In defense of the Ecological Indian

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Eugene S. Hunn

In Defense of "The Ecological Indian"

University of Washington Seattle, WA 98155 USA
hunn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Paper presented at the Ninth International Conference on Hunting and 
Gathering Societies, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 9, 2002.

Session 15: CONSERVATION: CONCEPTUAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES

Session organizers: Steve J. Langdon, University of Alaska Anchorage 
(Anthropology), 3211 Providence Drive, Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 99508; 
Harvey A. Feit, McMaster University (Anthropology), Hamilton, Ontario, 
CANADA, L8S 4L9

The concept of "conservation" has emerged as a central element in recent 
discussions about renewable resource use by hunting and gathering groups. 
From cultural core to homeostatic mechanism to optimal foraging to 
spiritual ecology, anthropological theorizing about the use of resources in 
hunting and gathering societies has had implicit or explicit models related 
to the concept of "conservation". The aim of this session is to provide a 
forum for the critical review of the constructions of this concept through 
time in anthropological research and to examine the implications and 
consequences of these differing conceptual constructions of "conservation" 
for comprehending renewable resource use in hunting and gathering societies.

I. Short version for presentation

I wish to speak out against a "new orthodoxy," to wit, the view that 
pre-industrial, small-scale subsistence societies did not, as a general 
rule, conserve the biodiversity of their home territories. This new 
orthodoxy is being promoted in opposition to the "old orthodoxy" of the 
"ecologically Noble Savage." For example, in a contribution to an 
influential recent edited collection entitled Behavioral Ecology and 
Conservation Biology (Caro 1998), FitzGibbon opens with this disclaimer: 
"Although the idea of hunter-gatherers living in harmony with nature was 
popular among anthropologists in the 1960s and 1970s, this is no longer the 
prevailing view, and is now clear that traditional societies often 
overharvest their prey...." She cites Jared Diamond's well known essay, 
"The golden age that never was" (1988) -- reprinted in his highly popular 
book, The Third Chimpanzee (1993) -- in support of her assertion. This new 
orthodoxy seems most widely espoused by conservation biologists, but also 
has gained significant support from anthropologists and ethnohistorians.

These orthodoxies are morally, politically, and theoretically charged. 
Those accused of the old orthodoxy are said to symbolically manipulate 
indigenous peoples by portraying them as "Nature's children," as living in 
harmony with Nature like "just another animal," thereby discounting their 
active and creative management of the natural environment. On the other 
hand, those who espouse the new orthodoxy may be accused of delegitimizing 
indigenous claims to traditional lands and livelihoods.

Proponents of one or the other pole of this argument often have strong 
theoretical commitments that color their understanding of the issues. For 
example, ideological opponents of neo-colonialism and global capitalism may 
prefer to see indigenous communities and other small-scale subsistence 
societies as utopian alternatives to the mayhem of modernity. Proponents of 
evolutionary explanations of human behavior may prefer that the 
contemporary environmental crisis be a consequence of the human genetic 
program, and thus will be skeptical of claims that indigenous peoples 
interacted with the natural environment in a fundamentally different way 
than we do.

I do not claim to be without political or theoretical biases myself. 
Rather, I am a cognitive ethnobiologist who considers global capitalism to 
be a form of insanity. That said, I offer the following observations for 
your consideration.

Due to the limited time available, I will briefly summarize here my 
criticisms of the authors I cite in my longer paper, which has been posted 
on the conference web site, then offer some general comments in conclusion. 
The authors I cite have contributed quite variously to the development of 
this "new orthodoxy." Their contributions range from Jared Diamond's The 
Third Chimpanzee (1993), a spirited popular account of the human condition, 
and Paul S. Martin's speculative computer simulation of "Pleistocene 
Overkill" (1972), through Charles Kay's passionate denunciation of 
Yellowstone National Park wildlife management policies (1994), Michael 
Alvard's painstaking ethnographic observations of Indian hunters at work in 
the Amazon rainforest (1998), to Eric Smith's and Mark Wishnie's 
comprehensive literature review and subtle theoretical analysis of the 
issue of, "Conservation and subsistence in small-scale societies" (2000). 
However, the pièce de résistance is ethnohistorian Shepard Krech III's 1999 
book The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, trumpeted by Carolyn Merchant 
on the liner notes as "a stunning, provocative reassessment of the image of 
the noble Indian living harmoniously within nature." Krech set out to 
rescue Native Americans from this ignominious stereotype. However, he does 
so by showing how they more likely burned and pillaged nature to the limits 
of their abilities.

In my opinion, Krech's goal was to debunk a "myth," not to clarify a 
complex issue. His bias towards the new orthodoxy is apparent both in his 
rhetorical flourishes and in his uneven treatment of the evidence he 
reviews, which I examine in detail in the long version of this paper. My 
judgement of the cases he offers is that they are either 1) inconclusive 
and unsupported speculations left hanging as likely possibilities. For 
example, his discussion of the evidence for Pleistocene Overkill and 
Hohokam self-destruction; 2) accounts of environmental mayhem promoted by 
colonial and neo-colonial capitalist enterprise but blamed on Indians who 
were caught up in this trade following the destruction of their traditional 
societies, as in his treatment of bison, white-tailed deer, beaver, and 
Native corporations; or 3) cases of sustainable indigenous subsistence 
practice misconstrued as destructive or anti-conservationist, as in his 
analysis of Indian burning, Indian spiritual beliefs about animals, and 
contemporary Makah whaling. These cases taken separately and together prove 
nothing with respect to the authenticity of "The Ecological Indian."

Discussion

The new orthodoxy is seriously misleading. This is a consequence of 
persistent ambiguities in the basic terms of the debate, particularly with 
respect to the term "conservation." First of all, there is a fundamental 
difference between the verb "to conserve," which typically refers to an 
outcome of human actions that prevent something "? from being damaged, 
lost, or wasted?." "Conservation" as a noun may refer to such an outcome. 
It is widely believed that "conservation" in this sense is a good thing., 
"Conservationist," as adjective or noun, refers to a particular inclination 
to act to conserve. The problem here is that everyone is so inclined 
sometimes. For example, when starving no one is likely to waste his or her 
food. Down to our last dollar, we are not likely to throw it away. Yet no 
one is always so inclined. David Brower, Sierra Club founder and archdruid 
of the conservation movement, drove a car. Thus, conservation is strategic. 
A "conservationist" is someone more inclined than not to conserve. Thus it 
is absurd to brand people as conservationist or not. The only legitimate 
question is: When will they conserve?

Smith and Wishnie argue that people in small-scale subsistence societies 
are not inclined to conserve when it is not in their interest to do so, 
though they list several social conditions that may favor conservation: 1) 
when a society controls or has exclusive access to resources; 2) when the 
resource is characterized by "low discount rates," that is, sustained yield 
are valued more than immediate profits; and 3) when the social group is 
small and stable and has developed institutional mechanisms for monitoring 
resource harvests by members and for sanctioning excessive harvests. It is 
noteworthy that the social factors they cite here are precisely those 
characteristic of indigenous communities still in control of their lands.

However, while granting that, "? small-scale societies have developed many 
practices designed to enhance livelihood, for which habitat or biodiversity 
conservation is a byproduct?" (511), such people should not be deemed 
"conservationist." Though the outcome of their practice was "conservation," 
the practice itself was not, since it was not designed to produce just that 
outcome and no other. Unfortunately, the subtlety of this distinction is 
lost in normal English conversation. "Conservation" is a word enriched with 
powerful moral and political connotations. Thus, to brand people as "not 
conservationist" is an indictment, whether or not so intended.

The semantic issues are further complicated by the fact that there are at 
least three fundamentally different understandings of "conservation" being 
applied by these authors. Firstly, there is the oft-noted contrast between 
"preservationist" and "conservationist" perspectives. John Muir, the 
preservationist, defended wilderness against Gifford Pinchot, the 
conservationist, who defended a pragmatic national forests policy of 
conservation for "multiple [albeit, human] use." While "conservationists" 
are inclined to avoid causing environmental damage, loss, or waste, 
"preservationists" are inclined differently, that is, toward the defense of 
a natural environment as it would have been, had there been no human 
presence. (Krech, of course, does not need to adopt this stricter regimen, 
as he finds ample evidence of damage, loss, and waste by his Native 
American protagonists.)

A preservationist bias is clear in many proponents of the new orthodoxy. 
For example, Redford and Stearman argued that the interests of indigenous 
peoples and conservation biologists conflict, since "it is clear that if 
the full range of genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity is to be 
maintained in its natural abundance on a given piece of land, then 
virtually any significant activity by humans must not be allowed.... even 
low levels of indigenous activity alter biodiversity as defined above..." 
(emphasis in the original, 1992:252). Charles Kay finds evidence in the 
archaeological record that elk populations were "suppressed" by aboriginal 
hunting and concludes that the Indians "over-exploited," "overused," and 
"overkilled" their prey. (Kay never defines what level of harvest might be 
considered just plain "use" as opposed to "overuse." ) However, elk 
survived and are no more abundant than ever. There is no evidence here of 
"damage, loss, or waste," just evidence that the "natural abundance" of elk 
has been reduced. In this same vein, Smith and Wishnie argue that, "The 
dominant cultural meaning and practice of 'conservation' at the current 
historical moment focuses on preservation of biodiversity?" (2000:515). I 
would counter that this preservationist interpretation is not how the term 
"conservation" is most widely understood nor applied. Furthermore, as 
Alcorn argued in reply to Redford and Stearman, while the preservationist 
ideal is clearly alien to indigenous peoples, a notion of conservation as 
"caring for the earth," is widely recognized. To hold indigenous peoples to 
the preservationist standard under the guise of conservation is to invite 
misunderstanding.

A third perspective I term "altruistic conservation." This perspective 
shares with that of the preservationists the notion that conservation is 
not conservation if it serves people's needs, though altruistic 
conservation outcomes need not require that humans be entirely banned from 
the scene. This perspective seems particularly attractive to proponents of 
evolutionary explanations for human behavior. An axiom of evolutionary 
theorizing is that "evolutionarily stable strategies" must favor the 
reproductive fitness of individuals. Is "conservation" such a strategy? 
Evolutionary theorists are skeptical. Jared Diamond for certain sees the 
human species as genetically programmed for environmental destruction as a 
consequence of our "selfish genes." Thus conservation is a theoretical 
anomaly of which we are to be disabused, just as sociobiology disabused us 
of the notion that pure "altruism" could exist. Kay grinds this same 
theoretical axe, asserting baldly that, "Native Americans acted in ways 
that maximized their individual fitness regardless of the impact on the 
environment." This follows from the fact that, "For humans conservation is 
seldom an evolutionarily stable strategy."

The anthropologists of this evolutionary persuasion present more nuanced 
and more carefully substantiated versions of this argument. Alvard's field 
research with Piro hunters was carefully designed to differentiate 
"exploitive" hunting strategies motivated by the logic of optimal foraging 
from "conservationist" strategies. (Piro hunters do not "conserve." 
However, it does not follow that they are therefore not conservationists 
since there is no evidence that their harvests are not indefinitely 
sustainable.) Alvard describes the "conservationist" strategy as "altruistic."

Note how Smith and Wishnie make the case: "Avoiding wanton destruction of 
unneeded prey is not the same as restraining harvest below current desires 
[emphasis added].... Matching harvest levels to current needs...does not 
qualify as conservation, although it may have the effect of minimizing 
off-take... " (511). "Coexistence of hunter-gatherers and their prey, 
rather than extinction or extirpation, is commonly observed.... but... this 
is not sufficient [to demonstrate conservation] because such coexistence 
could be due to other causes" (512). "... [patch-switching] clearly... 
prevents environmental degradation, but... appears to be designed to 
maximize production returns, rather than to conserve forests or soil" 
(513). In short, the only way to meet the Smith and Wishnie conservation 
standard is by dramatic self-sacrifice. Barring that, sustainable resource 
harvests can be dismissed as "designed to enhance livelihood," "to save 
time and effort," "due to other causes," or that they "appear to be 
designed to maximize production returns."

This strategy of defining conservation out of the picture ignores the power 
of the widely understood notion that "conservation" is something deeply 
moral and good. It ignores the fact that to say that someone is "not a 
conservationist" is to brand them as selfish, amoral, even as dangerous. If 
indigenous (or traditional, local, or small-scale subsistence) communities 
are not conservationist, what reason could one offer to promote such 
communities as effective resource managers? The new orthodoxy clearly 
undermines the possibility of developing an effective alliance between 
conservation biologists and indigenous communities in defense of the 
environment.


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