Title

"Only slaves climb trees" - Revisiting the myth of the ecologically noble savage in Amazonia

Keywords

Amazonia; Indigenous conservation; Resource management; Yuquí Indians

Abstract

Professional and popular publications have increasingly depicted native peoples of Amazonia as "natural" conservationists or as people with an innate "conservation ethic." A few classic examples are cited repeatedly to advance this argument with the result that these cases tend to be generalized to all indigenous peoples. This paper explores the premise that many of these systems of resource conservation come from areas of Amazonia where human survival depends on careful management of the subsistence base and not from a culturally imbedded "conservation ethic." Where resource constraints do not pertain, as in the case of the Yuquí of lowland Bolivia, such patterns are unknown. Finally, the negative consequences of portraying all native peoples as natural conservationists is having some negative consequences in terms of current struggles to obtain indigenous land rights. © 1994 Walter de Gruyter, Inc.

Publication Date

12-1-1994

Publication Title

Human Nature

Volume

5

Issue

4

Number of Pages

339-357

Document Type

Article

Identifier

scopus

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734165

Socpus ID

21844487549 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/21844487549

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS