Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
151
Conservation is enriched when
Caughley and Anthony R. E. Sinclair,
Wildlife Ecology and
Management
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), referenced in Cowlishaw and Dunbar,
Primate Conser-
vation Biology
, 2.
151
However, while humans have
Lacambra et al., “Bonobo (Pan
paniscus)
,” in Caldecott and
Miles,
World Atlas of Great Apes and Their Conservation
, 92-93.
151
systematic logging of the oldest trees
John Oates references Kent Redford's essay, “The Eco-
logically Noble Savage,” writing: “Redford acknowledges that indigenous people have often had
better and more sustainable ways of using tropical ecosystems than new settlers, but he argues
that their techniques worked only because they had low population densities and limited involve-
ment with market economies.” Kent Redford, “The Ecologically Noble Savage,”
Cultural Survival
Quarterly
15 no. 1 (spring 1991): 46-48, referenced in Oates,
Myth and Reality in the Rain Forest
,
56.
151
As Dale Peterson writes
In fact, it is far worse and spells the eventual end of the forest itself,
given the role of animals in perpetuating plant life through pollen exchange and seed dispersal.
Dale Peterson, in describing the cutting of the ancient sapele trees, enumerates the human impact,
the loss of a tree prized by the local people for its “special strength, hardness, lightness, and water
resistance that make it a favored source of wood for dugout canoes and roof beams, while the bark
and outer trunk provide a number of local anti-inflammatory and analgesic medicines for treating
headaches, eye infections, sore feet, and so on.” And only the highest, most mature trees—the ones
most likely to be logged—host a type of caterpillar,
Imbrasia oyemensis
, that “rains down abund-
antly . . . during the rainy season, when food from hunting and fishing can be scarce.”
Eating Apes
.
196.
152
If the much larger population
Nichols and Goodall,
Brutal Kinship
, 34.
152
For the first, local people note 1:
Dowie, “Conservation Refugees,” in Lopez, ed.,
The Future
of Nature
, 65-77; originally published in
Orion Magazine
(Nov/Dec 2005).
note 2:
Recent research shows that population densities are on the rise around Africa's national
parks more than in other rural areas, given the infrastructures and markets that parks create. The
longterm impact of this on parks and people has yet to be fully evaluated. See also “Fertile Fringes:
Population Growth at Protected-Area Edges,” Wilson Center, Environmental Change and Secur-
ity Program webcast 1:54:23, October 22, 2008,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/fertile-fringes-
152
National parks frequently lack
Cowlishaw and Dunbar,
Primate Conservation Biology
, 332. In
speaking of populations evicted from parks, Cowlishaw and Dunbar write:
These people, who had a tradition of using these resources, were now forbidden access to them
and were rarely provided with any compensation for their eviction. Moreover, the expanding
wildlife populations in the parks often imposed further costs on them through crop raiding. . . .
Because evicted people often have no alternative, they still use those resources within the pro-
tected area, albeit illegally. This can lead to problems of unsustainable hunting, forestry, and
agriculture, if only because people who have no legal right to the resources have little incentive
to use them sustainably. In addition, their treatment understandably generates resentment, with
the consequence that local people may actively obstruct the running of the park (Hough 1988).
Recent news sources echo the problem of poaching within national parks. Here are just a few
examples: “Tragic Elephant Poaching Incident In Garamba,” African Parks, March 27, 2012,
Aislinn Laing, “Last Rhinos in Mozambique Killed by Poachers,”
Telegraph
, April 30, 2013,
ht-
rhinos-in-Mozambique-killed-by-poachers.html
; Jon Herskovitz, “Despite Armed Guards,
