Shifting cultivation and hunting across the savanna-forest mosaic in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela: facing changes

We especially thank the Pemón communities Kawi, Uroy-Uaray and Wuarapata in the Gran Sabana for supporting this project. Especially thanks to Nigel Noriega for language editing. ; Human encroachment and overexploitation of natural resources in the Neotropics is constantly increasing. Indigenous communities all across the Amazon, are trapped between a population rise and a hot debate about the sustainability of hunting rates. The Garden Hunting hypothesis states that shifting cultivation schemes (conucos) used by Amazon indigenous communities may generate favorable conditions, increasing abunda... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Stachowicz, Izabela
Ferrer-Paris, José R.
Sanchez-Mercado, Ada
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
Verlag/Hrsg.: PeerJ
Schlagwörter: Camera traps / Conuco / Garden hunting hypothesis / Pemón / Indigenous communities / Highland Amazon / Guiana Shield / Canaima National Park
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29254155
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://hdl.handle.net/11089/39251

We especially thank the Pemón communities Kawi, Uroy-Uaray and Wuarapata in the Gran Sabana for supporting this project. Especially thanks to Nigel Noriega for language editing. ; Human encroachment and overexploitation of natural resources in the Neotropics is constantly increasing. Indigenous communities all across the Amazon, are trapped between a population rise and a hot debate about the sustainability of hunting rates. The Garden Hunting hypothesis states that shifting cultivation schemes (conucos) used by Amazon indigenous communities may generate favorable conditions, increasing abundance of small and medium wildlife species close to the ‘gardens’ providing game for indigenous hunters. Here, we combined camera trap surveys and spatially explicit interview dataset on Pemón indigenous hunting scope and occurrence in a mosaic of savanna and forest in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela to evaluate to what extent the wildlife resource use corresponds to Garden Hunting hypothesis. We applied the Royle–Nichols model and binomial regression in order to: (1) assess whether abundance of small and medium wildlife species is higher close to conucos and (2) evaluate whether hunters select hunting localities based on accessibility to wildlife resources (closeness to conuco) more than wildlife abundance. We find mixed evidence supporting the Garden Hunting hypothesis predictions. Abundance of small and medium species was high close to conucos but the pattern was not statistically significant for most of them. Pemón seem to hunt in locations dominated by forest, where species abundance was predicted to be higher, than in close vicinity to conucos. Hunting scope was focused on the most abundant species located close to the conuco (Cuniculus paca), but also in less abundant and unavailable species (Crax alector, Tapirus terrestris and Odocoileus virginianus). Our research provided the first attempt of a systematic sampling survey in the Gran Sabana, generating a quantitative dataset that not only describes the current pattern of ...