5 

 Fund-U.S. (WWF-U.S.), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the International Union for 

 Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (lUCN) promote the incorporation of settlers and 

 indigenous people into the management of natural areas and local populations of plants and animals 

 (Chicch6n, 1992; Di Castri et al., 1981; Halffter, 1981; Redford and Stearman, 1989). However, in 

 view of the willingness of some people in the Neotropics to deplete local wildlife populations by 

 overhunting and habitat alteration, it is critically important that studies be conducted that carefully 

 measure wildlife use and habitat alteration. The purpose of these studies should be to identify 

 sustainable uses of the wildlife and the areas where they occur. 



Given that the factors affecting local wildlife and habitat communities vary and that local 

 settlers and indigenous people have different needs, interests, and abilities, several questions need to be 

 considered in a study of sustained use of wildlife, such as subsistence hunting: What are the pressures 

 to overexploit plants and animals? Could market hunting become a problem? Are there any cultural 

 limitations that need to be considered? The results likely will suggest certain basic principles about the 

 sustainability of subsistence hunting, but that people and wildlife in different areas are subject to 

 distinctive factors that affect this activity. 



Many anthropological and biological studies about hunting by settlers and indigenous people 

 have been undertaken recently in the Neotropics. These studies are of limited value in evaluating the 

 sustainability of hunting or in generalizing hunting from one site to another because the data were 

 collected for other reasons. Recent anthropological studies in the Amazon Basin, for example, have 

 focused on such topics as wildlife use (Vickers, 1991), optimal foraging (Hames and Vickers, 1982; 

 Hill and Hawkes, 1983), protein consumption (Beckerman, 1979; Gross, 1975), hunting strategies 

 (Paolisso and Sackett, 1985; Saffirio and Scaglion, 1982), and resource availability (Bailey et al., 

 1989). Recent biological studies have examined such topics as food habits and habitat use of game 

 species (Bodmer, 1989, 1990, 1991), game use by settlers and indigenous people (Ayres et al., 1991; 

 Redford and Robinson, 1987; Vickers, 1991), and the effects of habitat disturbance on wildlife (Johns, 



