Consider the effects of environmental conservation on indigenous communities.

Here is another essay from my years at uni. The full title should read: 'With reference to two ethnographic examples and relevant theoretical issues, consider the effects of environmental conservation on indigenous communities.'

Anthropologists are concerned with the way in which people within different cultures perceive and interact with their environment. The environment is considered to be the surroundings that people are in, this includes the environments that people move between, for example, a home that someone lives in and their workplace. Aspects of the environment that anthropologists are interested in is the land, for agriculture; water, for fishing; the earth’s natural resources such as minerals and how people interact with flora and fauna. It is an ongoing debate amongst anthropologists as to whether culture is the cause for they way with which people interact in their environment or whether culture is the effect of people’s interaction with the environment and its resources (Milton 1996). Anthropologists also assume that by delving into other people’s perceptions of the environment and exploring with the way in which they interact with it, that we may learn new ways to use our environment. Anthropologists that specialise in ecological anthropology play a similar role to that of conservationists, they attempt to change the way other people use their environment and conform them to an ethnocentric view; they assume that their teachings are necessary and accurate. Though for other cultures this forceful nature upon their own beliefs is sometimes contradictory and they will not conform to another way that is not their way of life (ibid). This essay is going to focus on the two ethnographic examples of the Sámi and the Mende, as examples of cultures that have been victim to environmental conservation.

Conservationists would define the environment as nature and the wildlife in it. Nature is considered to be separate from human activity, the industrial societies are considered to be to damaging the environment without any idea on the impact they are making on the environment. Consequently human activity has caused many plant and animal species to be wiped out, the habitats they live in have been destroyed for human gain. As a result places that have not been interfered with from humans are considered to be more valuable than places that have. Conservationists pick out these places to preserve them in their original state and allow wildlife to live there protected. Conservationists therefore take it upon themselves to protect nature where it is not able to protect itself; though nature does fight back, such as where trees have been cut down in the rainforest and the result is flooding (ibid).

Many assume that indigenous peoples interact with their environment more harmoniously because they have not exploited their environment to the point that it is industrial, and these people interact more with nature and may be aware of changes in their surroundings. Milton (1996) argues against ‘primitive ecological wisdom’, she questions at which point is it that people who do not live in an industrial society, is it considered to be a more natural environment? She continues to suggest that perhaps people presume this because they are against the effects of industry on the environment. She also acknowledges the idea of ‘primitive ecological wisdom’ as a ‘myth’ and suggests that the idea of non-industrial culture relationships with the environment is exaggerated by anthropologists looking for ‘ecological wisdom’. Many hunter-gatherer cultures are considered to be more ‘ecologically benign’ than others, since a hunter-gatherer society often works on the egalitarian ethos of ‘immediate return’, that means to say what they take from their environment they immediately give back to continue a cycle. Many hunter-gatherers undergo rituals and prayer to accompany them before a hunt and believe that animals will willingly give themselves up for food if their species are treated with care and respect. This is a form of ‘primitive ecological wisdom’.

Firstly, we are going to look at the Mende, and how their interactions with the environment conflict with the ways in which conservationists wish to preserve part of it. As with many situations where conflict arises between culture and conservation anthropologists can be attributed with the ability to intervene and perhaps show the two parties the best way to deal with these situations. For the Mende of Sierra Leone, their day-to-day interaction with chimpanzees and beliefs give them reason to believe that the hunting of chimpanzees is acceptable. As well Sierra Leone is the second poorest country, worldwide, and hunters have a new meaning of hunting chimpanzees, bushmeat. The Chimps have now become an endangered species and conservationists are trying to ban the hunting on them. A petition was started for the conservation of Gola forest, and the slogan used was ‘Save Gola Forest’, for the Mende this translated as ‘Stop living under the Protection of Gola Forest’ suggesting that they no longer have any interaction with it whatsoever, for some it also suggested that it would protect them, and allow ‘chimpanzee business’ (see below). As mentioned bushmeat is a necessity for their survival, normally in a situation such as this compensation would be offered to people. Though with the Mende their complicated beliefs and history with these primates does not allow for compensation to take place and they will continue to hunt the chimpanzees.

It is found that attacks on people, by chimpanzees, are fairly common as a result the Mende have formed a mythology to explain the chimps behaviour, some of these beliefs also appear to be tied in the history of slavery, which continued up until 1927 (Richards 2000). Much of the slavery that occurred in West Africa was done via kidnapping, many children were kidnapped as were adolescents since they had begun training in farming, and so many were taken to the West Indies to work on plantations. The children were generally kidnapped whilst in the process of running errands and moving through the forest. Since slavery has stopped if a child is mugged or attacked by a chimpanzee it evokes strong memories in the Mende, of how children were previously snatched for slavery, leaving parents at home forlorn. The way they accept the attacks from chimps is by ‘bôni hinda’ (chimpanzee business), roughly translated as ‘cannibalism’, where it is thought power-seekers make the attack to harvest the body parts and practice ‘bad medicine’ or ’hale nyamui’. The cannibalism is thought to be carried out by powerful or political people within the society who have the ability to shape-shift and change themselves into chimpanzees; also leopards and crocodiles, which are extinct in this area of the forest. Professional hunters in this area spend time monitoring the chimps behaviour to which they say the animals have the intelligence to set up hunting parties, they treat any wounds with the flora and they crack nuts open with stones (like a hammer and anvil) as another means of food. Drumming is another manifestation, which they believe is a way to display their rank to each other. The animal’s violent nature provides plausible evidence for shape-shifting humans. So for the conservationists they need to be aware that they are dealing with a stigmatised animal, and that it runs deeply through Mende history of the slave trade and along with the survival of the Mende people.

The beliefs of the Mende can be attributed with structural-functionalism, a theory that suggests institutions within a society exist as a ‘function’ to maintain the structure of the society. As said by Radcliffe-Brown (1950) “The functionalist tradition in anthropology was fabricated from an organic model of life. In this model the parts and pieces of the organism contribute to the functioning whole of the organism. Therefore society can be viewed as a system of mutually dependant parts.”(Chilcott 1998). In order for the human society to exist myths have been created around lycanthropy, which therefore allow the killing of chimpanzees in order for human survival. Their beliefs cause a smooth functioning of the society.

The Sámi are a group of people living in Lapland, Russia and Northern Sweden, Norway and Finland, overall there are roughly 60,700 Sámi people living in native Europe, unlike the majority of peripheral groups, such as the Australian Aborigines, the Sámi have access to their land, despite the political on goings about whose right to land, and even though a native group they have often been treated like immigrants. The Sámi culture was originally a hunter-gatherer one but eventually it became a reindeer-herder pastoralist society. Their resources for hunting and fishing have been heavily regulated by the State. Due to political battles in Sweden the Sámi herders were required to either choose the nomadic lifestyle of reindeer herding or a permanent accommodation with farming. Many were unable to sustain the nomadic lifestyle and retreated into cities. Reindeer herders within Sweden are now a minority within a minority; there are only 900 active herders, though herding is not there only traditional livelihood it is their specialty. Whether the Sámi are herders or not they consider themselves Sámi by the belief of reindeer as the basic guardian and source of their culture (Lindquist 2000). Beach (1994) noted that the Sámi lifestyle is not just a job but that it is a way of life, before the intervention of modern transportation, which involved the Sámi interrelating with people outside their culture, herding was practised within small groups of people. Families practised what is known as intensive herding, where tight control is kept over the reindeer preventing them from wandering off or becoming mixed with other herds, they were also milked most of the year to use the milk for food and drink. Reindeer were slaughtered in the family and everything was utilised, the meat and the skin for clothes. Reindeer were also recognised as individuals and were given separate names and were considered part of the family up until they were slaughtered. Children received a reindeer at every important stage in their life, as a rite of passage, such as the day they are born. However, reindeer are now exploited for their meat and sold to a wider community, as a result there are bigger herds with more herding, since the reindeer are left to graze free for most of the year.

As previously mentioned, hunter-gatherer societies work on the ethos if immediate return, in order for the reindeer to willingly give themselves up they must be cared for, respected and protected. There are five main predators of reindeer; wolverine, lynx, wolf, bear and sometimes the eagle. Between them thousands of reindeer are killed each year and are main threats to the Sámi livelihood. Yet, for the Sámi the most vicious predator is the wolf, perhaps due to its ferocious way of killing, where the animal endures a slow, painful death, and since wolves hunt as a pack and makes more killings than they can eat. Wolves also scare the herds, which scatter and cause more work for the herders. The Sámi therefore take it upon themselves to kill the wolves to allow for the cycle to continue between man and reindeer. However, in Sweden the wolf is an endangered species and under conservation making it difficult for Sámi herders to protect their herds, since they are not allowed to kill the wolf unless caught in the act of slaughtering. They are not allowed to hunt it or track it from a dead reindeer, and as an extra protection the herder’s rifle is not allowed to be kept on a snowmobile and the bullets are not allowed to be kept in the same place. The only way he can securely protect his herds is by the hope of scaring the wolf off with his presence. Beach (1981) notes that dues to this lack of protection herders must be fully prepared for extensive loss amongst his herd.

The wolf became recognised as an endangered species and thus put under state protection during the 1960’s, despite this the wolf has been a threat to the Sámi for far longer, and yet there are other predators such as the lynx and wolverine that the Sámi behave towards in a neutral way, the bear too, which has been hunted by the Sámi is given great respect; though this may be due to its significance amongst Sámi shamans and the central role it plays in ritual. To further induce ideas of fear of the wolf, stories are told many of which portray the wolf as a cannibal and stories where people who had done wrong (thieves, murderers) shamans had the ability to enforce shape shifting upon a person, into a wolf as punishment; often used in warfare between shamans from different tribes (Larsson 1998). Wolves have also been inflicted with the ability of telepathy and are said to acquire the strength of a man and have the intelligence of ten. Reindeer meat that has been ravished by wolves is contaminated and inedible, likewise a human bitten by a wolf is considered to be doomed and the only way to heal it is to dress it with wolf bile and membrane. The wolf’s magical power can be seen depicted on Sámi shaman drums (Lindquist 2000). In 1995 the Sámi protested against the ban on wolf hunting, up until this point the government had offered compensation to the Sámi for the livestock lost to wolves alone. Though the proof needed to prove that wild animals had killed reindeer was hard to obtain and thus so was compensation. So an alternative method was used were each sameby (group of Sámi herders) was given a fixed amount of compensation based on the number of predators in their area. This was brought to the public’s attention in 1994 when the media released newspaper articles; two images of the Sámi were released, one was the traditional view of herders, the other was a group of people that were exploiting nature.

The problem of the Sámi is that their tradition has not survived much in the modern world and the traditional lifestyle revolved around herding, but also around predator hunting, as it is most of the animals perceived as a threat are protected in Sweden, the wolf in particular, which because of their animistic beliefs causes the most problems to their culture. It is the reindeer that is definition of tradition amongst the Sámi, for many so long as they can continue herding reindeer they are still Sámi.

The case of the Sámi can also be related to a functionalist theory, like Malinowski (1994:166), said social institutions existed because of satisfaction of need. The Sámi lifestyle has a need for reindeer, for animistic beliefs as well as for food and clothes, and so they have adapted a belief system where the wolf is the primary enemy and so must be killed in order to protect their livelihood.

Many conservationists must approach their work with great caution. The problem with approaching different cultures is that we can pose an ethnocentric view of the world on their culture, and ignore other people’s needs. So we need to be politically sensitive and not encompass our entire system of belief into negotiations. As well we should make the ‘other’ group aware of our social needs. The conflict between chimpanzee conservation and Mende beliefs means that in order to protect the chimps the beliefs around cannibalism and hunting would be ignored. Though this may cause, on some level, the Mende culture to change and not work in an orderly way as it does now. An example from Richards (2000) is that in political protest, hunters may purposefully wipe out the last of the chimps along the Sierra Leone, whether it destroys their only trade or not. As with the Sámi being treated as immigrants for many years and not rightful landowners they have struggled to gain the status they have finally achieved, yet still the culture is slowly dissipating as individuals are forced to integrate into modern Swedish society.