Remote sensing evidence for population growth of isolated indigenous societies in Amazonia

Isolated indigenous societies who actively avoid sustained peaceful contact with the outside world are critically endangered. Last year, "Tanaru", the lone surviving man of his tribe for at least 35 years, died in Southwest Amazonia, marking the latest cultural extinction event in a long history of massacres, enslavement, and epidemics. Yet in the upper reaches of the Amazon Basin, dozens of resilient isolated tribes still manage to survive. Remote sensing is a reliable method of monitoring the population dynamics of uncontacted populations by quantifying the area cleared for gardens and villages, along with the fire detections associated with the burning of those clearings. Remote sensing also provides a method to document the number of residential structures and village fissioning. Only with these longitudinal assessments can we better evaluate the current no-contact policies by the United Nations and governments, along with the prospects for the long-term survival of isolated tribes. While the world's largest isolated indigenous metapopulation, Pano speakers in Acre, Brazil, appears to be thriving, other smaller isolated populations disconnected from metapopulations continue to be extremely vulnerable to external threats. Our applied anthropological conservation approach is to provide analyses of publicly available remote sensing datasets to help inform policies that enhance the survival and well-being of isolated cultural groups.

Campesino hunting and conservation in Latin America

Hunting presents a paradox for biodiversity conservation. It is both a problem and a solution to species declines and poverty. Yet, conservation scientists hold different assumptions about the significance and sustainability of hunting based on the cultures and identities of hunters. In Latin America, conservationists largely sort hunters as either indigenous or campesino. Indigenous hunters are often characterized as culturally driven stewards of wildlife sustainability. Campesino hunters, by contrast, are described as peasants-cultureless, uneducated, and uncaring toward wildlife sustainability. Although such ethnically fueled hunting discourse promotes hunting research, campesino hunters remain underrepresented in most comparative hunting reviews. Moreover, there are no targeted syntheses on the current state of knowledge about campesino hunting, nothing to guide conservation research and practice with and for the largest group of hunters in Latin America. We reviewed 334 articles published from 1937 to 2018 in English (55%) and Spanish (45%)-mostly published in 145 peer-reviewed journals-on the meanings, motivations, and sustainability of campesino hunting in Latin America. Although studies spanned 17 countries, 7 ecosystems, and >75 indigenous and nonindigenous demographics in 30 research contexts, they predominantly focused on nonindigenous campesinos for species-specific conservation and protected area management in tropical broadleaf forests of Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. Authors used 12 methods to collect campesino hunting data, primarily interviews, surveys, and questionnaires, and drew from 10 local and traditional knowledge themes about wildlife trends and uses. Eighteen drivers, 14 constraints, and 10 conflicts-mainly subsistence, income, ethics, regulations, and crop or livestock protection-shaped whether campesino hunters pursued 799 species, 70% of which were least concern species. Yet, only 25 studies (8%) empirically assessed sustainability. Our results show the need for increased interdisciplinary and geographic engagement with campesino hunting across Latin America.

Road development and the geography of hunting by an Amazonian indigenous group: consequences for wildlife conservation

Protected areas are essential for conservation of wildlife populations. However, in the tropics there are two important factors that may interact to threaten this objective: 1) road development associated with large-scale resource extraction near or within protected areas; and 2) historical occupancy by traditional or indigenous groups that depend on wildlife for their survival. To manage wildlife populations in the tropics, it is critical to understand the effects of roads on the spatial extent of hunting and how wildlife is used. A geographical analysis can help us answer questions such as: How do roads affect spatial extent of hunting? How does market vicinity relate to local consumption and trade of bushmeat? How does vicinity to markets influence choice of game? A geographical analysis also can help evaluate the consequences of increased accessibility in landscapes that function as source-sink systems. We applied spatial analyses to evaluate the effects of increased landscape and market accessibility by road development on spatial extent of harvested areas and wildlife use by indigenous hunters. Our study was conducted in Yasuní Biosphere Reserve, Ecuador, which is impacted by road development for oil extraction, and inhabited by the Waorani indigenous group. Hunting activities were self-reported for 12-14 months and each kill was georeferenced. Presence of roads was associated with a two-fold increase of the extraction area. Rates of bushmeat extraction and trade were higher closer to markets than further away. Hunters located closer to markets concentrated their effort on large-bodied species. Our results clearly demonstrate that placing roads within protected areas can seriously reduce their capacity to sustain wildlife populations and potentially threaten livelihoods of indigenous groups who depend on these resources for their survival. Our results critically inform current policy debates regarding resource extraction and road building near or within protected areas.

Hunter-gatherers have less famine than agriculturalists

The idea that hunter-gatherer societies experience more frequent famine than societies with other modes of subsistence is pervasive in the literature on human evolution. This idea underpins, for example, the 'thrifty genotype hypothesis'. This hypothesis proposes that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were adapted to frequent famines, and that these once adaptive 'thrifty genotypes' are now responsible for the current obesity epidemic. The suggestion that hunter-gatherers are more prone to famine also underlies the widespread assumption that these societies live in marginal habitats. Despite the ubiquity of references to 'feast and famine' in the literature describing our hunter-gatherer ancestors, it has rarely been tested whether hunter-gatherers suffer from more famine than other societies. Here, we analyse famine frequency and severity in a large cross-cultural database, in order to explore relationships between subsistence and famine risk. This is the first study to report that, if we control for habitat quality, hunter-gatherers actually had significantly less--not more--famine than other subsistence modes. This finding challenges some of the assumptions underlying for models of the evolution of the human diet, as well as our understanding of the recent epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

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

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.

Plasma lipid fatty acid composition, desaturase activities and insulin sensitivity in Amerindian women

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Two Amerindian populations--Shuar women living in the Amazonian rain forest under traditional conditions and urbanized women in a suburb of Lima were studied. The fatty acid composition in plasma lipids and the relationships between fatty acid composition and metabolic variables were studied, as well as in a reference group of Swedish women.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Fasting plasma was used for analyses of glucose, insulin, leptin and fatty acid composition. Women in Lima had more body fat, higher fasting insulin and leptin and lower insulin sensitivity than the Shuar women, who had insulin sensitivity similar to Swedish women. Shuar women had very high proportions (mean; SD) of palmitoleic (13.2; 3.9%) and oleic (33.9; 3.7%) acids in the plasma cholesteryl esters with very low levels of linoleic acid (29.1; 6.1 3%), as expected on a low fat, high carbohydrate diet. The estimated activity of delta 9 (SCD-1) desaturase was about twice as high in the Shuar compared with Lima women, suggesting neo lipogenesis, while the delta 5 desaturase activity did not differ. The Lima women, as well as the Swedish, showed strong positive correlations between SCD-1 activity on the one hand and fasting insulin and HOMA index on the other. These associations were absent in the Shuar women.

CONCLUSIONS

The high SCD-1 activity in the Shuar women may reflect increased lipogenesis in adipose tissue. It also illustrates how a low fat diet rich in non-refined carbohydrates can be linked to a good metabolic situation.

The relevance of traditional knowledge systems for ethnopharmacological research: theoretical and methodological contributions

BACKGROUND

Ethnopharmacology is at the intersection of the medical, natural, and social sciences. Despite its interdisciplinary nature, most ethnopharmacological research has been based on the combination of the chemical, biological, and pharmacological sciences. Far less attention has been given to the social sciences, including anthropology and the study of traditional knowledge systems.

METHODS

I reviewed the literature on traditional knowledge systems highlighting its potential theoretical and methodological contributions to ethnopharmacology.

RESULTS

I discuss three potential theoretical contributions of traditional knowledge systems to ethnopharmacological research. First, while many plants used in indigenous pharmacopoeias have active compounds, those compounds do not always act alone in indigenous healing systems. Research highlights the holistic nature of traditional knowledge systems and helps understand plant's efficacy in its cultural context. Second, research on traditional knowledge systems can improve our understanding of how ethnopharmacological knowledge is distributed in a society, and who benefits from it. Third, research on traditional knowledge systems can enhance the study of the social relations that enable the generation, maintenance, spread, and devolution of cultural traits and innovations, including ethnopharmacological knowledge. At a methodological level, some ethnopharmacologists have used anthropological tools to understand the context of plant use and local meanings of health and disease. I discuss two more potential methodological contributions of research on traditional knowledge systems to ethnopharmacological research. First, traditional knowledge systems research has developed methods that would help ethnopharmacologists understand how people classify illnesses and remedies, a fundamental aspect of folk medicinal plant selection criteria. Second, ethnopharmacologists could also borrow methods derived from cultural consensus theory to have a broader look at intracultural variation and at the analysis of transmission and loss of traditional ethnopharmacological knowledge.

CONCLUSIONS

Ethical considerations in the ethnopharmacology of the 21st century should go beyond the recognition of the Intellectual Property Rights or the acquisition of research permits, to include considerations on the healthcare of the original holders of ethnopharmacological knowledge. Ethnopharmacology can do more than speed up to recover the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples to make it available for the development of new drugs. Ethnopharmacologists can work with health care providers in the developing world for the local implementation of ethnopharmacological research results.

Maya subsistence hunters in Quintana Roo, Mexico

Wild animals have played an important role in the lives of Maya Indians but recent evidence from a small Maya community in south-eastern Mexico suggests that their importance as a source of food may be diminishing. The persistence of subsistence hunting despite low kill rates suggests that hunting is still culturally important to the Maya community as a whole. By combining subsistence hunting with other subsistence and commercial activities, such as gardening and the extraction of chicle latex from sapodilla trees Manilkara zapota, contemporary Maya hunters are preserving a culturally important activity while simultaneously adapting to internal and external pressures to modernize their society.

Hunting strategies used in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil

Hunting for wild animals is stimulated by the many different human uses of faunal resources, and these animals constitute important subsistence items in local communities in the Caatinga region. In order to gain access to these resources, hunters have developed a series of techniques and strategies that are described in the present work. The principal hunting techniques encountered were: waiting, especially directed towards hunting diurnal birds; calling ("arremedo"), a technique in which the hunters imitate the animal's call to attract it to close range; hunting with dogs, a technique mostly used for capturing mammals; tracking, a technique used by only a few hunters who can recognize and follow animal tracks; and "facheado", in which the hunters go out at night with lanterns to catch birds in their nests. Additionally, many animal species are captured using mechanical traps. The types of traps used by the interviewees were: dead-fall traps ("quixó"), iron-jaw snap traps ("arataca"), wooden cages with bait ("arapuca"), iron-cage traps ("gaiola'), "visgo", multi-compartment bird cages ("alçapão"), buried ground traps with pivoted tops ("fojo"), and nooses and cages for carnivorous. The choice of which technique to use depends on the habits of the species being hunted, indicating that the hunters possess a wide knowledge of the biology of these animals. From a conservation perspective, active hunting techniques (waiting, imitation, hunting with dogs, and "facheado") have the greatest impact on the local fauna. The use of firearm and dogs brought greater efficiency to hunting activities. Additional studies concerning these hunting activities will be useful to contribute to proposals for management plans regulating hunting in the region - with the objective of attaining sustainable use of faunal resources of great importance to the local human communities.

Chronic problems in understanding tribal violence and warfare

This paper discusses problems confronting researchers whose work addresses the nature, causes and functions of violence and warfare in contemporary tribal societies and the interpretation of evidence on these topics from archaeological records. A major problem is the paucity of reliable ethnographic evidence describing conflicts, causes of conflicts and numbers of casualties suffered. There are few first-hand studies of warring tribesmen and little uniformity in data collection methods or specific topics covered by the studies. A second problem is the wide range of theoretical opinion on ultimate versus proximate causes of conflict and often polemic insistence that some causes cannot even be admitted into the explanatory framework, as illustrated by the debate between cultural materialists and evolutionary anthropologists. A third problem is the widespread belief that pre-colonial conflict and warfare was either rare or did not exist at all and that where contemporary tribesmen are found to be in lethal contests this has been provoked by contact with European colonial expansion. Finally, a new problem is emerging: ethnographic descriptions of violence in tribal societies are increasingly opposed by politically correct academics who argue that it is detrimental to the goals of advocates of native cultural survival. The paper concludes with a summary of some of the main features of Yanomamö violence and warfare, based on the author's field research and publications up to 1990, and introduces new data and theoretical issues that are emerging from his most recent field studies since 1990.

Traditional versus agricultural lifestyle among Shuar women of the Ecuadorian Amazon: effects on leptin levels

Leptin is a key biological marker related to energy balance and development of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Its levels are increased in populations with a high degree of the metabolic syndrome. Life history of evolution has, however, largely taken place under the ecological context of hunting and gathering. In this study, we explored whether the first steps of transition to sedentary agriculture involve a change of body composition, plasma leptin concentration, and markers of the metabolic syndrome. A total of 59 healthy Shuar Amerindian women living in 5 isolated communities in the Ecuadorian Amazonian rain forest were examined. Women (n = 33) from the largest and oldest community, Yuwientsa, who are more dependent on agriculture had higher fat mass (11.7 +/- 3.3 v 14.5 +/- 4.0 kg; P = .023) but the same body mass index (24.1 +/- 2.7 v 23.1 +/- 2.8 kg/m2; not significant [NS]) and lean body mass (41.0 +/- 5.0 v 40.2 +/- 6.2 kg; NS) than women (n = 26) from the 4 traditional hunter/gather settlements. Furthermore, women from Yuwientsia had higher leptin (5.5 +/- 3.1 v 4.1 +/- 2.7 ng/mL; P = .021) and plasma insulin levels (49.8 +/- 37.4 v 35.5 +/- 12.7 pmol/L; P = .013). Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) values (8.8 +/- 4.8 v 6.1 +/- 2.2; P = .004) and plasma triglyceride levels (2.3 +/- 1.0 v 1.7 +/- 0.6 mmol/L; P = .025) as markers of the metabolic syndrome were also increased in the Yuwientsa population. Mean plasma glucagon concentrations were not different between the groups. We conclude that body fat and levels of insulin and leptin are higher in the population more dependent on agriculture for living. In fact, the leptin concentrations from the 4 hunter/gather communities are the lowest mean value ever reported from a population of healthy females. As there are no genetic or biologic differences between the Shuar Indians from the 5 communities, we hypothesize that behavioral responses to a changing environment may be the key to the development of the metabolic syndrome and elevated plasma leptin concentrations.

Restrições e preferências alimentares em comunidades de pescadores do município de Conde, Estado da Bahia, Brasil

Restrições e preferências de recursos pesqueiros por pescadores do município de Conde, Norte do estado da Bahia, são analisadas. Dados foram obtidos através de entrevistas abertas e semiestruturadas realizadas com 114 informantes de cinco comunidades. Peixes, moluscos, crustáceos, cetáceos e tartarugas marinhas são recursos disponíveis aos pescadores, que percebem aspectos marcantes desses animais no momento de considerá-los itens comestíveis. Peixes de "couro", como arraias e cações, são os mais evitados durante enfermidades, enquanto peixes "brancos", como os robalos, são as espécies mais preferidas. Muitos desses recursos são também usados na medicina popular local. O comportamento alimentar dos pescadores deveria ser levado em consideração no planejamento ambiental, em estudos de impacto ambiental e no manejo, conservação e monitoramento dos recursos pesqueiros.

Health and demography of native Amazonians: historical perspective and current status

Native Amazonians have been the victims of two massive historical assaults, one at the time of the Conquest and the other during the Twentieth century. Due to epidemic disease and environmental destruction, many tribes have gone from contact to displacement, decimation, and extinction in a single generation. Deculturation and the construction of large development projects have had catastrophic effects on native populations. In many ways, native Amazonians have experienced a reverse of the "Epidemiologic Transition". Paradoxically, one of the effects of cultural disruption for some native Amazonians has been the loss of cultural controls on fertility with the result that high fertility has become a major health problem. Combined with rapid growth of non-indigenous Amazonian populations, deforestation, and urbanization, native Amazonians face grave obstacles to long-term survival.

Game depletion hypothesis of amazonian adaptation: data from a native community

The low population densities and impermanent settlements of Amazonian Indians are often interpreted as adaptations to a fauna that offers limited protein resources and is rapidly depleted by hunting. Data spanning the 10-year life cycle of one northwestern Amazonian settlement show that variations in hunt yields result from temporal variations in peccary (Tayassu pecari and T. tajacu) kills that appear extrinsic to native population size. After 10 years, hunting success remained high and the kill rates for most prey did not suggest depletion. An array of environmental factors accounts for the incipient settlement relocation observed.

Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population

Blood revenge is one of the most commonly cited causes of violence and warfare in tribal societies, yet it is largely ignored in recent anthropological theories of primitive warfare. A theory of tribal violence is presented showing how homicide, revenge, kinship obligations, and warfare are linked and why reproductive variables must be included in explanations of tribal violence and warfare. Studies of the Yanomamö Indians of Amazonas during the past 23 years show that 44 percent of males estimated to be 25 or older have participated in the killing of someone, that approximately 30 percent of adult male dealths are due to violence, and that nearly 70 percent of all adults over an estimated 40 years of age have lost a close genetic relative due to violence. Demographic data indicate that men who have killed have more wives and offspring than men who have not killed.

Protein deficiency and tribal warfare in Amazonia: new data

Increasing numbers of anthropological studies about native Amazonian warfare and demographic practices attempt to explain these phenomena as competition over or a response to scarce game animals and other sources of high-quality protein. Recently completed field research among the Yanomamö Indians living at the Venezuela-Brazil border indicates that their protein intake is comparable to that found in highly developed industrialized nations and as much as 200 percent more than many nutritional authorities recommend as daily allowances. Recent data on other Amazonian tribes likewise fails to indicate a correlation between protein intake and intensity of warfare patterns.