Environmental Influences on the Development of Traditional Conservation in the South Pacific Region

Abstract

There is an urgent need for improved understanding of conservation attitudes in the Third World because of the increasing rate of resource depletion that is now occurring in the countries involved. Although conservation practices by traditional societies in the Third World have received much attention from research workers, the fact that some practices are intentional and others inadvertent has been largely ignored. However, it is the motivation for these intentional conservation measures and the environmental influences on the people who apply them, which is crucial to understanding variations in conservation behaviour among traditional societies.Traditional conservation in the South Pacific was based on a complex system of resource-use taboos which prevented overexploitation in the limited island environment. These taboos contributed to the achievement during pre- European times of what appears from historical accounts to have been a state of relative equilibrium between island populations and their resources.Predictability and extremeness are two environmental factors which are thought to affect the development of conservational behaviour. Both these factors were examined in the light of traditional conservation in the South Pacific. Droughts and hurricanes are the two main sources of environmental unpredictability in the South Pacific, although the islands vary considerably in the degree to which they are affected by them. It was concluded that a distinction between real and perceived environmental predictability was necessary before one could fully understand the influence of predictability upon the development of conservational behaviour in the South Pacific.

Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge as Adaptive Management

“…Taboos and other regulations are critical social mechanisms for resource conservation, and have the potential of building resilience in ecosystems (e.g., Johannes 1978, Chapman 1985, Colding and Folke 1997, Colding 1998. Food taboos on game and fish are part of caboclos and caiçaras cultures, in which species are avoided due to toxic, medicinal, or ecological reasons (Begossi 1998).…”

Indigenous Beliefs and Practices in Ecosystem Conservation: Response of the Church

“…Such constraints not only govern human social life, but may also affect, and sometimes even directly manage, many constituents of the local natural environment. Whatever the reason for such constraints, taboos may, at least locally, play a major role in the conservation of natural resources, species, and ecosystems (Johannes 1978(Johannes , 1982(Johannes , 1984Chapman 1985Chapman , 1987Gadgil 1987).…”

Muttonbirder selectivity of sooty shearwater (titi) chicks harvested in New Zealand

“…Colonies of seabirds have been harvested for generations in many parts of the world, including Australasia, the South Pacific, Greenland, Iceland, the Aleutian islands and Japan (Cott 1953(Cott , 1954Skira & Wapstra 1980;Chapman 1985;Jones 1985;Diamond 1987;Beattie 1994, Anderson 1996, 1997Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife Service 1997). However, few studies have investigated the effects of harvesting on seabird populations (Feare 1984).…”