Traditional Conservation Practices

People have inhabited terrestrial ecosystems of the world for thousands of years. Both resource management systems and cosmological belief systems have evolved and continue to develop. In fact, most, if not all, ecosystems and biodiversity have been altered by humans to various degrees (Nelson and Serafin, 1992). The human imprint has in many cases wiped out species and caused substantial land use change (e.g., Turner et al., 1990; Wilson, 1992). However, there are practices of local peoples of both traditional and contemporary society that contribute to biodiversity conservation, practices that are more common than generally recognized (Berkes and Folke, 1998). For example, throughout the Amazonian tropics, scientists have found remnants of past agricultural management systems in landscapes previously believed to be free from human imprint, suggesting that such management systems were highly adapted to natural cycles of forest regeneration (Balée, 1992; Posey, 1992).