Oil industry, wild meat trade and roads: indirect effects of oil extraction activities in a protected area in north‐eastern Ecuador

Abstract

Starting in 1994, a wholesale wild meat market developed in north-eastern Ecuador, involving Waorani and Kichwa people in the area of influence of a road built to facilitate oil extraction within Yasun´ı National Park. Between 2005 and 2007, we recorded the trade of 11 717 kg of wild meat in this market, with pacas Cuniculus paca, white-lipped peccaries Tayassu pecari, collared peccaries Pecari tajacu and woolly monkeys Lagothrix poeppiggi accounting for 80% of the total biomass. Almost half of the wild meat brought to the market was transported by dealers for resale at restaurants in Tena, a medium-sized town 234 km west of the market. Prices of wild meat were 1.3-2 times higher than the price of meat of domestic animals, suggesting that it is a different commodity and not a supplementary protein source in the urban areas where it is consumed. The actual price of transportation between the local communities and the market was a significant predictor of the amount of meat sold in Pompeya. Based on this relationship the Waorani hunters sold exceptionally larger amounts of wild meat than would be expected if they would not have the transportation subsidies provided by the oil companies. Although the scale of this wild meat wholesale market is still relatively small, its dynamic reflects the complex interactions that emerge as the overriding influence of oil companies or other private industries modify the culture and subsistence patterns of marginalized indigenous groups, increasing their potential impacts on wildlife and natural ecosystems.

Cultural attitudes are stronger predictors of bushmeat consumption and preference than economic factors among urban Amazonians from Brazil and Colombia

“…Previous studies in the Amazon have mainly focused on remote, rural settings (e.g., Peres and Nascimento 2006, Parry et al 2009, Suárez et al 2009), neglecting the consumption of urban and periurban locations (but see Baía-Júnior et al 2010, Parry et al 2014. Second, no assessment of a diverse set of beliefs, attitudes and social norms as drivers of http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol20/iss4/art21/ Several indigenous territories (Javari is the largest) in approximately 122,000 km² of well-preserved seasonally flooded and "terra firme" forests Sources of domestic meat Local production: chicken and chicken eggs in household production and small farms, small production of cattle milk and pork Imported: frozen chicken (southern Brazil), beef (Putumayo region)…”

Bushmeat harvest in tropical forests: Knowledge base, gaps and research priorities

“…Among those mammals, most were ungulates (36-40%) and rodents (34-38%), with primates representing fewer (13-19%) carcasses (Jerozolimski and Peres 2003). Bushmeat markets in the Amazon are heavily dominated by peccaries and paca, which in one study represented 36.9% and 28.4% of records and 47.9% and 20.6% of biomass, respectively (Suarez et al 2009). More specific information on the hunted populations are beyond the scope of this report, but their status assessments are synthesized elsewhere for key animals of the African rain forest (Bakarr et al 2001) and the Amazon (Peres and Palacios 2007).…”

“…Hunters can be either from the area where the animals are harvested, or immigrants that are brought there by economic opportunities such as logging or oil exploration (Suarez et al 2009). For instance, in Sarawak, Bennett found that bushmeat was present in 29% of meals in the interior, but in 49% of meals in logging camps (Bennett et al 2007).…”

“…Such market forces are more important than other factors in determining the target species. Bushmeat markets follow the growth of other forest industries, such as oil extraction, that attract people to remote areas and increase connectivities (Suarez et al 2009). …”

Deforestation and conservation in major watersheds of the Brazilian Amazon

“…ILs may be subject to future changes in their patterns of land use, as their indigenous populations grow and make greater demands on natural resources as sources of livelihood. Many ILs have been affected by varying degrees of impacts from illegal logging (Gascon et al 2000;Laurance et al 2001;Schwartzman & Zimmerman, 2005), illegal colonization and ranching (Laurance et al 2001), fires (Adeney et al 2009), hunting (Suárez et al 2009), illegal gold mining (Schwartzman & Zimmerman 2005) and other forms of encroachment with or without consent of their indigenous habitants. In addition to these threats, ILs and PAs from Brazilian Amazon have also been affected by large infrastructure projects, such as hydroelectric dams (Fearnside 1995(Fearnside , 2002, oil and gas projects (Finer et al 2008;Suárez et al 2009), mining (Laurance 1998;Laurance et al 2001), roads (Nepstad et al 2001;Fearnside 2007) and the indirect effects of these activities (Suárez et al 2009).…”