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Conservation Biology, Pages 791–792Volume 15, No. 3, June 2001

Tropical Forest Game Conservation

E. N. ANDERSON

Department of Anthropology, Univiversity of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521–0418, U.S.A.

I have some findings that may be relevant to the discus-sion between Schwartzman et al. (2000), Terborgh(2000), Redford and Sanderson (2000), and others in theConservation Forum in the October 2000 issue of

Con-servation Biology.

I agree with Terborgh that inviolatereserves are necessary and should be implemented wherepossible. Not even 1% of the tropics is available for suchpurposes, however, and on the rest we will have towork with people who are on the land and have rightsto it.

I have been studying ethnobiology and resource man-agement in the highly traditional Yucatec Maya commu-nities of interior Quintana Roo, Mexico. I will comparefour communities: X-Hazil, studied by Jeffrey Jorgensen,a student of Kent Redford (Jorgensen 1993, 1998), andChunhuhub, Manuel Avila Camacho, and Tres Garantias,studied by myself with the help of Felix Medina Tzuc.

If conservation works anywhere in the tropics, itshould work in Quintana Roo. Population pressure isnot overwhelming, and indigenous people have keptmuch of their land, thanks to tenacious fighting. TheQuintana Roo Maya, unlike many South American indig-enous groups, have an explicit, sophisticated, thor-oughly traditional, and highly effective method of con-serving game (Anderson and F. M. Tzuc, unpublisheddata). It is based on the principles of taking no morethan one needs and not killing many animals at a time orin a year even if one needs more. This is enforced byboth social and supernatural sanctions. It is no morethan a moral rule, however, and thus is by no meanshonored universally.

Government action has, in some places, been support-ive of good management. In particular, an excellent for-estry plan, the Plan Forestal, has encouraged not onlysustainable forestry but also good wildlife management(Flachsenberg & Galletti 1998; Galetti 1998). Also, Mex-ico has rather enlightened hunting laws, but no one I in-terviewed knew what they were and many did notknow they existed (Alvarez del Toro 1991).

The fate of large wildlife differs sharply among thefour communities. X-Hazil has suffered from the haphaz-ard “modernization” that has befallen many small tropi-cal communities. Traditional rules and morality havebroken down, hunting is uncontrolled, and the gameis nearly gone. (My limited observations confirm Jor-gensen’s extended study.) Chunhuhub, in contrast, haspreserved its traditional ideology, which provides acheck to hunting. Unfortunately, the town has grown solarge (almost 6000 people) that the old rules are ineffec-tive. Relatively few people taking relatively few animalseach is still enough to eliminate many species and re-duce the rest to tiny remnant populations. Chunhuhubopted not to take part in the Plan Forestal, with the re-sult that neither valuable trees nor wildlife have beenconserved effectively.

The other two communities worked with zoologistsfrom the Plan Forestal. Zoologists were careful to provideinformation and research findings, and

not

to tell peoplewhat to do. Game populations near Manuel Avila Cama-cho, on a main road and exposed to poaching, were hold-ing steady as of 1996 when I last visited, but they werenot increasing. Poachers came not only from outside, butalso from within; some younger people have lost the tra-ditional moral code. Tres Garantias, in contrast, was effec-tively conserving game. I observed fresh signs of tapir andother rare animals. The community is small, well-orga-nized, and holds extensive forest lands in a remote andisolated area. Ecotourism on a limited, low-impact scalehas been developed with the help of forest plan person-nel. Interestingly, Tres Garantias has a substantial non-Maya population, but these outsiders have learned thatconservation is in their best interests.

So, in a fairly homogeneous population, we have fourcompletely different outcomes, depending on how mod-ernization and contact with the outside world has beenmediated. X-Hazil fits the dismal scenarios of Terborghall too well. At the other extreme, Tres Garantias fulfillsthe dreams of Schwartzman et al., but this has requiredcooperation between enlightened local leaders and em-pathetic biologists who have been willing to talk onequal terms with local farmers. Anyone familiar with theMaya will know that the least bit of condescension or

Paper submitted November 10, 2000; revised manuscript acceptedDecember 13, 2000.

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Conservation BiologyVolume 15, No. 3, June 2001

contempt on the part of the biologists would have in-stantly ruined the cooperation.

So, yes, indigenous people—and nonindigenous onestoo—can be excellent stewards, but they need help.Population growth makes this increasingly crucial. Helpdoes not mean dictatorial treatment or draconian laws;those backfire. It means biologists and other interestedparties have to present facts and options in a languagelocal people can understand. The alternative is not thesurvival of indigenous people in some pristine wilder-ness; there is no hope of that in today’s world. The alter-native is the kind of haphazard marginalization—mis-named modernization—that happened to X-Hazil.

Few benefit when traditional codes break down andlocal resources are destroyed. Common humanity andmorality demands that we stand for self-determinationfor all peoples, but we also have to realize that no one isisolated any longer and that we all stand together in fac-ing major worldwide threats. We need to cooperateboth in saving indigenous conservation ethics and inproviding information and choices that are the bestmodern science can produce.

The fact is that indigenous people are neither modelsof virtue (as Schwartman et al. seem to imply) nor mind-less, savage wasters (as Terborgh seems to be saying).They are people. They react like most rural residents,who conserve or destroy local resources according towhat they know and how they are treated by outsiders.Some, like the Maya, really do have strong conservationethics that can help us all in the modern world. Others,like the Machiguenga of South America, do not. It seemsunrealistic for Terborgh to argue the relevance of a“post-Pleistocene megafaunal ‘overkill’ perpetrated byClovis hunters” (Terborgh 2000:1358). Even if such an

event occurred—and it almost certainly did not, in thisexaggerated and oversimplified form (see Krech 1999)—it would have no more relation to contemporary waysthan my ancient Celtic ancestors’ fondness for head-hunting and robbery has to do with my current behavior.

All the authors of the articles in the section are right,but only about some situations. All offer valuable sugges-tions. There is a need for more study to find the actualdeterminants of behaviors of indigenous peoples.

Literature Cited

Alvarez del Toro, M. 1991. Los mamiferos de Chiapas. 2nd edition.Government of Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico.

Flachsenberg, H., and H. A. Galletti. 1998. Forest management in Quin-tana Roo, Mexico. Pages 33–46 in R. B. Primack, D. Bray, H. Gal-letti, and I. Ponciano, editors. Timber, tourists and temples. IslandPress, Washington, D.C.

Galetti, H. 1998. The Maya forest of Quintana Roo: thirteen years ofconservation and community development. Pages 33–46 in R. B.Primack, D. Bray, H. Galetti, and I. Ponciano, editors. Timber, tour-ists and temples. Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Jorgensen, J. 1993. Gardens, wildlife densities, and subsistence hunt-ing by Maya Indians in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation.University of Florida, Gainesville.

Jorgensen, J. 1998. The impact of hunting on wildlife in the Maya for-est of Mexico. Pages 179–194 in R. B. Primack, D. Bray, H. A. Gal-letti, and I. Ponciano, editors. Timber, tourists, and temples. IslandPress, Washington, D.C.

Krech, S. 1999. The ecological Indian. Norton, New York.Redford, K., and S. E. Sanderson. 2000. Extracting humans from na-

ture. Conservation Biology

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1362–1364.Schwartzman, S., A. Moreira, and D. Nepstad. 2000. Rethinking tropi-

cal forest conservation: perils in parks. Conservation Biology

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1351–1357.Terborgh, J. 2000. The fate of tropical forests: a matter of stewardship.

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1358–1361.