| Abstract: |
The idea that indigenous societies were essentially in balance with their environment prior to western contact remains strong in both scholarly and popular circles. However, counter claims also appear to suffer from a lack of clear understanding of decision-making in the foraging process, irrespective of time/space dimensions. Focusing on shelled mollusk resources on several atolls in Kiribati, Micronesia, this study examines the relationships between human foragers and their invertebrate prey using Optimal Foraging Theory. Mollusks, like many other coral reef organisms, are relatively sedentary and predictable, but these characteristics make them susceptible to overexploitation. Several foraging models are tested in ethnographic and archaeological contexts, both quantitatively and qualitatively and results compared to predictions of a conservation strategy. The former predict that people will aim for short-term gains, whereas the latter predicts short-term costs for long-term gains and the intent to conserve. The research reveals that mollusk gatherers are foraging optimally and do not pursue conservation as a goal, although conservation may incidentally follow Optimal Foraging decisions. It is argued that natural selection probably never favored the persistence of conservation because individuals have nearly always benefited from short-term goals to ensure greater fitness. While modernization certainly exacerbates the problem of resource depletion, where subsistence gatherers are increasingly faced with diminishing returns and thus probably act more selfishly than in the past, changed circumstances brought about by increasing human population, more efficient extractive technologies, and expanding market opportunities may pave the way for the establishment and maintenance of conservation in heavily impacted environments. In the meantime, however, solutions, such as alternative short-term gains, must be found to ensure that ecological and social collapse does not eliminate future participants from a world where short-term costs for long-term gains may very well become the norm, in the sense of being selected from an evolutionary point of view. Beyond the confines of this study, it is suggested that by focusing on individual decision-making in specific microenvironmental contexts and testing predictions of foraging models, the fit between ideals and actions can be rigorously assessed.
|
