Fast-growing indigenous populations hunting for bushmeat inside national parks must be a huge threat to wildlife, right? Well, not necessarily. A study in , on the edge of the Amazon rainforest in Peru, has found “little or no evidence” that any of the most hunted species are in decline, despite a doubling of the numbers of the local Matsigenka tribe in the past two decades.
For years conservationists have warned that the thousand or so Matsigenka people living and hunting in Manu were taking too many birds and mammals, threatening the future of one of the world’s richest wildlife reserves. In fact, nature is more resilient than that, say ecologist Julia Ohl-Schacherer and colleagues from the University of East Anglia in the UK (Conservation Biology, ).
Yes, the Matsigenka kill lots of animals near their settlements with their poisoned arrows and hunting dogs, but new animals move in from hunt-free areas and the park’s overall populations remain stable.
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“Conservationists might better regard indigenous hunters as friends, not foes”
Parks hunted with guns, or those where the unhunted refuges are smaller, may not fare so well, Ohl-Schacherer says, but her findings suggest that hunting and conservation can coexist. And, since indigenous hunters are often the best defence against loggers or other destructive outsiders, conservationists might better regard them as friends, not foes.
