The Effects of Settler Incursion on Fish and Game Resources of the Yuquí, a Native Amazonian Society of Eastern Bolivia

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Abstract
Increasing settlement and subsequent deforestation in the Amazon are disturbing animal habitats and placing pressure on indigenous peoples who depend on hunting as a means of subsistence. As policy makers attempt to address growing environment and social concerns, anthropologists are often in a position to provide information relating to traditional subsistence systems and how these systems may be experiencing stress due to development. Crucial to this issue is the need for anthropologists to provide in a proactive manner quantitative, longitudinal resource use data to those in policy-making positions to document the effects of settler incursion on native subsistence systems. This paper will present data from the Yuqui, a foraging people in eastern lowland Bolivia who are experiencing increased pressure on faunal resources from settlers. Using data collected in 1983 and 1988, I will suggest that the Yuqui are beginning to exhibit hunting patterns consistent with known cases of game depletion. I will argue that diminishing faunal resources are being triggered by colonist incursion into Yuqui territory and not by overexploitation per se by the Yuqui. Finally, the availability of these data to a local indigenous rights organization and a major lending agency offer hope that the present trend toward resource depletion in the Yuqui catchment area will be given serious consideration by regional development policy-makers.