The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation.

Human adaptation depends on the integration of slow life history, complex production skills, and extensive sociality. Refining and testing models of the evolution of human life history and cultural learning benefit from increasingly accurate measurement of knowledge, skills, and rates of production with age. We pursue this goal by inferring hunters' increases and declines of skill from approximately 23,000 hunting records generated by more than 1800 individuals at 40 locations. The data reveal an average age of peak productivity between 30 and 35 years of age, although high skill is maintained throughout much of adulthood. In addition, there is substantial variation both among individuals and sites. Within study sites, variation among individuals depends more on heterogeneity in rates of decline than in rates of increase. This analysis sharpens questions about the coevolution of human life history and cultural adaptation.

Experiences from harvest-driven conservation: Management of Amazonian river turtles as a common-pool resource.

Understanding what causes variability in the outcomes of common-pool resources management and governance has important policy implications for biodiversity conservation, in particular for the conservation of wild plants and animals subject to harvest. We report an exploratory study focusing on Amazonian river turtles as a common-pool resource under harvest-driven conservation and management efforts in Peru. Based on document analysis, literature review and a series of interviews, we describe the management program as a social process and identify the most important governance and management outcomes achieved (increased turtle abundance and benefits for harvesters, harvester formalization), factors hindering and facilitating the program implementation (four natural and three societal factors), and key governance actions behind the program outcomes (awareness and capacity building, crafting and enforcing rules). We then highlight the existing knowledge gaps and the needs and possible means to address particular risks related to turtle management on a harvest-driven setting.

Changing and partially successful local institutions for harvest of thatch palm leaves.

In some cases, users of common-pool resources (CPR) successfully govern and manage these for collective benefit but in other cases they fail to do so. When evaluating the success of local institutions for CPR management, however, researchers have not always clearly distinguished between success in terms of compliance and endurance, and success in terms of the socio-economic and environmental outcomes of the management. This study focused on the governance and management of wayuri palms (Pholidostachys synanthera robusta), whose leaves are harvested for roof thatch, in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Combining ethnographic methods with field botanic inventory, it was shown that although local institutions regulating leaf harvest had existed for longer than living memory, and the degree of compliance was high, they did not prevent exhaustion of the resource base, only delayed it.

Fish, wildlife, and human nutrition in tropical forests: a fat gap?

Los biólogos conservacionistas a menudo mencionan a las necesidades humanas de proteínas como la principal fuerza que lleva a prácticas no sustentables de caza y pesca que agotan los recursos y amenazan la biodiversidad en zonas de bosque tropical en todo el mundo. Sin embargo, la base empírica para asumir que la importancia nutricional de la carne y peces salvajes en las dietas de los habitantes de bosques tropicales se limita a ser la fuente de proteínas es débil. El contenido de nutrientes de los alimentos obtenidos en hogares de una comunidad indígena de la Amazonía ecuatoriana fue calculado, al tiempo que se determinó el estado nutricional de la gente en base a mediciones antropométricas. Los resultados sugieren que el suministro de grasa es más escaso que el de proteína. En concordancia, se sugiere que el papel más importante de la caza y la pesca en la nutrición de la gente del área es el de ser fuentes de grasa, aunque su papel como fuentes de proteína es también importante.