We assessed the entrance of traders, loggers, cattle ranchers, highland colonist farmers, and other nonindigenous peoples in villages settled in parks, forest concessions, indigenous territories, and private lands. Interactions were generally frequent, friendly, and had an economic basis. The Tsimane’ expressed hostility to the entrance of highland colonist farmers. The entrance of nonindigenous peoples was associated with unregulated natural resource extraction. If conservationists want to gain the allegiance of Tsimane’ on conservation efforts, they will have to present them with a better alternative than the current economic benefits generated by the presence of nonindigenous peoples on their lands.

Are Ecologically Important Tree Species the Most Useful? A Case Study from Indigenous People in the Bolivian Amazon

Are Ecologically Important Tree Species the Most Useful? A Case Study from Indigenous People in the Bolivian Amazon. Researchers have argued that indigenous peoples prefer to use the most apparent plant species, particularly for medicinal uses. However, the association between the ecological importance of a species and its usefulness remains unclear. In this paper we quantify such association for six use categories (firewood, construction, materials, food, medicines, and other uses). We collected data on the uses of 58 tree species, as reported by 93 informants in 22 villages in the Tsimane’ territory (Bolivian Amazon). We calculated the ecological importance of the same species by deriving their importance value index (IVI) in 48 0.1-ha old-growth forest plots. Matching both data sets, we found a positive relation between the IVI of a species and its overall use value (UV) as well as with its UV for construction and materials. We found a negative relation between IVI and UV for species that were reportedly used for medicine and food uses, and no clear pattern for the other categories. We hypothesize that species used for construction or crafting purposes because of their physical properties are more easily substitutable than species used for medicinal or edible purposes because of their chemical properties.Las especies de árboles de mayor importancia ecológica ¿son también las más útiles? Estudio de caso en un pueblo indígena de la Amazonia boliviana. Se ha argumentado que las poblaciones indígenas usan más las especies de plantas más comunes, especialmente para fines medicinales. Sin embargo, los patrones de asociación entre la importancia ecológica de una especie y su utilidad no son totalmente consistentes. En este estudio cuantificamos esta asociación para seis categorías de usos (leña, construcción, materiales, comestible, medicinal, y otros usos) en el territorio Tsimane’ (Amazonía boliviana). Recogimos datos de usos de 58 especies de árboles, reportados por 93 informantes en 22 comunidades, y combinamos estos datos con la importancia ecológica de las especies, estimada por su índice de importancia ecológica (IVI) en 48 parcelas de 0.1 ha establecidas en bosque maduro. Encontramos una relación positiva entre el IVI de las especies y su valor de uso (UV) general, además de su UV en construcción y materiales. Encontramos una relación negativa entre el IVI y el UV para las plantas medicinales y comestibles, y ningún patrón claro para las otras categorías. Nuestros datos sugieren que las especies usadas para construcción o materiales por sus propiedades físicas son más fácilmente sustituibles que las especies usadas como medicinales o comestibles por sus propiedades químicas.

Exploring Indigenous Landscape Classification across Different Dimensions: A Case Study from the Bolivian Amazon

Abstract Decisions on landscape management are often dictated by government officials based on their own understandings of how landscape should be used and managed, but rarely considering local peoples’ understandings of the landscape they inhabit. We use data collected through free listings, field transects and interviews to describe how an Amazonian group of hunter-horticulturalists, the Tsimane’, classify and perceive the importance of different elements of the landscape across the ecological, socioeconomic, and spiritual dimensions. The Tsimane’ recognise nine folk ecotopes (i.e. culturally recognised landscape units) and use a variety of criteria (including geomorphological features and landscape uses) to differentiate ecotopes from one another. The Tsimane’ rank different folk ecotopes in accordance with their perceived ecological, socioeconomic, and spiritual importance. Understanding how local people perceive their landscape contributes towards a landscape management planning paradigm that acknowledges the continuing contributions to management of landscape by its inhabitants, as well as their cultural and land use rights.

The Adaptive Nature of Culture: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Returns of Local Environmental Knowledge in Three Indigenous Societies

Researchers have argued that the behavioral adaptations that explain the success of our species are partially cultural, that is, cumulative and socially transmitted. Thus, understanding the adaptive nature of culture is crucial to understand human evolution. We use a cross-cultural framework and empirical data purposely collected to test whether culturally transmitted and individually appropriated knowledge provides individual returns in terms of hunting yields and health and, by extension, nutritional status, a proxy for individual adaptive success. Data were collected in three subsistence-oriented societies: the Tsimane’ (Amazon), the Baka (Congo Basin), and the Punan (Borneo). Results suggest that variations in individual levels of local environmental knowledge relate to individual hunting returns and self-reported health but not to nutritional status. We argue that this paradox can be explained through the prevalence of sharing: individuals achieving higher returns to their knowledge transfer them to the rest of the population, which explains the lack of association between knowledge and nutritional status. The finding is in consonance with previous research highlighting the importance of cultural traits favoring group success but pushes it forward by elucidating the mechanisms through which individual- and group-level adaptive forces interact.

Schooling, Local Knowledge and Working Memory: A Study among Three Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Researchers have analysed whether school and local knowledge complement or substitute each other, but have paid less attention to whether those two learning models use different cognitive strategies. In this study, we use data collected among three contemporary hunter-gatherer societies with relatively low levels of exposure to schooling yet with high levels of local ecological knowledge to test the association between i) schooling and ii) local ecological knowledge and verbal working memory. Participants include 94 people (24 Baka, 25 Punan, and 45 Tsimane’) from whom we collected information on 1) schooling and school related skills (i.e., literacy and numeracy), 2) local knowledge and skills related to hunting and medicinal plants, and 3) working memory. To assess working memory, we applied a multi-trial free recall using words relevant to each cultural setting. People with and without schooling have similar levels of accurate and inaccurate recall, although they differ in their strategies to organize recall: people with schooling have higher results for serial clustering, suggesting better learning with repetition, whereas people without schooling have higher results for semantic clustering, suggesting they organize recall around semantically meaningful categories. Individual levels of local ecological knowledge are not related to accurate recall or organization recall, arguably due to overall high levels of local ecological knowledge. While schooling seems to favour some organization strategies this might come at the expense of some other organization strategies.

Peer Evaluation Can Reliably Measure Local Knowledge

We assess the consistency of measures of individual local ecological knowledge obtained through peer evaluation against three standard measures: identification tasks, structured questionnaires, and self-reported skills questionnaires. We collected ethnographic information among the Baka (Congo), the Punan (Borneo), and the Tsimane’ (Amazon) to design site-specific but comparable tasks to measure medicinal plant and hunting knowledge. Scores derived from peer ratings correlate with scores of identification tasks and self-reported skills questionnaires. The higher the number of people rating a subject, the larger the association. Associations were larger for the full sample than for subsamples with high and low rating scores. Peer evaluation can provide a more affordable method in terms of difficulty, time, and budget to study intracultural variation of knowledge, provided that researchers (1) do not aim to describe local knowledge; (2) select culturally recognized domains of knowledge; and (3) use a large and diverse (age, sex, and kinship) group of evaluators.

An empirical comparison of knowledge and skill in the context of traditional ecological knowledge

BackgroundWe test whether traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) about how to make an item predicts a person’s skill at making it among the Tsimane’ (Bolivia). The rationale for this research is that the failure to distinguish between knowledge and skill might account for some of the conflicting results about the relationships between TEK, human health, and economic development.MethodsWe test the association between a commonly-used measure of individual knowledge (cultural consensus analysis) about how to make an arrow or a bag and a measure of individual skill at making these items, using ordinary least-squares regression. The study consists of 43 participants from 3 villages.ResultsWe find no association between our measures of knowledge and skill (core model, p > 0.5, R2 = .132).ConclusionsWhile we cannot rule out the possibility of a real association between these phenomena, we interpret our findings as support for the claim that researchers should distinguish between methods to measure knowledge and skill when studying trends in TEK.

Sharing in a Context of Rural Development. A Study Among a Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer Society in Indonesia

This chapter looks into the practice of sharing among a contemporary hunter-gatherer society, the Punan Tubu from North Kalimantan, Indonesia, to explore whether sharing changes with increasing participation in the market economy and national development programs. As the Punan Tubu are experiencing rapid social changes partially driven by government cash-transfer programs, our study offers a unique opportunity to examine how sharing varies along varying levels of involvement in such process. During 18 months of fieldwork in two villages, we recorded observations of giving (n = 543) and receiving (n = 544) amongst 118 adults. Our results suggest that sharing prevails among contemporary Punan Tubu. However, we found that there are variations in the products being shared. This variation seems to be related to the product’s visibility and cultural meaning, and also to the way it was produced. Although sharing behaviour is not directly related to individual levels of integration in the market economy, nor to participation in national development programs, changes in practices of sharing may occur as market food products are shared differently from non-market products, including meat, wild edibles, and/or cultivated food.

Trailing Forest Uses Among the Punan Tubu of North Kalimantan, Indonesia

Community-based conservation approaches are emerging as a viable alternative to classical conservation strategies. These approaches are based on the assumption that hunter-gatherers use and manage their environment in an extensive and sustainable way, but to date little research has focused on documenting hunter-gatherers’ current use of ecosystems, especially regarding their spatial movements for resource search and utilization. In this chapter we use spatial data to analyze patterns and intensity of forest use by the Punan Tubu of Indonesian Borneo. We recorded the spatial patterns of forest activities conducted by people in two villages over a 6-month period, during which selected individuals carried a GPS recording one track-point every two minutes. Data collection focused on single-day trips involving hunting, non-timber forest products gathering, and non-commercial logging. After filtering, 116 analyzable GPS tracks were obtained. We provide a descriptive account of Punan Tubu forest movements, emphasizing differences in the intensity of use between villages and individuals and across activities. We also discuss the intensity of intended and unintended impacts on forest biodiversity by analyzing the distribution of stopover areas. Vast areas of the forest are sporadically transited by people and offer important perspectives for forest community-based conservation.

Does Weather Forecasting Relate to Foraging Productivity? An Empirical Test among Three Hunter-Gatherer Societies

AbstractPrevious research has studied the association between ethnoclimatological knowledge and decision-making in agriculture and pastoral activities but has paid scant attention to how ethnoclimatological knowledge might affect hunting and gathering, an important economic activity for many rural populations. The work presented here tests whether people who can forecast temperature and rain display higher hunting and gathering returns (measured as kilograms per hour for hunting and cash equivalent for gathering). Data were collected among three indigenous, small-scale, subsistence-based societies largely dependent on hunting and gathering for their livelihoods: the Tsimane’ (Amazonia, n = 107), the Baka (Congo basin, n = 164), and the Punan Tubu (Borneo, n = 103).The ability to forecast rainfall and temperature varied from one society to another, but the average consistency between people’s 1-day rainfall and temperature forecasts and instrumental measurements was low. This study found a statistically si...