A Century of Rain Forest Use in Western Amazonia: Lessons for Extraction-Based Conservation of Tropical Forest Resources

Abstract

W idespread concern over the fate of humid tropical forests has prompted an urgent search for new approaches to rain forest conservation. Of particular interest are extraction-based systems that promise economic benefits to rain forest dwellers while leaving the forest standing. For millennia the rain forest has provided diverse societies throughout the tropical world with a wide range of subsistence, ceremonial, and trade products. Today, conservationists, forest peoples, and researchers look to traditional extractive systems-from wild rubber tapping in Amazonia to rattan gathering in Indonesia-as more appropriate models for the conservation of biotic and cultural diversity. The importance of such alternate models for forest conservation is reflected in the recent creation of extractive reserves, expanded international marketing of rain forest products, pro-extraction policies of conservation groups, and a growing literature on indigenous forest resource use and management.1 An issue of particular relevance to rain forest conservation is the longterm sustainability of extractionbased systems. In the popular mind, native or folk peoples often are seen a living in quiet harmony with the rain forest, harvesting nature's generous and steady bounty for food, fiber, medicine, and, more recently, ash income. Scholars are increasingly revising this view, acknowledging the positive aspects of indigenous resource use practices but pointing to the impacts of traditional peoples since prehistory on the forest landscape, the varied needs and circumstances of indigenous peoples, and contemporary cases of less than sustainable though "traditional" resource use.2 Such understanding underscores the need to go beyond vigorous promotion (or criticism) of extractive schemes toward an improved understanding of the specific conditions and circumstances that lead to more, or less, sustainable forest extraction by traditional peoples. A potentially rich source of insight into the sustainability of extractive systems lies in the regional histories of tropical rain forests and peoples. Although a vibrant literature is developing on the environmental history of tropical forests, few works as yet attempt to consider the full range of forest resources used through time in a given region or the complete set of factors that influence resource use both directly and indirectly.3 Studies that examine how forest peoples use their resources today also tend to overlook the historical and geographical context within which such use has arisen, lending a static, even timeless quality to depictions of contemporary extractive activities. Moreover, little attention has been given to the problem of how indigenous extractive systems change through time with varying economic, political, and social conditions. Historical analysis of forest resource use would not only serve to contextualize and enliven descriptive work on