The depletion of natural resources and the consequent deterioration in quality of life for humans have in recent decades generated the urgent need to rethink the relationship between human groups and nature. Conservation strategies and actions directed toward natural resource management—especially game animals—are now subjects of interest to governments, to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to biologists and anthropologists, and of course, to local peoples.

One frequently used tool for conservation is the creation of protected areas. These areas, however, can be a source of conflict in cases when they are superimposed on the lands of local peoples because they...

Several authors have suggested that indigenous lands in the Neotropics function or could function as important conservation units (Redford and Stearman 1993; Peres 1994; Peres and Terborgh 1995; Redford and Mansour 1996). In the Amazon there are approximately 250 indigenous reserves, representing 44% of government-man-aged land area (Peres and Terborgh 1995). Twenty percent of the Brazilian Amazon alone is indigenous land. On the basis of land area and of documented levels of species diversity in Amazonia, these lands hold within their boundaries a high proportion of the world’s biodiversity, most of it as yet unstudied. Hunting, however, can locally reduce...

Conservation professionals must consider how to improve their ability to promote wildlife management as a viable development alternative in Latin America. Although not all countries have the same socioeconomic situation as Bolivia, we can probably all agree that natural resource management implies more than just extraction. In legal terms (e.g., Forestry Law #1700 of Bolivia), commercial harvest should require an indication of sustainability documented in the form of a management plan. To produce a management plan, it is essential to have a clear view of the social reality within which wildlife management is to be carried out. For many people,...

Since 1991 the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Capitanía de Alto y Bajo Izozog (CABI) have collaborated in the design and implementation of a community wildlife management program in the Bolivian Chaco. WCS is an international conservation organization that works to conserve wild areas and wildlife and carries out research on wildlife species and ecology. CABI is the indigenous organization that represents approximately 9,000 Izoceño-Guaraní inhabitants of twenty-threee communities of the Izozog along the Parapetí river south of the Bañados de Izozog wetlands (declared a RAMSAR site in 2001). This article examines the collaboration between WCS and CSBI through...

The várzea floodplain flanking the sediment-rich whitewater rivers of the Amazon basin is a mosaic of seasonally inundated rain forests, lakes, and winding channels. This ecosystem is exceptionally productive and species rich, with a large proportion of endemic taxa adapted to the prolonged annual floods. Várzea floodplains cover about 180,000 km², or approximately 2.6%, of the 7 million-km² area of the Amazon basin (Bayley and Petrere 1989). This figure does not include the less productive floodplains of nutrient impoverished blackwater and clearwater rivers. Junk (1997) estimated that the total area of seasonal floodplains in the Brazilian Amazon basin is 307,300...

Fisheries management in the Brazilian Amazon has polarized toward state-imposed regulations at one extreme and community-based management at the other (Crampton, Castello, and Viana this volume). At present there is no overall government fisheries conservation policy for Amazônia, and existing state fisheries restrictions are almost completely ineffective (Hall 1997; Crampton and Viana 1999). Since the 1970s fishing has become an increasingly important source of income for the ribeirinho people of the whitewater várzea floodplain and a growing number of várzea communities have set up lake reserves (reservas de lagos de várzea) to manage fish stocks and to guard them from...

Wildlife hunting is a major activity of Amazonian inhabitants, both in seasonally flooded várzea forest and nonflooded tierra firme forest (Beckerman 1994; Bodmer 1994). Local people in Amazonia preferentially exploit large and mid-sized mammals as sources of protein and cash income through meat sales (Redford and Robinson 1991; Bodmer et al. 1997b). In the western Amazon, hunting patterns are strongly influenced by meat values, and wildlife conservation strategies must incorporate local people’s needs for wildlife meat. Community-based wildlife management allows people to obtain subsistence and cash benefits from hunting, while at the same time promoting conservation. Community-based strategies are apparently...

The increasing demand for and degradation of limited resources by the rising human population of the Amazon basin has precipitated a great deal of discussion about the sustainable use of its natural resources (Hall 1997; Ayres et al. 1999). For the most part the fisheries of the Amazon basin are underexploited, and fishing pressure is concentrated on only a few species (Bayley and Petrere 1989; Crampton and Viana 1999). Crampton et al. (this volume) provide a detailed account of the history and current status of floodplain fisheries in the Brazilian Amazon basin. Until the 1970s tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) and pirarucu...

In 1994, after years of being listed under Appendix I of the CITES convention, vicuña (Vicugna vicugna: Camelidae) populations in Peru were reclassified as an Appendix II species. Under this classification Peru obtained permission to export fiber from animals captured in their wild state, partially shorn, and then released. In 1995 the Peruvian government passed Law # 26496, “System of regulation of property, commercialization and sanctions for the hunting of vicuñas, guanacos, and their hybrids.” The purpose of the law was to give Andean campesinos a direct interest in the conservation of the vicuña and to motivate them to participate...

The incorporation of wild species into the meat production industry has attracted the interest of Brazilian farmers in the last few years because of the increased demand for products and by-products of wild mammal origin. The use of new protein sources for the human population is also of great social interest. Rational use of native resources can be a beneficial process, resulting in economic and social advantages, while at the same time reducing damage to wild animal populations caused by irrational hunting and habitat destruction.

Additionally, there is a great demand in the international market for wild animal leathers. Germany...

Successful conservation programs often depend on practitioners and researchers integrating the biological limitations of species with the social and economic realities of people (Barbier 1992). Indeed, there has been considerable dialog about the need to extend the reach of conservation biologists into the realms of social and economic analysis (McNeely 1988). The need to integrate biology with social and economic considerations is particularly relevant in tropical countries (Plotkin and Famolare 1992).

Conservation efforts must deal with all levels of wildlife use from local hunters to international trade. However, wildlife conservation efforts will only be successful if they focus on the...

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) is one of the most threatened ecosystems on earth, currently at risk of large-scale destruction. The forests in this ecosystem have been fragmented and reduced to about 7% of their original extent (SOS Mata Atlântica and INPE 1993). The Mata Atlântica also harbors one of the greatest levels of biological diversity in the world, containing nearly 7% of the world’s species, many of which are endemic to this region and threatened with extinction (Quintela 1990).

Currently, most of the remaining forest cover in the Mata Atlântica is found on the hillsides along the coast....

Crocodilians in general, and the Orinoco crocodile (Crocodylus intermedius) in particular, have been traditionally hunted by both aboriginal and rural people in Venezuela because of their value as a food resource or because of the putative medicinal or magical properties of their teeth and fat (Petrullo 1939; Codazzi 1940; Tablante-Garrido 1961; Gumilla 1963). The first attempt to commercialize crocodile skins in Venezuela was initiated in 1894–1895 by a U.S. company that established its headquarters in El Yagual, in Apure state (Calzadilla 1948; Medem 1983). At that time crocodiles were hunted with firearms during the day, a highly inefficient method...

The importance of tropical rain forests to global biodiversity is clearly appreciated when one realizes that they cover only 7% of the earth’s land surface but that they contain more than half the species of the world’s biota (Wilson 1988). Despite the importance of tropical forests and the fact that very little is known about their fauna and flora, development of tropical areas is occurring at a rapid pace and will bring about the extinction of species. To avoid mass extinction and to be able to guide developing agencies, a better understanding of tropical forest communities and their responses to...

The global introduction of domestic livestock into tropical savannas and temperate prairie ecosystems has raised debates about the conservation and management implications of these introductions on wildlife, in particular on native ungulates. In addition to the obvious impact caused by the introduction of extraneous pests and diseases on native ungulate populations, there is evidence that dietary overlap with livestock may derive positive or negative implications to the coexisting herbivores. For instance, seasonal grazing by livestock may improve the nutritive quality of autumn and winter browse for wild ungulates (Alpe, Kingery, and Mosley 1999). On the other hand, vegetation modification and...

Jaguars (Panthera onca) now occupy less than 50% of their historic range (33% in Central America and 62% in South America; Swank and Teer 1989). With the exception of occasional dispersing animals, they have been extirpated from the southern United States, northern Mexico, coastal northern and western South America, and southern Argentina, among other regions (Sanderson et al. 2002). Athough their greatest stronghold is in the continuous forest of the Brazilian Amazon, jaguar populations also persist in highly fragmented and threatened regions, such as the Atlantic forest, Central American dry and moist forest and pine savannas, northern South American dry...

White-lipped peccaries (white-lips—Tayassu pecari) are among the largest of Neotropical forest mammals, reaching weights of about 50 kg (Sowls 1984; Fragoso 1998a). They can form groups with more than 100 animals, and anecdotal reports exist of groups with 1,000 and even 2,000 individuals (Mayer and Brandt 1982; Mayer and Wetzel 1987; Fragoso 1994). Occasionally, herds and even entire populations have disappeared from areas where they were usually found, leading some researchers to hypothesize that white-lips are migratory, probably in response to variations in food supply (e.g., Kiltie 1980; Kiltie and Terborgh 1983; Sowls 1984; Bodmer 1990; Vickers 1991). This...

Rural people throughout the Neotropics hunt for subsistence food and to sell meat and hides in urban markets, actitivities that pose one of the greatest threats for tropical vertebrates and that create one of the most important conservation issues for developing countries (Robinson and Redford 1991; Robinson and Bennett 2000b). Many species are impacted more by hunting than by deforestation (Bodmer 1995b). Ensuring that wildlife hunting is sustainable is important both for the long-term benefits people receive from wildlife and for the conservation of species and ecosystems (Swanson and Barbier 1992; Freese 1997b). However, setting up more sustainable hunting is...

Wildlife has been and continues to be an important resource for the subsistence of rural people worldwide, providing food, hides, tools, medicine, income, and many other benefits (Redford and Robinson 1991; Shaw 1991; Freese 1998; Robinson and Bennett 2000b). There are many documented cases of continuous use of vertebrate species by native people in the tropics. Three good examples are the hunting of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) by Mayan Indians of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico (Mandujano and Rico-Gray 1991; Jorgenson 1995), the use of duikers (Cephalophus spp.) by Mbuti tribes in the Ituri Forest of Central Africa (Hart 2000), and...

Wildlife plays a key role for people inhabiting the Amazonian rain forest (Terborgh, Emmons, and Freese 1986; Redford and Robinson 1991; Vickers 1991). Subsistence hunting has been very significant for the economy of the Amazon region and, in particular, for the well-being of thousands of rural families (Dourojeanni 1972). Indeed, in many parts of the northeastern Peruvian Amazon, wildlife provides most of the animal protein consumed by local households (Pierret and Dourojeanni 1967; Ríos, Dourojeanni, and Tovar 1973; Bodmer et al. 1994). Although mammals are always the most important prey for susbistence hunters, birds may comprise a significant amount of...

Turtles have been, and continue to be, one of the principal sources of protein from the wild for indigenous and riverine populations in Amazonia. Pressure on the resource increased with the arrival of the first European colonizers, who exploited almost all species of Amazonian quelonians (Ayres and Best 1979). The most heavily exploited species was Podocnemis expansa, sought after for its size, its eggs, and the quality of its meat.

Several authors have reported on the exploitation of female turtles and their eggs, especially those in the genus Podocnemis (Bates 1863; Smith 1979a; Fachín-Terán 1994; Fachín-Terán, Chumbe, and Taleixo1996; Thorbjarnarson,...

Fisheries in the Peruvian Amazon constitute an important source of animal protein and of income for ribereño people (local inhabitants who live alongside rivers in várzea ecosystems). Fish is the principal component of family diets, and the overall fisheries yield is approximately 80,000 tons per year (Bayley et al. 1992), representing a contribution of about US$ 80 million per year to the regional economy. In the Peruvian Amazon the largest volumes of fish originate in the lower reaches of the Ucayali and Marañon rivers, where the Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria (RNPS) is located. Named for the two rivers that run through...

Harvest theory has been built almost entirely on assumptions of uniformly distributed populations (Beddington and May 1977; Walters 1986; Caughley and Sinclair 1994). Most natural populations, however, are spatially structured, and this structure has profound effects on the dynamics of the populations and, consequently, on their responses to hunting (Kareiva 1990; Hanski and Gilpin 1997). Harvest theory therefore must be revised to incorporate spatial structure, and the resulting models need to account for the spatial heterogeneity of populations and their environments.

The spatial heterogeneity of hunted game populations in the Neotropics has begun to be analyzed explicitly only in recent...

French Guiana is a French overseas department, located between Brazil and Suriname. Human density is very low, averaging less than two people/km². However, the population is not evenly distributed, and most people are concentrated in the coastal area. Ninety-five percent of the territory is covered by evergreen tropical moist forest, representing over eight million hectares of almost intact and nonfragmented forest. Many different ethnic groups share the country: creoles, Bushinengue, Hmong, Chinese, people from metropolitan France, and six different Amerindian groups (Wayãpi, Wayana, Teko, Kali’na, Palikur, and Arawak). For most of the people—except perhaps the Chinese, whose economic focus...