URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa8825 DOI: 10.11143/8825 History of natural resource use and environmental impacts in an interfluvial upland forest area in western Amazonia ANDERS SIREN Siren, Anders (2014). History of natural resource use and environmental impacts in an interfluvial upland forest area in western Amazonia. Fennia 192: 1, pp. 36–53. ISSN 1798-5617. Much of the research done on environmental impacts by Amazonian indigenous peoples in the past focus on certain areas where archaeological remains are particularly abundant, such as the Amazon River estuary, the seasonally inun- dated floodplain of the lower Amazon, and various sites in the forest-savannah mosaic of the southern Amazon. The environmental history of interfluvial up- land areas has received less attention. This study reconstructed the history of human use of natural resources in an upland area of 1400 km2 surrounding the indigenous Kichwa community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon, based on oral history elicited from local elders as well as historical source documents and some modern scientific studies. Although data is scarce, one can conclude that the impacts of humans on the environment have varied in time and space in quite intricate ways. Hunting has affected, and continues affecting, basically the whole study area, but it is now more concentrated in space than what it has probably ever been before. Also forest clearing has become more concentrated in space but, in addition, it has gone from affecting only hilltops forests to affect- ing alluvial plains as well as hilltops and, lately, also the slopes of the hills. Keywords: Amazonia; Ecuador; Environmental history; Forest clearing; Hunting; Indigenous peoples Anders Siren, Division of Geography, P.O. Box 64, FI-00014 University of Hel- sinki. E-mail: anders.siren@helsinki.fi Introduction To what extent the Amazonian forests are ‘wilder- ness’, and what legacies past generations of indig- enous peoples have left on the forest ecosystem, are questions that have been intriguing researchers over the last few decades. Amazonian forests were long thought a pristine wilderness, but since the late 1980’s a series of studies using a wide variety of approaches, including studies of historical source documents and archaeological artefacts, as well as biological methods based on dendrochro- nology and paleobotany, and even remote sens- ing, have challenged this view (e.g. Balée 1989, 1992; Denevan 1992; Gómez-Pompa & Kaus 1992; Bush & Colinvaux 1994; Cleary 2001; Pärss- inen et al. 2009; Levis et al. 2012). Such studies have shown that forests that previously were thought to be pristine, in reality have been subject to disturbance and modifications by humans dur- ing thousands of years, leaving behind traces such as forests with elevated concentrations of useful tree species, earth works, and anthropogenic black-earth deposits. Such evidence led some au- thors to make quite radical conclusions, claiming that the Amazonian forests were ‘anthropogenic’ (Gómez-Pompa & Kaus 1992) and that the idea of the forests of Amazonia being pristine was nothing but a ‘myth’ (Denevan 1992, 2011). Other authors, however, argue that although there is evidence of heavy pre-Columbian human influence on the environment at certain sites, these sites are not representative of Amazonia as a whole. Such authors call for a more considered assessment of the spatial distribution of the eco- logical impacts of pre-Columbian peoples, and argue that most of Amazonia was sparsely popu- lated and subject to relatively minor environmen- tal impacts, as forest clearing and dispersal of useful plants affected only very limited areas, whereas the rest was subject only to the much milder impacts of hunting and gathering (Bush & FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 37History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... Silman 2007; Barlow et al. 2012; McMichael et al. 2012a, 2012b). Even though hunting and gath- ering obviously have much milder impacts than the outright removal of the entire forest cover, one should, however, be careful not to underestimate their potential ecological impacts. In many differ- ent ecosystems around the world, it has been shown that even harvest of just one or a few spe- cies may have cascade effects on entire ecosys- tems, and may have so even if harvest levels are relatively modest (Redford & Feinsinger 2001; Milner-Gulland 2008; Salo et al. 2014: 225−241). In tropical forests, a multitude of species are hunted, and many of them perform important functions as herbivores, seed predators and seed dispersers. Experimental studies and case studies in small areas indicate that hunting in tropical for- ests may harm recruitment of trees whose seeds are dispersed by large animals, and instead favor lianas and such trees whose seeds are dispersed by bats and wind (Stoner et al 2007; Wright et al. 2007; Terborgh et al. 2008). Although such stud- ies often discuss the potential impacts current hunting may have on the future structure and composition of the forest, they much less often discuss the legacies that potentially may have al- ready been left on the forest by millennia of hunt- ing by humans in the past. An exception is Schüle (1992a, 1992b) who suggested that the closed forests of Amazonia as we know them today actu- ally may be a result of Pleistocene overhunting that exterminated giant sloths and other megafau- nal elements whose feeding kept the landscape relatively open. In spite of the potentially very im- portant implications of this idea, these works have been relatively rarely cited − not even to put forward counterarguments − and have had little impact on conservation science and practice in neotropical rainforests. The intensity of hunting is typically highly var- iable in space (Peres & Lake 2003; Sirén et al. 2004), implying that areas near human settle- ments, roads, and navigable rivers, are currently subject to very intense impacts, whereas areas at a distance of above some 9−15 km from settle- ments and transport routes are almost unaffected by hunting. Any ecological legacies of hunting, in the form of changed species composition or structure of the forest, must, in the same manner, largely depend on the spatial patterns of hunting in the past, but this has rarely been examined. Although the environmental impact caused by indigenous Amazonians in pre-Columbian times is an issue that has been intensively debated, it should not be forgotten that it is also highly rel- evant to study such impacts − or the absence thereof − after the arrival of Europeans to the continent. Writings on environmental history of Amazonia since the 16th century tend, however, to focus narrowly on the impacts caused by non- indigenous settlers and ‘western’ society, partic- ularly on areas subject to large-scale deforesta- tion (e.g. Sponsel 1992), thus missing what has been going on in rest of Amazonia, where the environment has been subject to more subtle im- pacts, or even been recovering from previous im- pacts. Much of the research done on environmental impacts by Amazonian and Neotropical indige- nous peoples in the past focus on pre-Columbian times and on certain areas where archaeological remains are particularly abundant, such as the Yucatán (Foster & Turner 2004), the Amazon Riv- er estuary (e.g. Roosevelt 1999), the seasonally inundated floodplain of the lower Amazon (e.g. Denevan 1996), and various sites in the forest- savannah mosaic of the southern Amazon (e.g. Balée 1989, 1992; Mayle et al. 2007). The envi- ronmental history of interfluvial upland areas, near the Andes Mountains, has received less at- tention. This research focuses on such an inter- fluvial upland area in western Amazonia, and primarily on post-Columbian times up to the turn of the millennium. The objective is to recon- struct, to the extent possible given the availabili- ty of data, the character, intensity, and spatial distribution of human impacts on the environ- ment during the last five centuries. This study responds, in two ways, to a call made for more attention to the spatial distribu- tion of the ecological impacts of indigenous peo- ples (cf. Bush & Silman 2007; Barlow et al. 2012; McMichael et al. 2012a, 2012b). First, the study area lies in a type of natural environment that has seldom been subject to this kind of study, and, second, the study itself has an explicitly spatial approach, focusing on how environmental im- pacts have been distributed in space within the study area. By providing historical depth as well as a view of the spatial variability of resource use in the particular area studied, this paper contrib- utes to the ongoing quest for better understand- ing past interactions between humans and nature in Amazonia, including how human activities may have left lasting – although not always read- ily visible − traces on the forest composition. 38 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014)Anders Siren Study area: The lands of the Sarayaku community Sarayaku is a community located along the middle stretches of the Bobonaza river, in the Pastaza province, in Ecuadorian Amazonia (Fig. 1). The nearest road is about 30 km upriver. The landscape consists of old fluvial deposits that have been up- lifted by the eastward movement of the Andes and heavily dissected by erosion (Räsänen et al. 1990). Thus, the topography is rugged and characterized by ridges separated by deep valleys, where there typically are small creeks. The Bobonaza River is a sinous river running in the bottom of a confined valley. It has a winding course and stony rapids alternating with stretches of slow-flowing water. At most it reaches some forty meters width within the Sarayaku lands. The surrounding alluvial plains occasionally get flooded for a day or two after heavy rains, but there is no seasonal flooding, so the forests on these plains are very distinct from the seasonally flooded varzea forests of lower Am- azonia. Annual rainfall is about 3000−3500 mm, and the elevation in the area is 330−640 m a. s. l. Natural environmental variability in the area has been discussed by Sirén et al. (2013). A catholic mission was established at the site around 1830 (Jerves 1930; Espinosa 1943b) or possibly already in 1817 (Reeve 1988: 67). After this, various ethnic groups gradually merged in or- der to form what today is the Sarayaku kichwa. These groups were in particular the Záparo, from north of the Bobonaza River, the Achuar from the south, as well as some Kichwa-speaking Indians from Canelos, a mission 35 km upriver on the Bob- Fig. 1. Location of the study area. Dashed gray line indicates approximate limits of the study area. The history and current use of the secondary homes, or purinas, is further discussed in the text. FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 39History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... onaza which had been established already in the 17th century. The boom of collection of wild rub- ber in Amazonia, caused by the increased interna- tional demand, apparently reached Sarayaku in the late 1880’s. Local elders tell that the rubber was shipped downriver to the city of Iquitos in Peru, and that this led to markedly increased eco- nomic and cultural interactions in downriver di- rection. It also led to further ethnic mixture, as mestizo rubber traders, Andoas Indians from downriver (currently Peru), as well as Napo Kich- wa refugees fleeing from slavery-like debt bond- age, arrived to Sarayaku, married and stayed. Today Sarayaku has about a thousand inhabit- ants living in five separate hamlets, but during school vacations most families disperse out to sec- ondary homes called purinas at some distance away from the main settlement (Fig. 1). Shifting cultivation, hunting, and fishing form the basis for what is largely a subsistence economy. Poultry is a minor complementary food source, and govern- mental salaries, cattle, fibers of the Aphandria na- talia palm, handicrafts, tourism, and migratory work provide some cash income. Since 1992 Sarayaku and surrounding communities possess communal land titles, but the limits between com- munities are a desk product that neither reflects current land use, nor the previously existing cus- tomary or mutually agreed limits (Sawyer 1997; Sirén 2004: Ch. 5). The study area is defined as the area that the community currently claims as their property. This covers approximately 1400 km2, al- though the limits with adjacent communities are in many cases fuzzy or disputed. In practice, the area used exclusively by people from Sarayaku decreased during the 20th century, as several new communities were established within or on the fringes of Sarayaku lands, starting around 1960. At that time, the Shaimi village was formed by dispersed groups of Achuar who settled down to live in a permanent village, the Teresa Mama village was formed by a family from Saray- aku who settled permanently in their secondary home and got many children, whereas the villages of Yatapi and Muritikucha were formed mainly by people from nearby communities. In 1983, about a tenth of the Sarayaku households left to create a new community called Jatun Molino some 15 km downstream of Sarayaku, since then forming an enclave within Sarayaku lands. In the 1990’s a few families budded off from the Llanchamakucha community to form a new community called Masaramu. Although there were no fixed limits be- tween communities, in practice the foundation of all these new villages (Fig. 1) implied a reduction in the area available for the Sarayaku people. The direct impact of the Sarayaku people on the forest cover is modest; about 0.2% of the study area is under current cultivation, and about 4% consists of fallows younger than 65 years (Sirén 2007). On the other hand, practically the whole area suffers an impact from hunting. In particular, spider monkey (Ateles belzebuth), woolly monkey (Lagothrix lagotricha and L. poeppigii), tapir (Tapi- rus terrestris) and Salvin’s currassow (Mitu salvini) are severely depleted and even locally extinct over a large part of the community’s hunting grounds, and also several other species have strongly re- duced populations (Sirén et al. 2004). Methods This study is largely based on information provid- ed by local people (For similar approaches to the study of the history of Amazonian peoples see Mu- ratorio 1991, Cabodevilla 1999, and Stanfield 1998), but also draws on historical source docu- ments, grey literature, and scientific publications. In the first place, the study relies on compilation, i.e. the accumulation of data and information from written or oral, primary or secondary sources, spe- cifically about the study area. When information about the study area itself has not been available, the study instead relies on extrapolation in space and time, assuming that the study area has under- gone similar change processes as other similar ar- eas have done. Such extrapolation is risky, as one easily may underestimate the ecological and cul- tural variability in Amazonia and make too sweep- ing generalizations. Therefore, such extrapolation was made based only on information about areas near the study area and known to be similar to it, culturally as well as ecologically. When neither compilation nor extrapolation was possible, in- stead deduction was used, i.e. logical reasoning based on known principles about the relations be- tween humans and the environment. In order to record oral history a number of work- shops were organized with local community members. During a first workshop, a historical line was constructed, which identified, and located in time, the main historical events recognized by the community members. Based on this, eight distinct epochs were defined (Table 1), which formed the basis for the subsequent group interviews. 40 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014)Anders Siren Group interviews had a semi-structured charac- ter and were based on a scheme where a list of questions had been defined for each one out of six broad themes, namely 1) Demography and settle- ment pattern, 2) Agriculture and domestic animals, 3) Hunting, 4) Fishing, 5) Trade, and finally, 6) So- cial organization and power relations. Although the focus of this article corresponds primarily to the three first of these themes, also the other three themes were important in order to get a fairly com- plete picture of the context. The interviews were organized as one workshop in each hamlet, where each workshop focused primarily on two or three out of the six themes. All elders approximately above the age of 60 and living in the hamlet were invited, and sometimes also a few from some adja- cent hamlet. The oldest participants were born in the 1920’s. Also secondary school students or, in one case, primary school students, were invited. Most of the workshops were held in a private home of some resident in the respective hamlet, where the hostess served drinks of asua (a locally made brew made of cassava) to create a comfort- able setting for the elders. A local assistant opened the discussion and directed it, but the elders were encouraged to talk freely, without much concern about strictly following the pre-elaborated ques- tion scheme. Also the students were encouraged to ask questions to the elders. Myself and an addi- tional assistant took notes and I also made follow- up questions. Often several discussions took place simultaneously, and therefore the three of us al- ways were seated spread out so that we together would catch everything that was said during the session. The following morning the three of us would meet in order to transcribe our notes on the computer. After having done three such work- shops, the resulting transcribed material was codi- Table 1. Major events in the history of the community which were used in order to structure discussions at workshops with local elders. Event Year Comments First arrival of missionaries 1817-1833 The mission was abandoned in 1867 and re-established four or five years later (Pierre 1983: 8, 99). Some accounts by the elders about the arrival of the missionaries seem to refer to that re-establishment of the mission in the 1870’s. Onset of the rubber boom 1887-1890 An exhaustive traveler’s account from Sarayaku in 1887 makes no mention of any rubber trade going on (Pierre 1983: 175−182), but another account only three years later mentions an intense activity of collecting and trading rubber (Vargas 1976: 44, 82). Demise of the rubber boom Approx. 1910-1920 No elders had own memories of the rubber boom going on, and the oldest were born around 1920. There was a short resurgence of rubber trade in the 1940’s, and some elders seemed to refer to this epoch instead, when talking about the rubber boom. Beginning of war between Ecuador and Peru 1941 Arrival of Protestant missionaries Around 1960 Timing estimated based on elders remembering which of their children were born, or not born, at the time. Creation of Centro Alama Sarayacu, the first community organization 1976 Footmarch to Quito in order to demand land titles 1992 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 41History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... fied and restructured according to the time ep- ochs and themes previously defined. The material was analyzed in order to identify what particular pieces of information were missing, and a corre- sponding list of specific questions was elaborated. During the fourth and fifth workshop, this list was used in addition to the original interview scheme. Reconstructing the demographic history of the community was done based on various additional sources, including previously published regional estimates of pre-Columbian population density, historical source documents from the study area, population data published in El Oriente Domini- cano, the news bulletin of the Dominican Mission in the town of Puyo, (1929: 8; 1929: 9; 1930: 17; 1937: 70−71; 1943: 118; 1947: 172), official censuses (INEC 1974, 1982, 1990, 2001), and retrospective mapping (cf. Sadomba 1996) at sep- arate community workshops in each hamlet, where the local participants made maps indicat- ing all households present in the years 1941, 1960, 1978, and 2001 (Fig. 2). Recent population numbers and trends were estimated based, in ad- dition, on unofficial censuses made by Edeli et al. (1998) and Sirén (2004), as well as unpublished 2001 pre-census data of the National Ecuadorian Institute for Censuses (INEC), and inspection, for quality assessment purposes, of the filled-in cen- sus forms for of the 2001 official census. This lat- ter revealed that the quality was very poor and very many residents omitted. This was probably because, different from the pre-census that was carried out by INEC staff, the census itself was carried out by local teachers with little training and little motivation for this additional work task imposed upon them. The utility of official census reports is limited also because they do not pro- vide numbers for the population at the level of the Sarayaku community, but only for the parish cent- er, which is just one of the five hamlets in the community, and for the entire parish, which in- cludes also several neighboring communities. For further details on methodology, see Sirén (2004: 67−71). The findings are presented in the following or- der. First, demography, then settlement pattern and agriculture, and, finally, hunting. The reason for using this order is that although quantitative and spatially explicit data on hunting in the past is virtually absent, one can make some deduc- tions about it based on what is known about de- mography and spatial patterns of settlement. And although quantitative data is scarce also on past agriculture, one can draw conclusions about it using deduction based on known demographic changes. Fig. 2. Participatory mapping of demographic changes in the community. The youngest generation of participants at a work- shop in the hamlet of Sarayakillu make a map of the present. Subsequently, participants representing progressively older generations made similar maps of the past. 42 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014)Anders Siren Demography Population density in the Americas before 1492 can only be very crudely estimated, due to the scarcity of data. Newson (1996) estimat- ed the pre-Columbian population density to 0,34−0,43 persons/km2 for a huge area includ- ing our study area and stretching from the base of the Andes in the west to the Marañon River in the south and the Putumayo River in the northeast. After the arrival of Europeans to the American continent in 1492, the population decreased, and is believed to have reached its nadir around 1760 (Taylor 1986). Some con- temporary accounts from the study area seem to confirm that population density was indeed very low in the area in the mid-18th century. In 1737, finding footsteps some 40 km downriver from the site of the current Sarayaku village was a curiosity for a party of missionaries trav- elling up the Bobonaza (Tobar-Donoso 1960: 132). In 1769, the only survivor of a ship- wrecked party on the lower Bobonaza, Mrs. Isabel Goudin, had to walk for nine days – ap- parently without finding any trails or other signs of human presence - until she met two Indians travelling on the river, who saved her life (Whittaker 2005). An estimate, which appears to be trustwor- thy, of the population of Sarayaku was provid- ed for the years 1888−1889 by a missionary who travelled widely in the region and record- ed the number of inhabitants of over 20 settle- ments or forest areas, in some of which he even distinguished between ‘infidels’ and ‘Christians’ (Magali 1978: 45). According to this source, the Sarayaku mission community had about 460 innhabitants, and in an addi- tion, approximately 50 persons were living in the surrounding forests of the study area, such that this would altogether correspond to a pop- ulation density of 0.39 inhabitants/km2, sug- gesting that by then the population might have recovered to a level similar to that of pre-Co- lumbian times. Available population data pub- lished by the Dominican Mission from 1928−1947 show highly fluctuating numbers, inconsistent with recorded numbers of bap- tisms and deaths, but suggest on the whole that the population had remained relatively stag- nant since the late 19th century, something which is supported also by a testimony of a missionary in Sarayaku in the 1930’s: “The marriages of the Indians are in general very fecund: ten or twelve children is the fruit of a union. Nevertheless, the population remains stagnant, because of the death of almost all of the children that succumb, victims of diseases and lack of food and disgraces of an abrupt na- ture.” (Vargas 1931, translation by the author) Since the 1940’s, in any case, population growth has been rapid, although mitigated by high rates of emigration. A pre-census carried out in 2001 by governmental staff showed a popula- tion of 961 inhabitants in Sarayaku (INEC, un- published data), a figure almost equal to a popu- lation count done by myself soon before. Taking into account that by then the territory effectively available to the Sarayaku people had shrinked somewhat due to the establishment of some new communities, the population density in 2001 can be estimated to 0.96 inhabitants/km2, i.e. be- tween two and three times higher than the re- gional pre-Columbian population density esti- mated by Newson (1996). The annual rate of population growth during the latter part of the 20th century was estimated to 1.6% (Sirén 2004: 144). Settlement pattern and agriculture The demographic trends are also reflected in the need for food and thus, the land area under culti- vation, although this is also affected by various other factors. Phytolithic records reveal that agri- culture has been practiced in Ecuadorian Amazo- nia at least since 5300 B. P. Intensification of maize cultivation then seems to have occurred from about 2400 B.P. until 800 B.P., when maize disappears from the pollen record. Nevertheless, the amount of pollen from species typical of sec- ondary forests indicates that cultivation of other crops probably continued to increase, although not resulting in massive deforestation as in other neotropical regions outside Amazonia (Piperno 1990). In the Sarayaku area, the earliest evidence – found so far – for human occupation dates from about 500 A.D., consisting of pieces of pottery found during archeological excavations at the Muritikucha-1 exploratory oil well site. The site, situated on the crest of a ridge, has been repeat- edly occupied up to the late 19th century (P. Netherly, pers. comm). Elders in Sarayaku tell, with considerable de- tail, about a people they call the ‘Tayak’, which FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 43History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... they consider the original people of the Sarayaku area. Historical source material from the region mentions a large number of different ethnic groups, but none with this name. Nevertheless, the Tayak mentioned by the Sarayaku elders do not seem to be a mythical people as suggested by Reeve (1988: 109), but a historical reality. The Sarayaku people recognize certain sites in the forest that they call tayak purun, the sites that used to be farmed by the Tayak people but that now are covered by high forest, and recognized based on the presence of pottery fragments or, much more seldom, stone axes on the forest floor, as well as sometimes a somewhat reddish color of the soil, a slightly different forest structure with absence of giant trees, or, sometimes, oral history alone. It is unclear, however, whether ‘Tayak’ originally was a generic term describing any non- mission Indians (similar to e.g. ‘nomads’ or ‘sav- ages’), or whether it referred to a particular ethnic group. For example, the Záparo people are in the local kichwa dialect referred to as ‘Taway’, and possibly these two similar terms may have the same origin and refer to the same people. The Tayak are said to have used stone axes and knives made of bamboo, and to have lived only on the crests of the ridges, or hilltops, where they farmed mostly maize. These latter affirmations are supported also by other evidence. Archeo- logical excavations in the Yasuní area in north- eastern Ecuadorian Amazonia have shown that, in some interfluvial areas, Pre-Columbian human settlements were indeed found primarily on the ridges (Netherly 1997). Sediment cores taken from this area, however, seem to lack evidence of human landscape disturbance during the last 9,500 years (Weng et al. 2002). In sum, studies from relatively nearby sites suggest that, in pre- Columbian times, people practiced agriculture, but that the extent of deforestation was relatively small, and mostly limited to the crests of the ridg- es. An historical account from the lower Bobon- aza in 1707 indicates that maize was the domi- nant crop in those times (Tobar-Donoso 1960: 239), similar to what the Sarayaku elders claim regarding the Tayak people. The travel account of Isabel Goudin in 1769, mentioned above, fur- thermore, indicates not only that the population density was low, but also that the few people who existed in the region did not have any settlements near the riverside (Whittaker 2005). In any case, the Sarayaku people simultane- ously consider the Tayak to be both their own an- cestors and a group of ‘others’ that to some extent was antagonistic to the ancestors who lived in the early mission community. Although this may ap- pear paradoxical, it becomes much less to when considering that the settling in the mission com- munity was a process spanning over several gen- erations and involving the gradual adoption of the Kichwa language first as lingua franca and then as mother tongue and marker of a common ethnical identity. The last reference made to the Tayaks in oral history is that, in addition to that some gradually became settled in the mission community, the rest, who remained out in the for- est, got virtually wiped out by a devastating smallpox epidemic. This probably occurred sometime in the mid-19th century, as the elders make no more references to the Tayak when talk- ing about epochs later than this. In addition to population density, also the kind of technology available can have profound impli- cations for agricultural practices. In particular, metal tools most likely revolutionized the way agriculture was carried out. The adoption of met- al tools in the Bobonaza region seems to have been a gradual process. In the late 18th century, non-mission Indians acquired metal tools through trade with the Indians of the Canelos mission, 35 km upriver from Sarayaku, but metal tools contin- ued to be in short supply, so that the non-mission Indians still had to rely partly on stone tools (Ru- mazo 1970: 124, 160). When the Sarayaku mis- sion was founded in the early 19th century, access to metal tools most probably improved signifi- cantly, as the Christianized Indians typically even became middlemen who traded industrial goods to the non-mission Indians, who in exchange pro- vided blowguns and other traditional crafts that the Christianized Indians ceased to manufacture themselves (Spruce 1996: 435). Metal tools must have made it easier to make canoes, facilitating fishing as well as river transport. Probably they also made it much easier than before to have farm on the alluvial plains, which before may have been far too laborious to make it worth- while. Clearing the forest on hilltops is still today easier than felling trees on alluvial plains, be- cause the trees tend to have a larger crown on the downside slope, and the momentum of the fall often makes them come loose from the stump and fly several additional meters. Thus the crown lands outside the field area, and this saves much work of chopping up branches and twigs. When clearing for a field on a hilltop, the trees can be 44 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014)Anders Siren felled in this way to both sides of the ridge. More- over, setting fire to big trees has previously been used as an auxiliary technique (Carneiro 1979) and this was probably easier on the crests where the forest tends to be drier. Also weeding is easier on the crests than on the alluvial plains, where weeds grow faster and often form a thick mat, which would be very hard to weed without metal knives. Since the early 19th century, thus, people in- creasingly came to settle and took up farming of the alluvial plains of the Bobonaza River. One may easily think that the change from dispersed settlement and farming on ridgetops to nucleated settlement and farming on alluvial plains was a direct effect of the establishment of the mission. However, some Sarayaku elders claim a few fam- ilies already had settled along the river before the mission was established. Accounts from some nearby areas provide evidence for that the change of settlement from hilltops to riverside habitats at least in some cases did predate the establishment of mission communities. This was the case for the Záparos further downriver the Bobonaza in the mid-19th century (de Vernazza 1849) as well as for the Huaorani people further north in the 1950’s (Cabodevilla 1999: 320−326). Whereas the establishment of the mission community implied a change from disperse to nucleated settlement, this did not imply that the surrounding forests immediately got emptied of people. Many people continued to farm the ridg- es in the surrounding forest, including the Achuar people in the south and the Záparo to the north. Also, to avoid the domination by the priests, some people left the mission community and went to the forest to ‘become záparos’, as local elders put it. Ecuadorian geographer Villavicen- cio (1858) indicated that “only some [záparos] have small fields of maize, manioc and plantains, others live by hunting, fishing and wild fruits. They are almost nomads, following the ripening of the fruits.” Similarly, oral tradition indicates that the Záparos in the Sarayaku area in the mid- 19th century relied heavily on forest fruits, game and fish, and that agriculture was limited to small fields of maize. However, the people who settled in the mis- sion community probably never completely abandoned the areas where they had come from which, after all, were not further away than that they could be reached by foot or canoe in a few days at the most. When passing the Rutunu River in 1857, the famous English botanist and explorer Richard Spruce noted that people from Sarayaku, Pakayaku and Canelos all along this river had pu- rinas, i.e. secondary homes, where they went to wash gold (Spruce 1996: 125). Similarly, it has been described for the Canelos mission, 35 km upriver and established almost two centuries be- fore the mission station in Sarayaku, that the peo- ple who settled in the mission community also continued having houses in their areas of origin, leading to the system of alternating residence in the village and in remote secondary homes, re- spectively, which is still in force (Guzmán-Galle- gos 1997: 147). Local elders in Sarayaku tell that these remote purinas had an important role in the 19th century, when the Sarayaku mission commu- nity at various occasions was abandoned due to smallpox epidemics, as the people dispersed out to their secondary homes in order to escape con- tagion. Some of the more distant purinas (Fig. 1), how- ever, have a somewhat more recent origin, ac- cording to the Sarayaku elders. During the rubber boom, which reached Sarayaku around 1890, al- most all men as well as many women in Sarayaku worked collecting rubber. Different from many other areas, however, they never became subject to slavery or debt-bondage. They felled the rub- ber trees instead of tapping the rubber from standing trees, as was done in many other places. As the stands of rubber trees got depleted near the village, people had to go further away to col- lect rubber. Thus, they expanded their area of re- source use and established new secondary homes in distant locations, which are still today used by their descendants. For a long time, people spent as much time in their purinas as in the mission community. The missionaries never had a perma- nent presence in Sarayaku. Still in the 1940’s, the priest came and went in intervals of a few months, and most people lived dispersed in the secondary homes when the priest was not present (Un ex- Cronista Misionero 1946; Sarayaku elders, pers. comm). In the 1940’s the missionaries opened a school, which in 1943 had 18 pupils out of which 14 were native Indians (Sarayaku elders, pers. comm; Espinosa 1943a). The increasing impor- tance in formal schooling would later have im- portant repercussions for the spatial and temporal patterns of resource use in the area. Up to the 1930’s, land for agriculture was abundant, and almost all fields were made by clearing old-growth forest on good sites such as FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 45History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... hilltops and alluvial plains. Also, land formed by recent river sedimentation was highly preferred sites for agriculture. Most fields were established by clearing primary forest. During World War II there was a boom in the farming of barbasco (Lon- chocarpus nicou), which went to export for pro- duction of the insecticide rotenone, but very soon the demand ceased again (Sarayaku elders, pers. comm; Muñoz 1942). Beginning in the 1940’s, old-growth forest near the village became scarce, so that people increasingly began to re-clear fal- lows instead. Towards the 1970’s land scarcity around the village led to a shortening of the fallow times. The community decided that secondary for- ests belong to the people that first cleared it, and must not be cleared by others without the permis- sion of the owner. This had long been the custom in one part of the village, downriver along the Bobonaza River, but now it became a rule in the whole community (Sarayaku elders, pers. comm; see also Sirén 2006, 2007). In the 1970’s, people increasingly engaged in harvesting fibers from the Aphandria natalia palms, typically felling trees found in the primary forest. The wild stands then started to get depleted, and this led to that many people began to plant these palms. The total area of plantations of A. natalia is, however small, the largest individual holding be- ing only 0.6 ha. The planted palms began to be- come productive some 15 years after planting. However, as prices decreased towards the turn of the century, the interest in planting this palm has dropped and some of the plantations do nowadays not even get harvested. In the 1980’s, participation in formal schooling became basically universal, forcing most people to live in the permanent settlement during all year ex- cept school vacations, i.e. each year one short va- cation of one month, and one longer of three months. Old-growth forest was becoming scarce in the vicinity of human settlements, and the pro- portion of fields made by clearing old-growth for- est had decreased to around 30% of the total cleared area per annum (Sirén 2007). In 1984, about half of the households in Sarayaku cleared forest and sowed pasture, funded by loans from the government channeled through the Fund for Development of Marginal Rural Areas (FODERU- MA). However, cattle rising did not turn out to be very profitable, and by 1998, most of the pastures had returned to fallow. In the late 1990’s the duration of school vaca- tions decreased to just one month twice a year. Thus, people now spend less time in the secondary homes than they used to do. In the 1990’s, lack of good farmland in the vicinity of the settlements forced people to start to clear even steep slopes and stony soils, which previously were considered unapt for agriculture. By the turn of the century, about 18 hectares of old-growth forest was cleared annually, corresponding to a rate of expansion of the area of fields and fallows of 0.4% per year, considerably lower than the annual rate of popula- tion growth of 1.6%, and corresponding to a de- forestation rate of only 0.015% per year (Sirén 2004: Ch. 8; Sirén 2007). In sum, agriculture has always been primarily for subsistence. Cultivation of crops for commer- cialization has occurred on a small scale, often limited in time to short-lived booms, and has not affected the forest cover very much. The location of settlement and cultivated land has undergone considerable changes (Fig. 3). First, agriculture took place scattered on the hilltops, then cultiva- tion started also on the alluvial plains, and settle- ment and agriculture became more concentrated around the mission site, although people also lived in their distant secondary homes part of the year. In recent decades, an increasingly nucleated set- tlement pattern, population growth, and increased sedentarism due to universalized participation in formal schooling have led to land scarcity and quite intensive land use in a limited area around the village. Since some century ago, on the other hand, forests on remote ridges have recovered or continue recovering from the impacts of previous repeated clearing during several hundred or per- haps thousands of years. In contrast to the dominating pattern up to the 19th century, human settlement and agriculture are today quite concentrated in space, most agricul- ture taking place within a few kilometers from the five permanent hamlets (Fig. 4a). The current im- pact of agriculture on the forest cover in this area is probably greater than ever before in any part of the study area. Nevertheless, even here there are places where people do not clear the forest, par- ticularly on steep slopes and in deep gorges (Fig. 4b). The largest of these pockets of apparently un- touched forest within the intensively used zone is about 500 meters wide, and located in an area of heavily intersected terrain with deep gorges alter- nating with knife-edge ridges (Fig. 4c, 4d). Such habitats have probably never ever been cleared, but, as discussed in the next section, they have been subject to the impacts of hunting. 46 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014)Anders Siren Hunting Data on past hunting is very scarce, but some conclusions can be drawn by deduction, based on what is known about changes in population density and settlement pattern. Thus, overall hunting pressure must have decreased sharply as the population density decreased from the 16th to the late 18th century, and then hunting must also have increased when human the population started to increased again. On the other hand, the spatial distribution of hunting is also likely to have changed. Up to the early 19th century, hunt- ing effort must have been rather evenly distribut- ed in space, but as people increasingly settled around the mission during the 19th century, hunt- ing effort must have become more concentrated in space, and even more so towards the latter part of the 20th century when participation in for- mal schooling became universal. The marked spatial gradients in hunting effort and abundance of game animals observed today (Sirén et al. 2004) are thus probably a relatively recent phe- nomenon. In addition, also changes in hunting technol- ogy can potentially have large impacts on what species are targeted by hunters. Sarayaku elders claim that the Tayak used bow and arrow as well as spears to hunt, but they disagree among themselves upon whether the Tayak also used blowguns or whether these were a later intro- duction. In the literature, Stirling (1938) and Metraux (1949), mention that the nearby Jívaro people at the time of first contact used bow and arrow, but Metraux (1949) also mentions that the Záparo, on the other hand, used blowguns but not bow and arrow. As high-quality dart poison was acquired through long-distance trade (Cipoletti 1988), disruptions and (re-)es- tablishment of trade routes may have been one Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the changes over time in the spatial pattern of agricultural land use, in a north- south cross-section of the Sarayaku ter- ritory. The tall black “trees” represent old-growth forest, while the small white “trees” represent cultivated areas and fallows. The figure is not to scale, and the width of the plains is exagger- ated. FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 47History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... cause behind changes in hunting technology. The blowgun is more apt for hunting canopy- living animals, whereas the bow and arrow is more apt for hunting ground-living animals (Sarayaku elders, pers. comm; see also e.g. Chagnon 1997: 51) and these shifts of hunting technology may therefore have caused corre- sponding changes in the animal community structure. In the 1940’s, the blowgun was still the domi- nating hunting weapon (Un ex-Cronista mision- ero 1946) but already in the 1950’s, they were gradually being replaced by muzzle-loaded shot- guns (Sarayaku elders, pers. comm; Maya 1959), Ammunition was however expensive, so still in the 1960’s people used to carry both a blowgun and a shotgun when hunting, and they loaded just 3−5 shots, which they then carefully re- Figure 4. Current location of agricultural fields and fallows, based on remote sensing analysis. Black color indicates areas identified as fields or fallows younger than 20 years, on Landsat TM and ETM+ images from 1987 and 2001. Extent rectan- gles on each map indicates the location of the subsequent map. A: Location of agricultural fields and fallows in the study area. Light gray color indicates the extent of the study area. Dark gray lines represent rivers. B: The intensively used zone around the hamlets. C Close-up with 20-meter contour lines. D: Close-up with 10-meter contour lines. Note 500-meter wide strip of forest unaffected by clearing and farming. For details about the image interpretation procedure, see Sirén (2004, 2007) and Sirén & Brondizio (2009). 48 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014)Anders Siren trieved from the carcass in order to reuse them. Later, cartridge shotguns gradually replaced the muzzle-loaded ones. By the turn of the 20th cen- tury, both types of guns were about equally com- mon, whereas blowguns were by then used just for playing or as a training tool for young boys. Another important change of hunting technol- ogy was the introduction of dogs, as the use of dogs greatly facilitates hunting of several ground- living species, such as pacas (Seniculus paca), collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu) and tapirs (Ta- pirus terrestris). Hunting dogs have been used in the area for such a long time that local elders consider them to have existed “always”. It has also been documented that they were common in the mission communities in the region as early as in the mid-19th century (Spruce 1996). How- ever, hunting dogs in fact seem to have been ab- sent in much of Amazonia until the last few cen- turies. The Huaorani people, living a couple of hundred kilometers to the north, adopted hunt- ing dogs just towards the latter part of the 20th century, after contact and settlement in perma- nent villages (Yost & Kelley 1983). Apparently, the use of hunting dogs among Amazonian indig- enous peoples becomes common only when there is enough contact with urban centres such that new dogs can continuously be brought in or- der to replace those that succumb due to disease, parasites, snake bites, or other calamities (cf. Koster 2009). In the 1960’s, Sarayaku hunters be- gan to hunt with flashlights. The flashlights facili- tated hunting of pacas, armadillos and caimans, and the shotguns facilitated hunting of all spe- cies, although particularly ground-living ones. Whereas population density is one important determinant of hunting intensity, this also de- pends on any commercial demand for wildlife products, in addition to the local demand for subsistence needs. From the 1940’s up to the 1960’s, Ecuadorian merchants visited regularly Sarayaku in order to buy furs from spotted cats, otters (Lontra longicaudis), giant otters (Pteronu- ra brasiliensis) and collared peccaries (P. tajacu), as well as the feathers of toucans (Ramphastos spp.), and live monkeys (Sarayaku elders pers. comm, Blomberg 1964: 19). Contrary to what has been documented for many other places, however, local elders claim that this trade did not affect the abundance of the species in question in the Sarayaku area. Towards the turn of the 20th century, a resur- gence of ethnic pride among indigenous commu- nities near the towns of Puyo and Tena, caused an increased demand for wild game meat which could not be satisfied locally because game hab- itats had long since been converted to farmlands and pasture. Thus, a few times Sarayaku hunters were paid to hunt to provide wild meat for such events, but the community soon decided to pro- hibit such ‘export’. The demand for wildlife products also depends on the availability of other sources of food of similar nutritional value that could act as substi- tutes for wild meat. In this sense, the reliance on fish probably has increased over time, and it was estimated in 2001 that the amount of fish caught in the community was about 2.5 times larger than the amount of wild game hunted. Other sources of food of animal origin were of very mi- nor importance all the way up to the end of the 20th century (Sirén & Machoa 2008). It is to expect that the rapid demographic in- crease during the latter part of the 20th century would lead to a decline of, at least, the most vul- nerable game species, and the testimonies of the Sarayaku people confirm that this has happened. Local elders tell that in the 1930’s, for example, spider monkeys and wooly monkeys were still common at a distance of just some four kilome- ters from the village. In the 1960’s people typi- cally travelled just 6−15 km downriver in order to hunt wooly monkeys for the annual commu- nity festival, whereas today these areas are extir- pated of this species. The forests around the Wiuyaku creek (Fig. 1) are located in one of the remotest corners of the Sarayaku lands, at a dis- tance from the main settlement of over 40 km by canoe followed by some 10 km by foot. Up to the mid 1990’s there was no trail leading to this area and it had not been visited by humans for several decades. A few intrepid hunters, however, went there in the early 1990’s and were followed by others, such that a few years later there was al- ready a trail leading to the area. Towards the turn of the 20th century, festival hunters each year travelled to this area to hunt wooly monkeys, which by now had become very rare everywhere else. In addition, the area also became subject to hunting by hunters from the recently formed Masaramu community, such that this safe haven for wooly monkeys is now disappearing. For spi- der monkeys the situation is even worse as family groups have not been observed for decades, and only occasionally single individuals are ob- served. FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 49History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... The people have over time come to hunt a wider variety of species than before, not only because of improved hunting technology that have facilitated hunting of species that before were difficult or impossible to hunt, but also as an adaptation to increasing scarcity of the most preferred game species. Sarayaku elders tell that their forefathers during the 19th century “...ate only good meat. In those days they did not eat capuchin mokey (Cebus albifrons), saki monkey (Pithecia Monachus) or deer (Mazama spp.).” Today these species, especially deer, are quite commonly hunted and eaten, although still not held in very high esteem. The white-lipped pec- cary (Tayassu pecari) disappeared completely in 1992 perhaps due to disease outbreak (cf. Fragoso 1997), but reappeared in 2001, and is now again abundant (Sirén 2012). In 2003 the community set aside a wildlife reserve where all hunting became prohibited, and another reserve was set aside in the same way in 2005. These reserves are patrolled by forest guards appointed by the community and paid with funds provided from Germany. These reserves cover about 40 km2 each. The intensity of hunting has decreased in the reserves, as evi- denced by the disappearance of the hunting trails that previously crisscrossed the areas. Oc- casional incursions by hunters unwilling to obey to community decisions nevertheless still occur. In sum, hunting has been taking place basi- cally everywhere. However, its overall intensity has varied with human demographic changes, decreasing from the 16th or 17th century up to the late 19th century, then to increase again. Its spatial pattern has also changed, being increas- ingly concentrated in space since the mid 19th century. In the immediate vicinity of the Saray- aku community, hunting intensity has thus in- creased continuously ever since the early 19th century. In remoter areas, however, hunting in- tensity may have decreased as settlement be- came more sedentarized and nucleated. During the last couple of decades, however, hunting intensity in these remote areas seems to have increased again, as human populations have grown, new villages have been founded, and as depletion of game around settlements forces hunters to travel ever further away in order to find prey. Ultimately, the establishment of wild- life reserves has decreased the hunting pres- sure, although only in two limited areas. Discussion and conclusions Some 96% of the Sarayaku area consists of old- growth forest (Sirén 2007), but some of it has, at some point in history, been cleared for agricul- ture. Until recently, however, such forest clear- ing was limited to the crests of the ridges. Only since early 19th century have people cleared for- ests on alluvial plains of the major rivers, and only since a few decades back on steep slopes. Still they do not clear the forest in deep gorges, and rarely on alluvial plains of smaller forest creeks. Thus, much of the study area has proba- bly never been deforested. Hunting, on the oth- er hand, has affected the study area in its totality. Whether extinction of megafauna caused by early humans has changed forest structure, as suggested by Schüle (1992) cannot be con- firmed, but for sure recent hunting has decimat- ed populations of primates, as well as of large birds and ungulates (Sirén et al. 2004), and this without doubt causes cascade effects that affect the whole ecosystem, although much less drasti- cally than does outright forest clearing. The in- tensity of hunting has, however, also been changing, and so has also its spatial pattern. In spite of growing population and improvements in hunting technology, the changes in settlement pattern during the 19th and 20th century also cre- ated almost unhunted refuges in those areas that became remote from nucleated settlements. These refuge areas have recently come under threat to disappear as new communities are founded and hunters reach further and further into the forest. The changes over time in the in- tensity of human resource use and correspond- ing ecological impacts have varied in space de- pending on, in particular, topographical loca- tion and distance from the village (Table 2). The historical developments described in this paper are not all unique to the Sarayaku area. On the contrary, demographic decline followed by recovery, and dispersed settlement gradually being replaced by nucleated settlements around Christian missions, are processes that have af- fected vast expanses of the non-flooded upland areas of western Amazonia (e.g. Taylor 1986). Thus, much of the conclusions reached here may be generalizable for large areas outside the study area itself, although such extrapolation al- ways must be done with great care, considering possible differences in human history as well as in the natural environment. 50 FENNIA 192: 1 (2014)Anders Siren Explaining the reasons behind the observed changes in settlement pattern and resource use is challenging, and attempting to do so inevitably gives rise to several new questions. One important question is why the people used to live only on the ridges and why they then moved down to the al- luvial plains. Defense from tribal enemies (as well as Spaniards) was probably one reason for choos- ing to live on the ridges. The need for defense, however, continued also after people settled around the missions, as the missions sometimes were attacked by antagonistic Indians as well as slave raiders. Obviously bearing this danger in ac- count, the missions were preferably established on high bluffs near the Bobonaza River, surrounded as much as possible by water or deep gorges, and such attacks were often successfully fended off, in- dicating that strategic sites for defense were avail- able also near the large rivers (Casewitz et al. 1988: 136; Reeve 1988: 64; Spruce 1996: 439; Steward & Metraux 1948: 632). As there are also cases where people settled at the river side before the establishment of missions, defense reasons or religion are hardly enough to explain this shift. Technological changes such as improved access to metal tools may have played a role. Again, one must note, however, that on the al- luvial plains of larger rivers such as the Napo, the lack of metal tools did not hinder the development of agriculture practiced by densely populated complex societies (Evans & Meggers 1968, 1973), and this highlights the importance of recognizing that the subsistence strategies may have varied from place to place due to different environmental preconditions. The forest of the Sarayaku area is not complete- ly ‘pristine’, but nor is it ‘anthropogenic’. It is a mosaic of forest subject to impacts of varying in- tensity and character, which during different ep- ochs in the past have followed very distinct spa- tial patterns. This is probably true also for many other parts of Amazonia. Only detailed ecologi- cal field study can reveal what legacies this has left in terms of corresponding spatial patterns in the structure and species composition of the for- est. Table 2. A stylized summary of how the historical changes in impacts of forest clearing and hunting have varied in space, depending on topographical location and distance from the village. Note that the word “never” here is used as an abbrevi- ated form for “most likely never during the last five centuries and, according to currently available data, perhaps not before that either”. Plains Slopes Hilltops Nearby Forest clearing Clearing began around year 1800. Almost all land has by now been cleared at least once. Forest has been increasingly cleared since various decades back. Some forest remains that has never been cleared Clearing began around year 1800 or earlier. Almost all land has by now been cleared at least once. Hunting Hunting intensity decreased from 16th to 18th century. It has then drastically increased since the mid-19th century Remote Forest clearing Forest has never been cleared After centuries or millennia of repeated clearing the forest is now recovering since the mid 20-th century or, in many places, much earlier Hunting Hunting intensity decreased from 16th to 18th century, then increased again. It may have decreased during part of the 19th and 20th century but during the last few decades it has probably increased again. FENNIA 192: 1 (2014) 51History of natural resource use and environmental impacts... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I feel deep gratitude to the elders who kindly shared their knowledge about the history of Sarayaku; Delia Aranda, Ingracia Aranda, Virginia Dahua, Lucia Gayas, Alicia Gualinga, Ambrosia Gualinga, Basilio Gualinga, Camila Gualinga, Delfina Gualinga, Eloisa Gualinga, Imelda Gualinga, Sabino Gualinga, Sarita Gualinga, Delacio Guerra, Amelia Imunda, Atanacio Imunda, Salvador Imunda, Alfredo Malaver, Gonzalo Malaver, Rafael Malaver, Antonio Manya, Erlinda Manya, Corina Montalvo, Aurora Santi, Luzmila San- ti and Rito Santi, and in particular to those of them who have, since then, already passed away; Hugo Aranda, Isilinda Cisneros, Hilda Gualinga, Ricardo Gualinga, Serafina Illanes, Felipe Machoa, Francisco Machoa, Jacinto Machoa, Luperta Machoa, Marcia Machoa, Belisario Malaver, Ignasia Malaver, Plutarco Malaver, Basilio Santi, Belisario Santi, and Miguel Santi. 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