Home       About us   Issues     Search     Submission Subscribe   Contact    Login 
Conservation and Society
An interdisciplinary journal exploring linkages between society, environment and development		 Conservation and Society
Users Online: 572 Home Print this page Email this page Small font sizeDefault font sizeIncrease font size

ARTICLE
Year : 2015  |  Volume : 13  |  Issue : 4  |  Page : 382-394

How Does Cultural Change Affect Indigenous Peoples' Hunting Activity? An Empirical Study Among the Tsimane' in the Bolivian Amazon

Ana Catarina Luz1, Maximilien Guèze2, Jaime Paneque-Gálvez3, Joan Pino4, Manuel J Macía5, Martí Orta-Martínez6, Victoria Reyes-García7
1 Current affiliation: CE3C (Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, Lisboa, Portugal; Research undertaken at: Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
2 Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain
3 Current affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico; Research undertaken at: Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
4 Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
5 Departamento de Biología, Unidad de Botánica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
6 Current affiliation: International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands; Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Research undertaken at: Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
7 Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain and Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Correspondence Address:
Ana Catarina Luz
Current affiliation: CE3C (Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, Lisboa, Portugal; Research undertaken at: Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Login to access the Email id

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/0972-4923.179879

Rights and Permissions

Wildlife hunting is an important economic activity that contributes to the subsistence of indigenous peoples and the maintenance of their cultural identity. Changes in indigenous peoples' ways of life affect the way they manage the ecosystems and resources around them, including wildlife populations. This paper explores the relationship between cultural change, or detachment from traditional culture, and hunting behaviour among the Tsimane', an indigenous group in the Bolivian Amazon. We interviewed 344 hunters in 39 villages to estimate their hunting activity and the degree of cultural change among them. We used multilevel analyses to assess the relationships between three different proxies for cultural change at the individual level (schooling, visits to a market town, and detachment from tradition), and the following two independent variables: 1) probability of engaging in hunting (i.e., hunting activity) and 2) hunting efficiency with catch per unit effort (CPUE). We found a statistically significant negative association between schooling and hunting activity. Hunting efficiency (CPUE biomass/km) was positively associated with visits to a market town, when holding other co-variates in the model constant. Other than biophysical factors, such as game abundance, hunting is also conditioned by social factors (e.g., schooling) that shape the hunters' cultural system and impel them to engage in hunting or deter them from doing so.


[FULL TEXT] [PDF]*
Print this article     Email this article
 Next article
 Previous article
 Table of Contents

 Similar in PUBMED
   Search Pubmed for
   Search in Google Scholar for
 Related articles
 Citation Manager
 Access Statistics
 Reader Comments
 Email Alert *
 Add to My List *
 * Requires registration (Free)
 

 Article Access Statistics
    Viewed2349    
    Printed60    
    Emailed0    
    PDF Downloaded392    
    Comments [Add]    

Recommend this journal

 

  Sitemap | What's New | Feedback | Disclaimer
  © Conservation and Society
  Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow and supported by the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, on behalf of an informal alliance of natural & social scientists
  New site online since 25th June, 2009