Contrary to the widespread belief that indigenous peoples are adept managers of their natural environments, preliminary research from the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon indicates that this may not be the case. In an attempt to identify whether the Machiguenga in the village of Camisea conserve natural resources, the group was studied in relation to resource use, perceptions of the environment, and their understanding of population biology. Cultural characteristics were examined as well, such as social sanctioning and awareness of the behaviors of others in the group, both of which may be necessary for group-level conservation. It was found that the Machiguenga lack the social structure and cognitive models needed for sustainable resource use - although, given the particular cultural and economic history of the group, these elements made good adaptive sense.
Acheson, J.
1987. `Lobster Fiefs Revisited.' In The Question of the Commons, eds B. McCay and J. Acheson, pp. 37-65. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
2.
Alvard, M.1995. `Intraspecific Prey Choice by Amazonian Hunters.'Current Anthropology36(5): 789-818.
3.
Baksh, M.
1984. `Cultural Ecology and Change of the Machiguenga Indians of the Peruvian Amazon.'University of California, Los Angeles.
4.
Balee, W.
1989. `The Culture of Amazonian Forests.' In Resource Management in Amazonia: Indigenous and Folk Strategies, eds D. A. Posey and W. Balee. New York: The New York Botanical Garden.
5.
Bodley, J.
1990. Victims of Progress. 3rd edn.Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
6.
Booth, A.
, and H. Jacobs. 1990. `Ties that Bind: Native American Beliefs as a Foundation for Environmental Consciousness.'Environmental Ethics12(1): 27-44.
7.
Botkin, S.
1980. `Effects of Human Exploitation on Shellfish Populations at Malibu Creek, California.' In Modeling Change in Prehistoric Subsistence Economies, eds T. Earle and A. Christenson. New York: Academic Press.
8.
Boyd, R.
and P. Richerson. 1992. `Punishment Allows the Evolution of Cooperation (or Anything Else) in Sizable Groups.'Ethnology and Sociobiology13: 171-195.
9.
Boyd, R.
and P. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
10.
Broughton, J.1994. `Declines in Mammalian Foraging Efficiency During the Late Holocene, San Francisco Bay, California.'Journal of Anthropological Archaeology13: 371-401.
11.
Carrier, J.
1987. `Marine Tenure and Conservation in Papua New Guinea.' In The Question of the Commons, eds B. McCay and J. Acheson, pp. 142-167. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
12.
Ciriacy-Wantrup, S. V.
, and R. Bishop. 1975. ` “Common Property” as a Concept in Natural Resources Policy.'Natural Resources Journal15: 713-727.
13.
Cox, S.1985. `No Tragedy of the Commons.'Environmental Ethics7(1): 49-62.
14.
Davis, D. D.
, and C. A. Holt. 1993. Experimental Economics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
15.
Dodds, D.
1995. `Lobster in the Rainforest: The Political Ecology of Miskito Wage Labor and Agricultural Deforestation.' Presented at the symposium, `Cultural Contexts of Diversity: A Critical Appraisal', at the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, 15-19 November 1995.
16.
Environmental Resources Management
. 1996. Camisea Appraisal Drilling Campaign: Environmental Impact Assessment, Lima, Peru. Produced for Shell Prospecting and Development.
17.
Feit, H.
1973. `The Ethno-Ecology of the Waswanipi Cree; or How Hunters Can Manage their Resources.' In Cultural Ecology: Readings on the Canadian Indians and Eskimos, ed. B. Cox, pp. 115-125. Toronto: McCelland and Stewart.
18.
Hardin, G.1968. `The Tragedy of the Commons.'Science162: 1243-1248.
19.
Henrich, J.2000a. `Does Culture Matter in Economic Behavior? Ultimatum Game Bargaining Among the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon.'American Economic Review90(4): 973-979.
20.
Henrich, J.
2000b. `Cultural Group Selection and Coevolutionary Processes Explain Human Prosociality and Large-scale Cooperation.' Available at http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/Henrich.
21.
Henrich, J.1997. `Market Incorporation, Agricultural Change, and Sustainability Among the Machiguenga Indians of the Peruvian Amazon.'Human Ecology25(2): 319-352.
22.
Henrich, J.
and R. Boyd. 2001. `Why People Punish Defectors: Weak Conformist Transmission Can Stabilize Costly Enforcement of Norms in Cooperative Dilemmas.'Journal of Theoretical Biology208: 79-89.
23.
Henrich, J.
and F. Gil-White. 2000. `The Evolution of Prestige: Freely Conferred Deference as a Mechanism for Enhancing the Benefits of Cultural Transmission.'Evolution and Human Behavior22: 1-32.
24.
Henrich, J.
and N. Smith. 2000. `Culture Matters in Bargaining and Cooperation: Cross-Cultural Evidence from the Machiguenga, the Mapuche and Americans.' Web page. Available at http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/henrich.
25.
Hildebrandt, W.
and T. Jones. 1992. `Evolution of Marine Mammal Hunting: A View from the California and Oregon Coasts.'Journal of Anthropological Archaeology11: 360-401.
26.
Howard, A.
and F. Widdowson. 1996. `Traditional Knowledge Threatens Environmental Assessment.'Policy OptionsNovember: 34-36.
27.
Johnson, A.
2001. Families of the Forest: the Matsigneka Indians of the Peruvian. Los Angeles: University of California Press (in press).
28.
Johnson, A.
1999. The Matsigneka: In Nature and Culture. Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Los Angeles.
29.
Johnson, A.
1989. `How the Machiguenga Manage Resources: Conservation or Exploitation of Nature?' In Resource Management in Amazonia: Indigenous and Folk Strategies, eds D. A. Posey and W. Balee, pp. 213-222. New York: The New York Botanical Garden.
30.
Johnson, O. 1978. `Interpersonal Relations and Domestic Authority Among the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon.' Unpublished dissertation, Columbia University.
31.
Kahneman, D.
, P. Slovic and A. Tversky. 1982. Judgment Under Uncertainty. New York: Cambridge University Press.
32.
Ledyard, J.
1995. `Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research'. The Handbook of Experimental Economics, eds J. Kagel and A. Roth, pp. 111-194. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press.
33.
May, P.
1992. `Common Property Resources in the Neotropics: Theory, Management Progress, and an Action Agenda.' In Conservation of Neotropical Forests, eds K. Redford and C. Padoch. New York: Columbia University Press.
34.
McDonald, D.1977. `Food Taboos: A Primitive Environmental Protection Agency (South America).'Anthropos72: 734-748.
35.
Moore, O. K.1957. `Divination - A New Perspective.'American Anthropologist59: 69-74.
36.
Nisbett, R.
and L. Ross. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
37.
Olson, M.
1965. The Logic of Collective Action; Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
38.
Ostrom, E.
1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
39.
Ostrom, E.
1987. `Institutional Arrangements for Resolving the Commons Dilemma: Some Contending Approaches.' In The Question of the Commons, eds B. McCay and J. Acheson, pp. 250-265. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.
40.
Ostrom, E.
, R. Gardner and J. Walker. 1994. Rules, Games and the Common-Pool Resource Problems. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
41.
Posey, D.
1992. `Interpreting and Applying the “Reality” of Indigenous Concepts: What is Necessary to Learn from the Natives? In Conservation of Neotropical Forests, eds K. Redford and C. Padoch, pp. 21-34. New York: Columbia University Press.
42.
Ray, A.1978. `Competition and Conservation in the Early Subarctic Fur Trade.'Ethnohistory25(4): 347-357.
43.
Repetto, R.
, and T. Homes. 1983. `The Role of Population in Resource Depletion in Developing Countries.'Population and Development Review9(4): 609-632.
44.
Roth, A.
, V. Prasnikar, M. Okuno-Fujiwara and S. Zamir. 1991. `Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study.'American Economic Review81: 1068-1095.
45.
Runge, F.1986. `Common Property and Collective Action in Economic Development.'World Development14(5): 623-635.
46.
Ruttan, L.
and M. Borgerhoff Mulder. 1999. `Are East African Pastoralists Truly Conservationists?'Current Anthropology40(5): 621-652.
47.
Wade, R.1987. `The Management of Common Property Resources: Collective Action as an Alternative to Privatisation or State Regulation.'Cambridge Journal of Economics11: 95-106.
