The Political Ecology of Hunting in Papua New Guinea
In addition to this commodity ecumene project, I have also begun the research for a third major project. In my initial research in Papua New Guinea one of the things that I took conservation scientists to task for was their discursive production of Rural Papua New Guineans as "threats" to nature. In their printed reports, academic papers, and funding proposals they almost always used a series of well-worn biodiversity-in-danger tropes to garner funding and feelings of crisis. One of these was the idea of "overhunting." My critique was basically this: I don't dispute that people may not be hunting at a rate that is sustainable, because I don't believe that the Rural Papua New Guineans are natural conservationists. But, if you are going to say "overhunting" you should have some empirical evidence to back that up - some baseline data about what people are doing and about the population ecology of the prey species. A tropical ecologist from the Wildlife Conservation Society, Dr. Andrew Mack, listened to my critique and we are now collaborating on a study of the political ecology of hunting in PNG that focuses on both the behaviors and ideas of the hunters and the population ecology of the hunted.
Our project marks the transition from disparate studies by numerous loose collaborators to a focused, coordinated and more holistic study of hunting in Papua New Guinea . In our previous research both Dr. Mack and I have independently examined many facets of hunting from autecology of game species to the social aspects of conservation in Papua New Guinea societies. But these have not been integrated and many key issues have not yet been examined. With our project we will make the transition from independent, investigator-driven studies to a integrative and comprehensive study of a subject that has an impact on both the survival of many species in Papua New Guinea and the survival and health of the majority of the human population in Papua New Guinea.
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With this collaboration we will merge our data, develop innovative field methods to collect new data and integrate these components into a broad analysis of hunting. Later phases of the program will involve additional researchers for expansion of the study. We will train a team of Papua New Guinea research assistants who will form half of the core of continued data collection. We will also train and involve undergraduate students from Barnard College and graduate students from Columbia University. We will pair students from the University of Papua New Guinea and from these United States universities. We will also work towards the integration of complex data sets under a geographic information system (GIS). These data will be used to develop and test predictive models of hunting and the expected changes in hunting pressure due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors. This model will enable us to propose management protocols that will have the most power to both conserve wildlife species in Papua New Guinea and sustain the dietary needs of people dependent on wild game for protein.
For numerous socio-historic and political-economic reasons, many of the over 600 separate socio-linguistic groups in Papua New Guinea still retain subsistence practices that rely on in situ resources. The government of Papua New Guinea guarantees the maintenance of traditional land tenure regimes and over 85% of the country's five million people rely heavily on their traditional lands for subsistence. With the introduction of western medicine and other social changes that accompany modernization, the population of Papua New Guinea is growing at about 2.3% per annum. The growing populace has rapidly changing expectations toward their quality of life and changing lifestyles that alter the nature and intensity of demands they place on their natural resoures.
The biota of the island of New Guinea are unique, with vertebrate endemism exceeding 70%. These animals are a critical resource for many rural peoples, who obtain more than half their dietary intake of protein from wild game. Pig husbandry is extensive in Papua New Guinea but traditional social articulations regulate pork intake in such a way as to make it contribute limited calories in daily diets. Wild game will be the main source of protein for most remote people in Papua New Guinea for the foreseeable future. Thus if stocks of wild game are to be sustained, scientifically-based management protocols are needed. Yet the people of Papua New Guinea have had no input from the scientific community on how to manage their game resources. One reason for this is the nearly complete absence of data on population demography and ecological requirements of most hunted species. The only significant studies to date have recently been sponsored by WCS, but further studies are needed. Particularly needed are studies that integrate biology with environmental anthropology and thus that examine the factors that influence hunting and hunters.
This study will initiate a long-term investigation of how many complex factors interact to affect one crucial form of resource use by Papua New Guineans-- hunting. We will simultaneously study the animals that are hunted, the hunters, and the social, ecological and political-economic matrix in which the hunters live. The resulting data and models will have direct conservation and management applications.