The discourse of Ecological Correctness : of Dam Builders Rescuing Biodiversity

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C H A P T E R 1 0

AQUATIC AND MARINE BIODIVERSITY

Paul Chambers

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION (PAUL CHAMBERS) ........................................................................................................ 399Local environmental knowledge .............................................................................................. 399Local resource management systems ....................................................................................... 400Conflicts over resource values .................................................................................................401

SACRED WATERS (CLAUS BIEGERT) ........................................................................................................ 402

‘PAAVAHU’ AND ‘PAANAQSO’A’: THE WELLSPRINGS OF LIFE AND THE SLURRY OF DEATH(PETER WHITELEY AND VERNON MASAYESVA) .......................................................................................... 403

Of coal-mines and slurries ...................................................................................................... 405

THE DISCOURSE OF ECOLOGICAL CORRECTNESS: OF DAM BUILDERS‘RESCUING’ BIODIVERSITY FOR THE CREE (MARIE ROUÉ AND DOUGLAS NAKASHIMA) ...................................... 406

Upichuun – The First Rapids: place of production and reproduction .......................................... 408Coasters and Inlanders: segmentation and complementarity ..................................................... 408Men’s roles – women’s roles .................................................................................................... 410Biodiversity conservation, but the fish nevertheless are lost ....................................................... 410

GWICH’IN ATTITUDES TO FISH (GLEB RAYGORODETSKY) ............................................................................ 412Dhik’ii – Dolly Varden Charr ................................................................................................... 412Luk zheii – Whitefish .............................................................................................................. 413

SEASONAL WETLANDS (FLEUR NG’WENO) ............................................................................................. 414

COMPETITION BETWEEN ANCESTORS AND CHINESE TRADERS IN THE ARU ISLANDS, INDONESIA(MANON OSSEWEIJER) ......................................................................................................................416

THE LOSS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND MARINE RESOURCE SUSTAINABILITY: THE IMPACT IN HAWAI’I(WILLIAM WALLACE MOKAHI STEINER) ................................................................................................... 417

The kapu system as a response to natural laws ........................................................................ 418Problems in Paradise .............................................................................................................. 419Loss of world .......................................................................................................................... 420

WESTERN SAMOAN VIEWS OF THE ENVIRONMENT (CLARK PETERU) ............................................................ 421

CUSTOMARY MAORI FISHERIES (NGA KAI O TE MOANA, MINISTRY OF MAORI DEVELOPMENT) ........................... 422

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND AMAZONIAN BLACKWATERS OF HUNGER(JANET M. CHERNELA) ....................................................................................................................... 423

Tukanoan fishing .................................................................................................................... 424The agricultural alternative ..................................................................................................... 425Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 426

A JAPANESE VIEW ON WHALES AND WHALING (ARNE KALLAND) ............................................................... 426The cultural significance of whaling ......................................................................................... 427Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 430

GLOBAL PRESERVATION AND THE CREATION OF A PEST: MARINE MAMMALS ANDLOCAL RESPONSE TO A MORATORIUM IN ARCTIC ICELAND (NÍELS EINARSSON) .............................................. 431

TEXT BOXES

BOX 10.1: THE FLOODING OF RIVER SIO (BEATRICE B. MALOBA)

BOX 10.2: ‘THEORETICALLY’ (WILLIAM WALLACE MOKAHI STEINER)

FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURE 10.1: MAP OF EASTERN JAMES BAY, QUEBEC, SHOWING THE VILLAGE OF CHISASIBI NEAR THE MOUTH OF THELA GRANDE RIVER, THE RESERVOIRS CREATED BY THE LA GRANDE HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT, ANDHEALTH INFORMATION ON LEVELS OF MERCURY IN FISH IN VARIOUS STRETCHES OF THE RIVER SYSTEM.

FIGURE 10.2: SERIES OF PHOTOGRAPHS BY J. BOBBISH ILLUSTRATING THE SEINE-FISHING TECHNIQUE USED BY THECHISASIBI CREE AT THE FIRST RAPIDS SITE ON LA GRANDE RIVER, QUEBEC.

TABLE 10.1: PRE-CONTACT AND POST-CONTACT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN HAWAI’I.

AQUATIC AND MARINE BIODIVERSITY / 399

Aquatic and Marine BiodiversityPaul Chambers

Introduction (Paul Chambers)

Rivers, lakes, seas and oceans and the plant andanimal life associated with them are important toevery culture on the planet and form an explicit orimplicit part of the religious beliefs and cultural her-itage of almost all human cultures. They are focalpoints of myth, folklore, art, cultural and religiousimagery, diet, trade, and leisure and recreation.

From the spiritual value of a sacred spring tothe daily catch of fish from a tropical reef, many peo-ples have an ancient and intimate relationship withthe water around them and the life it contains. Formany, the plants and animals that the sea or riversprovide are valued as sources of food, medicine orincome. For an artisanal fisherman, for example, thesea represents a source of food for the family or ofgoods to trade or sell at the market. Clark (this chap-ter) describes the essentially utilitarian views ofnature in Western Samoa: ‘Survival requires prag-matism not aestheticism… Nature exists to feed, tohouse, then to satisfy cultural obligations’.

Andersson and Ngazi (1995) conducted a de-tailed survey of the perceptions and values of ma-rine resources by the inhabitants of Mafia Island,Tanzania’s first marine National Park. They foundthat overwhelmingly the most important values givenwere either direct ‘consumption values’ – the provi-sion of food or building materials – or ‘productionvalues’ – the provision of goods that could be soldor exchanged. Spiritual or cultural values may beharder to define or measure but they are surely noless important in determining the priorities for con-servation efforts. Cultural and utilitarian values areoften closely interlinked so that those resources withgreat utilitarian value – such as a spring or a par-ticularly important plant or animal species – may begiven a religious or ritual significance that ensurestheir safeguarding.

Among the Hopi of the South-western UnitedStates (Whiteley and Masayesva, this chapter), wa-ter is the key to their survival in a desert environ-ment and their relationship to water has beenenshrined at the core of their culture and beliefs.‘How Hopis get and use water is a major part of theiridentity, religious beliefs, ritual practices, and theirdaily engagements and concerns… It is hard to im-agine anything more sacred –as substance or

symbol– than water in Hopi religious thought andpractice.’ For the Tukanoan fishermen of the Brazil-ian Amazon, the integrity of the river-margin spawn-ing grounds of the fish they depend on are crucial tothe long-term maintenance of their fisheries.Chernela (this chapter) describes how these verysites are frequently deemed sacred and thereforeprotected. In the Japanese coastal towns where whal-ing has been a way of life for centuries, whales havecome to acquire great cultural, social and religiousimportance as well as providing an important sourceof food. A taboo on hunting whales with calves servesto conserve whale stocks.

The essays in this chapter serve to remind usthat the value of the natural environment cannot sim-ply be measured with a check-list of plant and ani-mal species and their abundance and distribution.Roué and Nakashima’s study of the effects of a hy-dro-power project on the Chisasibi Cree of Quebecpowerfully illustrates the consequences of ignoringthe cultural aspects of biodiversity. In this instancethe unique features of the site that once made it soimportant to the Cree as both a fishing spot and ameeting place were lost, although threatened fishpopulations were preserved .

Indigenous peoples can, and indeed must, playa central role if marine and aquatic resources are tobe effectively conserved. Local communities oftenhave a detailed knowledge of their environmentgained by observation over many generations. Theymay also implement traditional resource manage-ment frameworks such as rules of tenure and exclu-sion which have successfully served to sustain oreven augment biotic diversity over many centuries(McNeely 1992; Toledo 1991). ‘Biosphere people’(Gadgil 1993a) are the best-motivated guardians oftheir marine and aquatic environments because theyare materially dependent on their long-term preser-vation.

Local environmental knowledge

Many studies have documented the extensive envi-ronmental knowledge of traditional coastal (includ-ing river and lake shore) societies. This knowledgeis most often practically-oriented and directed to-wards means of locating and harvesting resources.In this chapter, for example, Raygorodetsky

400 / CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUES OF BIODIVERSITY

describes the detailed knowledge of the Gwich’in ofNorth-western Canada about the fish they catch, in-cluding the best sites and times to fish and the manyways to prepare, preserve and utilize every part ofthe fish. Ruddle (1994) identifies four main charac-teristics of local coastal knowledge common to manyparts of the world: it is based on long-term, empiri-cal, local observation; it is specifically adapted tolocal conditions, embraces local variation and is of-ten extremely detailed; it is practical and behaviour-oriented, focusing on important resource types andspecies; and it is structured such that it is compat-ible with Western biological and ecological con-cepts through a clear awareness of ecological linksand notions of resource conservation. It is often adynamic system capable of incorporating an aware-ness of ecological perturbations or other changes,and of merging this awareness with an indigenouscore of knowledge. Toledo (1991) writes about theP’urhépecha surrounding Lake Pátzcuaro in cen-tral México: ‘ ...[a] salient feature of P’urhépechaindigenous knowledge is its essentially utilitariancharacter. Nearly all environmental knowledge islinked with one or more practical activities. Thus,ecological, morphological and behavioural knowl-edge about mammals, aquatic birds and fishesserves as the intellectual means to realize theoperational steps of terrestrial hunting and aquaticfishing.’

Kalland (this chapter) describes the detailedknowledge of Japanese whalers: ‘In order to huntwhales successfully it is necessary not only to ac-quire skills in navigation, shooting and handling ofmeat but also to acquire detailed knowledge of themigratory, mating and feeding behaviour of variousspecies of whales… The whalers have learnt to takeaccount of such natural phenomena as tides, cur-rents, winds, wave patterns, water temperature andcolouring. They are also keen observers of fish andbird behaviour. But the knowledge of the whalersgoes beyond this. They need an understanding of howwhales are part of a larger ecological system in whichother maritime organisms as well as humans are alsoparts. The whalers’ knowledge of this ecosystem isbased on centuries of accumulated experience andis intimately linked to religious beliefs and practices.’

The knowledge held by traditional communi-ties can provide the human intellectual ‘gene pool’with the raw material for adaptation to local envi-ronments (McNeely 1992). It should be a key com-ponent in conservation and resource-managementplans for marine and aquatic diversity (Johannes1978, 1982; Ruddle 1994). Gadgil (1993b) writes:‘It is vital ... that the value of the knowledge–prac-tice–belief complex of indigenous peoples relating

to conservation of biodiversity is fully recognizedif ecosystems and biodiversity are to be managedsustainably’. This environmental knowledge isheld within the great variety of indigenous cul-tures in all parts of the world. It is unique andirreplaceable, but is disappearing along with manyof those cultures as they are weakened or de-stroyed. This loss of cultures, or of the traditionalknowledge within them, is as serious a problemas the loss of plant or animal species. Crucialknowledge about how different environmentsmight be used to provide benefits on a sustain-able basis may be lost for ever (McNeely 1992).

Local resource management systems

Traditional common property systems of fisheriesmanagement occur throughout the world (Ruddle1994). These frequently ensure equitable access andinclude management measures leading to sustain-able resource usage. Management strategies includetenure systems with limited entry, as well as restric-tions on fishing gear, seasons and particular species(Johannes 1978, 1982). Johannes (1978), writingabout Oceania, states that many of these practicesare related to religious or superstitious beliefs andthat they serve to conserve fish stocks although it isnot possible to judge whether they were designed todo so. Steiner (this chapter) describes the Hawaiiankapu system of traditional prohibitions which serveto protect and maintain important natural resources.The ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin 1968) can belargely avoided by these traditional patterns of re-source management (Johannes 1978; Feeny et al.1990). By exercising control over their own mem-bers, communities enforce a set of regulations overthe resources that serve as a basis for sustain-able satisfaction of their own material needs. Therichness and accuracy of indigenous ecologicalknowledge serves as the intellectual means toachieve this end.

It would be misleading to state that indigenouspeoples always have a conservationist ethic or thattraditional practices always lead to the conservationof resources. Particularly in areas where populationdensities are low and resource limitation infrequent,wasteful or destructive practices sometimes persist:‘All this should not be taken to mean that Pacificislanders enjoyed a perfect relationship with natureand that all their actions were governed by environ-mental wisdom and restraint. ...In short, environ-mentally destructive practices coexisted, as in mostsocieties, with efforts to conserve natural resources’(Johannes 1978). For example, Clark (this chapter)asserts that Western Samoans have a primarily


utilitarian view of their environment, contrary to com-mon pre-conceptions about indigenous peoples. Thelack of conservationist practices or a reverence fornature may explain the high levels of environmentaldamage in the Samoan islands. Most subsistencepeoples, however, do live sustainably from the re-sources available to them: ‘In contrast to the spe-cialized mode of biological resource use in moderneconomies, where comparatively few resources areperceived and recognized as having production value,under the indigenous view all of the components ofnatural landscapes are directly or indirectly usefulor usable resources. This aspect alone tends to fa-vour a conservationist attitude towards the environ-ment. Moreover, it seems clear that the multiple usestrategy of indigenous communities is an effectivemechanism for preserving and even increasing bio-logical diversity by increasing habitat heterogene-ity’ (Toledo 1991).

The preservation of indigenous peoples andtheir traditional cultures must therefore have a cen-tral part in the conservation of the marine and aquaticbiodiversity that they depend on and in turn sustain.‘Perhaps the most difficult problem faced today inthe effort to accomplish biological conservation inthe Third World is the inability of educated peoplesuch as scholars, conservationists and policy-mak-ers to recognize and comprehend the enormous eco-logical value of the modes of subsistence oftraditional cultures that inhabit rural areas. Mostrecent evidence suggests that the indigenous peo-ples play a key role in the conservation of biologicaldiversity’ (Toledo 1991).

Locally-based resource rights are of great im-portance for biodiversity conservation. Wheneverpeople with a limited resource base have exclu-sive control over their own environment they willtend to maintain it to their best material advan-tage. Given the wide range of environmental serv-ices that people need, this generally meansmanaging the environment sustainably and somaintaining a high level of biotic diversity. In prac-tice however, adequate resource tenure is rare.Few indigenous peoples have the legal authorityto protect their own resource rights. Without thisthey are powerless to prevent outside exploitation,even if their own traditional rules of reef or seatenure, for example, are still applied amongstthemselves. In the resulting ‘open access’ condi-tions the only rational behaviour is to join in andexploit the dwindling resource base in an unsus-tainable way. Recognizing locally-based propertyrights, on the other hand, gives both an incentiveand a means for the involvement of local peoplesin effective biodiversity conservation.

Conflicts over resource values

Most ‘Western’ societies have become increasinglyalienated from the natural world, both culturally, andas a result of urbanization, also geographically. Inthe homogenous ‘monoculture’ that results, littleremains of the traditional knowledge of, and atti-tudes towards, the environment. The differing val-ues accorded to natural resources between such‘modern’ cultures and more traditional communitiesare evident in many of the contributions within thischapter. These differences have inevitably led to con-flicts over the use or protection of natural resources.This is never clearer than over attitudes to water. Inthe first contribution in this chapter, Claus Biegertvividly conveys the contrasting values of water indifferent cultures; from reverence and respect insome to thoughtless exploitation in others. Whiteleyand Masayesva continue this theme, describing howthe activities of a coal-mining company have dis-rupted the precious springs and rivers upon whichthe Hopi of Arizona depend.

Where these conflicts have occurred, it is rarely‘modern’ culture that compromises and accommo-dates the different values and practices of traditionalpeoples. In the case of the Chisasibi Cree in Quebec,for example, a large-scale hydro project destroyedtraditional fishing grounds and displaced an Indiancommunity. Despite their protests, the material andcultural consequences for the Cree were deemedsecondary to the demands for energy of the state.

Most instances of conflict over resource valuesarise, as in the two examples above, when indigenouspeople desire to protect their local resources in theface of demands from an industrialized society. How-ever, this is not always the case. Two contributionsin this chapter explore recent conflicts generatedbetween traditional resource users – in this instanceJapanese and Icelandic whalers or fishermen – andoutsiders wishing to protect these same resources –marine mammals – for aesthetic or moralistic rea-sons. In coastal areas of Japan, whaling is a tradi-tional way of life and has a cultural importance beyondthe simple provision of food. Kalland discusses thestrong social repercussions of the Western-imposedmoratorium on these whaling communities and theresentments that this creates. This is particularlystrong as the whale species hunted by the Japaneseare no longer endangered. ‘That whales should notbe killed for ethical reasons is furthermore incom-prehensible to most Japanese, who rather wouldquestion the ethics of killing domesticated animalsfor food. To an increasing number of Japanese themoratorium is therefore interpreted as an assaulton their culture…’. Einarsson similarly describes the


effects of the moratorium on Icelandic whalers andfishermen who feel that outsiders with little experi-ence of, or participation in, their environment aredepriving them of their traditional livelihood. Boththese examples raise the question: who is biodiver-sity conservation for? Without a clear answer to thisquestion we will always be faced with irreconcilableconflicts whenever the environmental values of lo-cal people do not match those of a wider group – beit a multinational company, the state or the globalconservation community.

The contributions in this chapter show thatthere is a strong link between local peoples – theirculture and language, their ecological knowledge,and their traditional management systems – and thebiodiversity of their marine and aquatic environ-ments. One lesson we need to learn is that the cul-tures and ways of life of traditional peoples are asdeserving of protection as the biotic diversity thatthey value and depend on. Local environmentalknowledge and traditional resource managementpractices could be a vital asset as we seek to livesustainably on our planet. All too often, however,local peoples are seen as a potential obstruction or,at worst, as active opponents of biodiversity protec-tion and conservation. To be sustainable and last-ingly effective, conservation practice must integrateboth cultural and biological conservation; the ‘peo-ple factor’ cannot be simply omitted from considera-tions of biodiversity. Rarely are these two aimsexclusive and, from this chapter, it is apparent thatthey are inseparably linked.

Sacred waters (Claus Biegert)

‘I was in Cleveland in the late sixties and got talk-ing with a Non-Indian about American history’, VineDeloria Jr. remembers. The white businessman saidthat he was really sorry about what had happenedto the Indians, but that there was good reason for it.The continent had to be developed and he felt thatIndians had stood in the way and thus had to be re-moved. ‘After all’, he remarked, ‘what did the Indi-ans do with the land when they had it?’

Deloria didn’t understand him at first, butthen he read the warnings along the CuyahogaRiver and realized that this stream runningthrough Cleveland is inflammable. So many com-bustible pollutants are dumped into the river thatthe inhabitants have to take special precautionsduring the summer to avoid accidentally setting iton fire. Deloria concludes, ‘After reviewing theargument of my Non-Indian friend I decided thathe was probably correct. Whites had made better

use of the land. How many Indians could havethought of creating an inflammable river?’

With this episode Deloria, a Lakota from Stand-ing Rock, opens his provocative publication We talk,You listen. As a professor of law and an author ofbest-selling books, he is troubled by the fact thatthe members of dominant societies are unable tomaintain a spiritual relationship with the naturalworld. Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the OnondagaLonghouse Council of Chiefs, likes to say, ‘In the ab-sence of the sacred, anything goes!’ Ethical barriers toprevent destruction are simply removed. ‘One of thefuture wars’, Lyons predicts, ‘will be over clean water.’

Indigenous cultures around the world maintaina special relationship to water: water is sacred. West-ern civilization could be portrayed by a single sign:Water Not Potable ! The late Philip Deere from Okla-homa, medicine man of the Muskogee Nation, calledrivers and streams the veins of the world. Blood poi-soning can be fatal for humans and polluted riversshould be seen the same way, he often said. ButWestern medicine which has moved from healing toresearch, is ignoring the patient earth. This separa-tion is not existent in indigenous cultures that con-sider humankind’s well-being and the well-being ofMother Earth as one. From an indigenous view, todestroy ancient aquifers and dump nuclear waste intothe oceans is like suicide.

The Maori of New Zealand waged a legal battleon behalf of their rivers. They won, defeating publicplans to build a sewage treatment plant along thebanks of their sacred Kaituna River. From a Maoripoint of view, it is unimaginable that effluents andtreated wastes should be channelled into a naturalbody of water. One of the Kaituna’s defenders is EvaWaitiki: ‘We told the judges about our river, its power,its uniqueness. We told them that the Kaituna is likea brother to us. We even spoke of the Taniwha, theprotecting water spirits. We explained to them thatthe sicknesses of the soul which we call Mate Maori,can only be healed by a healthy river. And that flush-ing treated water into the Kaituna would be to rob itof its healing nature and to take away the hopes ofthose who are sick.’

As a child, Eva Waitiki was brought to theKaituna to be cured. ‘When I was seven years old’,she remembers, ‘I stepped on a shard of glass andbadly cut my foot. The White doctor said that I wouldbe lame for life. Then the elders brought me to theKaituna. They submerged me entirely, the clear wa-ter surging over me. They repeated this every dayand after two weeks my foot was completely healed.’

In the highlands of Arizona, the Hopi ofHotevilla on Third Mesa fought a bitter battle against


the implementation of a public water system. ‘Onlywhen we can visit the spring’, say the traditionalHopi, ‘can we accord water the respect it is due anduse it honourably.’ According to the elders, childrenwho only see the water that comes from the faucet –water that has been piped over a course of milesinto their homes – can have no real understandingof water’s essence. The elders did not win in thiscontroversy: in October 1996 a sewage line was in-stalled on Third Mesa. For the Kikmonqwis (spiritualvillage leaders) and priests it is like an umbilicalcord being broken. The Kachinas, the messengers tothe spirit world, follow a certain pattern betweenthe San Francisco Peaks and the Hopi Mesas. Now,the elders say, their energy lines are disrupted.

In the industrial world, rivers are put to work.The Cree people of James Bay in Northern Quebecare threatened by a gigantic hydro project which, inthe late seventies, flooded vast areas of their hunt-ing grounds. For the Cree, the land and the riversare like a garden which is taken care of and har-vested by the people who, temporarily, are the cus-todians of the land. Now the La Grande River, calledChisasibi (Big River) by the Cree, is drowned bywater. While the shores were an important sub-Arc-tic ecosystem and the stream a rich source of fish,the new shores are just separations between waterand land without a specific shoreline vegetation –and the reservoir is a source of fatal sickness sinceall the fish are heavily contaminated by mercury.

Walter Hughboy, chief of the coastal villageWemindji, remembers flying over the reservoir.‘When I saw the dry land for the first time, whichonce was covered by water, and when I saw the res-ervoir, saw the tips of the drowned woods, I was hurtas never before in my life. I don’t know if a whiteperson can understand that: something good insideyou dies, you lose your innocence. It hits you in yourown identity, it hits you exactly where you know whoyou are and where you belong to. Something likethis hits a human being in its essence which is gov-erned by cosmic laws. We Cree have a spiritual rela-tionship with the world around us. Something istaken away from us Cree, something which has itsplace deep inside you. After the flood you are notthe same person any more.’

The relationship with the natural world we havelost cannot simply be brought back at a workshop.Much looking is needed before we can find an hon-est way to restore it. Meanwhile, help from all sidesis needed. A few legal scholars, much in the senseof the traditional Maori, have risen up to defend na-ture and to grant it a voice. One pioneer of the envi-ronmental rights movement is the American LegalProfessor Christopher D. Stone. In his provocative

book, Should Trees Have Standing? he poses the ques-tion, ‘Why should a mountain or a lake or a forest oran animal species not have the right to be repre-sented by lawyers in a court of law, when a firm –clearly no living entity – is granted such right?’ Ju-ristically, land, flora and fauna are yet treated aspossessions. Stone demands that not only shouldsuch entities have the right to act as plaintiffs, butthat nature should be accorded a fundamental stand-ing unmitigated by human values, that natural enti-ties should be accorded a set of intrinsic andinalienable rights regardless of utility or beauty.

It is time that a river that burns will be able tosue.

Paavahu and Paanaqso’a: thewellsprings of life and the slurry ofdeath (Peter Whiteley and VernonMasayesva)

‘[T]his is... one of the most arid countries in theworld, and we need that water. That is why we doKachina dances in the summer, just to get a dropof rain. And to us, this water is worth more thangold, or the money. Maybe we cannot stop the min-ing of the coal, but we sure would like to stop theuse of water.’ (Dennis Tewa, Munqapi village, at apublic hearing on the renewal of the Black Mesa–Kayenta mine permit, Kykotsmovi, 9 August 1989).

The Hopi Indians of north-eastern Arizona are anepitome of human endurance: they are farmers with-out water. According to their genesis narrative, theHopi emerged from a layer under the earth into this,the fourth, world by climbing up inside a reed. Uponarrival, they met a deity, Maasaw, who presentedthem with a philosophy of life, based on three ele-ments: maize seeds, a planting stick and a gourdfull of water. Qa’ö, maize, was the soul of the Hopipeople, representing their very identity. Sooya, theplanting stick, represented the simple technologythey should depend on: there was an explicit warn-ing against over-dependency on technology, whichhad taken on a life of its own in the third world be-low, producing destruction through materialism,greed and egotism. Wikoro, the gourd filled withwater, represented the environment – the land andall its life-forms, the sign of the Creator’s blessing ifthe Hopis would uphold Maasaw’s covenant and liveright. Maasaw told them life in this place would bearduous and daunting, but through resolute perse-verance and industry, they would live long and bespiritually rich.

Persistent occupation of the Hopi mesas formore than a millennium is both remarkable and


paradoxical. Unlike the other Pueblos, with nostreams or rivers to support agriculture, the Hopisubsistence economy’s dependence on maize, beansand squash must seek its water elsewhere. HowHopis get and use water is a major part of their iden-tity, religious beliefs, ritual practices, and their dailyengagements and concerns. Much of the complexHopi religious system is devoted in one way or an-other to securing necessary blessings of water – inthe form of rainfall, snow, spring replenishment, etc.– to sustain living beings, whether humans, animalsor plants.

The phrase ‘Hopi environmentalism’ is practi-cally a redundancy. So much of Hopi culture andthought, both religious and secular, revolves aroundan attention to balance and harmony in the forces ofnature, that environmental ethics are in many wayscritical to the very meaning of the word ‘Hopi’ andits oft-heard opposite qahopi (‘un-Hopi’ – ‘badly be-haved’). Hopi society is organized into clans, themajority of which are named after, and have specificassociations with, natural species and elements, likeBear, Sun, Spider, Parrot, Badger, Corn, Butterfly,Greasewood, Tobacco, Cloud, indicating the uttercentrality of environmental forms and ecological re-lationships in Hopi thought. Myriad usages of natu-ral species and agents in Hopi religious ritual expressthe depth and detail of this ecological awareness andconcern. Ritual performances typically embody andencapsulate key vital principles of the natural world.Even a casual observation of a Hemis Kachina spiritat Niman (the Home Dance), to just take one case,reveals a being festooned with spruce branches, wildwheat, clouds, butterflies, tadpoles, seashells, andso on. The bringing together of these natural sym-bols is in many instances designed to both evokeand celebrate the life-giving force of water in theworld.

It is hard to imagine anything more sacred – assubstance or symbol – than water in Hopi religiousthought and practice. To be sure, some elements mayappear more prominent: corn, the staff of life, whichis ubiquitous in Hopi religious imagery; rattlesnakesfrom the spectacular Snake Dance; or masked per-formances by Kachina spirits. But intrinsic to these,and underlying much other symbolism in the pano-ply of Hopi ritual, is the concern with water. Springs(Paavahu), water and rain are focal themes in ritualcostumes, kiva iconography, mythological narratives,personal names, and many songs, which call thecloud chiefs from the various directions to bear theirfructifying essence back into the cycle of human,animal and vegetal life. That essence – as clouds,rain and other water forms – manifests the spirits ofthe dead. When people die, in part they become

clouds; songs call to the clouds as ascendant rela-tives. Arriving clouds are returning ancestors, theirrain both communion with and blessing of the liv-ing. The waters of the earth (where Kachina spiritslive) are, then, transubstantiated human life.

In general, springs and ground-water serve ashomes for the deity Paalölöqangw, Plumed Water-Snake, who is a powerful patron of the water sourcesof the earth and the heavens. Paalölöqangw is ap-pealed to in the Snake and Flute ceremonies, andportrayed in religious puppetry during winter nightdances. Springs and their immediate surroundingsare places of particular religious worship in someinstances, like the Flute ceremony, or duringPowamuya (the Bean Dance) and Niman (the HomeDance). The Flute ceremony is specifically devotedto the consecration and regeneration of majorsprings, and the Lenmongwi, head of the Flute soci-ety, in an archetypal gesture, dives to the bottom ofa particularly sacred spring to plant prayer-sticksfor Paalölöqangw.

Since time immemorial, Hopis have offeredblessings of cornmeal and prayers at springs, dur-ing specific visits for the purpose or simply whilepassing through the landscape (say, during herding,hunting or treks to distant cornfields). When bless-ing a spring, typically a man also scoops a handfulof water and splashes it back towards his village orfields as a way to encourage the water to transfersome of its power to where humans most need it.Springs attract the rain and snow to themselves, andthus serve as powerful foci of value in Hopi thought.Indeed, this is why they are sacred places: if muchof Hopi religious thought celebrates life, then springsare self-evident indexes of the dynamic process thatproduces and sustains life. At the winter solsticeceremonies feathered prayer-sticks are placed overmajor springs around every Hopi village as both pro-tection and supplication.

Springs themselves, like maize in fields, wereoriginally ‘planted’ in the earth by deities or giftedindividuals. There was even a special instrument, apaa’u’uypi (‘spring planter’) known to the elect andused for this purpose. (A spring by Munqapi, for ex-ample, is said to have been planted in this way by aman named Kwaavaho – for whom the spring isnamed – in the late nineteenth century). Pilgrimagesto reconsecrate and draw in regenerative power fromespecially significant springs at distant points are com-mon in the religious calendar. Villages may be namedfor springs, like the mother village, Songoopavi, ‘sand-grass spring place’. Some clans have exceptional re-sponsibilities to springs, like Patkingyam, the Waterclan, and some springs are sacred to specific clansor religious societies at the different villages. Clan


migration routes from former villages are often re-traced – both literally, in pilgrimages, and figura-tively, in narratives and songs – at certain times ofthe year. In many instances, clan associations withsprings at their ruins or along the route are men-tioned as locations of important historical events.So the Water clan has a series of historical points,marked by springs, along its migration route fromthe south – like Isva, Coyote springs, south of Dilkon.Similarly, Kiisiwu, Shady Springs, for the Badger andButterfly clan, Lengyanovi for the Flute clan,Hoonawpa for the Bear clan, and Leenangwva forthe Spider clan, are all memorialized in clan tradi-tion and visited in pilgrimage. In this sense, then,the living springs embody Hopi history: they are cul-tural landmarks, inscribed with significance, andcommemorative reminders of the continuing legiti-macy of clan rights and interests in specific areas.

In short, springs are key in Hopi social life,cultural values and the conceptualization of the land-scape – all of which form the grounds of deeper reli-gious thought and action. Hopis smoke for rain,dance for it, sing for it, and offer many other formsof prayer for it. In the cycle of life, rain-water andsnow-melt nourish the plants which feed animals andhuman beings. So prayers for rain are not abstract;they call the clouds to replenish the waters of theearth so that all life-forms will benefit and ‘be happy’.Here, then, is an environment populated not by West-ern science’s instinct-driven organisms without spiritor consciousness, but intentional, spiritual entitieswhich are part and parcel of the same moral systemthat encompasses human beings. Hopis have, so tospeak, both a moral ecology and an ecological mo-rality. As one man put it, ‘We pray for rain so that allthe animals, birds, insects and other life-forms willhave enough to drink too’. The prolific complexityof Hopi ritual attends to springs specifically and ingeneral, as sources of blessing and vehicles of prayer.

Of coal-mines and slurries

The springs, however, are drying up, and with themthe essential force of Hopi religious life and culture.Flows have been progressively declining over the lastthree decades. Numerous springs and seeps haveceased to produce enough water to sustain cropsplanted below them. The Moenkopi (meaning ‘con-tinuously-flowing water place’) Wash does not ‘con-tinuously flow’ any more, and the only major Hopifarming area that depends on irrigation water is inserious jeopardy. In recent years, it has been downto a trickle by late May: not long ago Moenkopi chil-dren plunged into swimming holes long into the sum-mer. Even the trickle that does come is supplied only

by two upstream tributaries: from the main streamitself, much of the water is channelled into impound-ment ponds by Peabody Coal Company.

Peabody’s Black Mesa–Kayenta Mine is the onlymine in the country that transports its coal by slurry.The strip-mined coal is crushed, mixed with drink-ing-quality water and then flushed by pipeline to theMojave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada. Thecities of Las Vegas and Phoenix – electric oases inthe desert – buy some of the power, but most of itgoes to the electric toothbrushes, garage-door open-ers, outsize TV sets and other necessities of life insouthern California. Most of the slurry water comesdirectly from the ‘Navajo’ or N-aquifer 1,000–3,000feet within the rock formations of Black Mesa.Peabody uses c. 3,700 acre-feet (about 1.2 billiongallons) of water per year for the slurry – ten timesas much as the annual water consumption of theentire Hopi community (c. 9,000 people).

The pumping, Peabody has claimed, has no ef-fect on the Hopi springs. Those springs, it maintains,are not fed by the N-aquifer but by the overlying ‘Da-kota’ or D-aquifer, and by snow-melt. Hopis do notbelieve Peabody’s position. But an escalating seriesof letters from Hopi individuals and officials, bothtraditional leaders and Tribal Council chairs, peti-tions signed by several hundred Hopis, protests inpublic hearings, dissenting interpretations by inde-pendent geologists and repeated refusal by the TribalCouncil to sanction the Department of the Interior’srenewal of the mining lease, have all fallen on deafears. Flat rebuttals to Hopi protests continue to beretailed by Peabody and its President: ‘Changes inthe flows from their springs may be the result ofdrought conditions in the region, and perhaps fromthe increased pumpage from Hopi community wellslocated near these springs.... Peabody Western’spumping from wells that are 2,500–3,000 feet deepdoes not affect these springs.’ (Los Angeles Times 4–30–1994).

Six months prior to this statement, top US Geo-logical Survey hydrologists concluded that Peabody’songoing analysis of water impacts was based on awholly inadequate model. Among other shortcom-ings: ‘[T]he model is not sufficient to answer theconcerns of the Hopi regarding adverse local, short-term impacts on wetlands, riparian wildlife habitat,and spring flow at individual springs’ (Nichols 10–28–1993).

Recent figures (USGS 1995) suggest that de-clines in water-level of area wells (ranging from 30feet to 97 feet between 1965 and 1993) are up totwo-thirds caused by the mine’s pumping. Peabody’sclaim that throughout the 35-year life of the mine itwould use one-tenth of one percent of N-aquifer


water, which would naturally recharge itself, is seri-ously questioned by a USGS recharge study in 1995,which charted a recharge rate 85 percent less thanPeabody’s estimate. (It has been suggested thatPeabody has tried to suppress public release of thesediscrepant figures since – if verified – the companywould be contractually obligated, according to the termsof the lease, to post a bond for aquifer restoration).

It seems evident too that depletion of the N-aquifer has had serious impacts on the D-aquifer,and on the springs themselves: the Moenkopi Washis directly affected since it is supplied by N-aquiferseepage, and since Peabody impounds surface wa-ter at a rate surpassing 1,800 acre feet per year thatwould otherwise directly supply this Wash. USGScomputer simulations predict total drying of somemajor Hopi wells beginning in the year 2011.

Several alternatives to the slurrying of aquiferwater have been proposed, and progress has beenmade on one: another pipeline from Lake Powellwhich would provide domestic water for Hopis andNavajos, and industrial uses for Peabody. ButPeabody, ever mindful of the bottom line, is evidentlyusing delaying tactics, suspending negotiations andplaying off the tribes against each other.

Meanwhile, the Hopis are deeply anxious aboutall spring declines, for both obvious reasons anddeeper metaphysical ones. Hopi moral philosophy,following a covenant entered into with the deityMaasaw upon emergence into the present world,charges people to take care of the earth and all itsresources; indeed this is a significant measure ofwhether one is worthy of the name ‘Hopi’. If Hopisbreak the covenant, cataclysm of cosmic proportionsthreatens. During the early 1980s when I began eth-nographic research, Tsakwani’yma, an older Spiderclan man, would sometimes talk about prophecieshe had heard from his uncle, Lomayestiwa. He re-turned to one repeatedly: a time would come whenPaalölöqangw, the water serpent deity, would turnover and lash his tail deep within the waters of theearth, and all land-life would tumble back down tothe bottom of the ocean. ‘Can you interpret it?’ hewould challenge. ‘It means earthquake. But it’s alsosymbolic of the life we are leading today: koyaanisqatsi,a life of chaos.’ Then in 1987 and 1988, shortly afterhe passed on, there were two earthquakes on BlackMesa (a rarity), which the Arizona Earthquake In-formation Center connects to the removal of mas-sive quantities of coal and water. The perception ofsome elders that this is the result of having theirsouls sold out from under them – literally, in the linkbetween groundwater and spirits of the dead – causesprofound sadness and a sense of intractable religiousdesecration.

In addition to long-term Hopi interests, regionaleconomic and demographic patterns make the con-tinued pumping of more than a billion gallons of po-table water every year for a coal slurry incrediblyshort-sighted. The coming century will undoubtedlysee ever more serious problems of water supply forthe rapidly growing conurbations in the West. In thislight, Hopi religious concerns with springs becomemetaphorical of larger issues of global developmentand natural resource management. But while typi-cally attuned to such universal implications, Hopisin the immediate term are concerned with basicphysical, cultural and spiritual survival. If the springsare to be saved, and along with them continued Hopicultural and religious existence, Peabody’s relent-less drive toward short-term profits, at the expenseof stakeholder concerns, needs a dramatic make-overin line with trends toward local–global balance pur-sued by more progressive multinationals. In themeantime, the pumps siphon the essence of life fromthe water-roots of Black Mesa, and the Hopi springsare drying up.

The discourse of ecologicalcorrectness: of dam builders ‘rescuing’biodiversity for the Cree (Marie Rouéand Douglas Nakashima)

The sub-Arctic territory of the Cree Indians ofChisasibi (Quebec, Canada), traditionally a societyof hunters, fishers and trappers, has been trans-formed since the 1970s by a series of hydroelectricmegaprojects. This article considers the ‘rescue’, bythe developer, of two fish species threatened by damconstruction. Hydro-Quebec presents this action astangible proof that the utility is ‘imbued with a newkind of ethics’ and that it ‘subscribes to the conceptof sustainable development’ (Hydro-Quebec 1990).While biodiversity may indeed have been conserved,for principal users of the resource – the Cree – thefish are lost. This paradoxical outcome raises thequestion ‘for whom do we conserve biodiversity?’

Appreciating the social and cultural significanceof biodiversity means moving beyond a check-listmentality, the mere quantification of species pres-ence or absence, to apprehend the relationship be-tween people and ‘nature’. In hunting or fishingsocieties, for example, the encounter with animalsis laden with symbolic, social and ecological signifi-cance. The perpetuation of these fragile momentsdepends upon the transmission of specialized knowl-edge and know-how from one generation to the next,as well as the persistence of select places where theencounters can occur. For the Cree of Chisasibi,Upichuun – the First Rapids – was such a place, one


of exceptional cultural importance. It symbolized theseparation and unity of ‘Coaster’ and ‘Inlander’ Cree,a place of sharing and exchange. Here, amidst thebounty of fish returning fat from the sea and ripen-ing berries thick on the land, the two groups reu-nited each year to renew social ties, to fish in tandem,to join forces in work and pleasure, and to celebratein this manner a partnership of long date. Construc-tion of the La Grand 1 powerhouse over the First Rap-ids obliterated this privileged site of encounter betweenthese complementary groups and the fish that theycame together to harvest. Without a place for the en-counter, the encounter could no longer take place.

The question ‘for whom is biodiversity con-served?’ raises the issue of scale. When – under theimpetus of the Convention on Biological Diversity –threatened genomes, species or ecosystems are in-ventoried and actions for conservation are advocatedat the planetary level, the concern is for biodiversityas a global inheritance. For those who rely directlyupon these resources, however, conservation of‘their’ animals and plants is a local concern, delim-ited by territories whose culturally-defined bounda-ries are distinct both from those of the scientist andthose of the State.

In the James Bay case, issues of scale and thedefinition of region or territory are crucial. According

to Hydro-Quebec, the State hydroelectric company,the land area flooded by Phase I of the La GrandeHydroelectric Complex is no more than 3.4 percent(Chartrand 1992; Figure 10.1). Through this statis-tical abstraction, parcels of land are judged to beequivalent, brushing aside the possibility that floodedlands (riparian habitats, valley bottoms, rapids, etc.)may be of exceptional ecological or cultural signifi-cance. And fundamental to the issue of scale is thequestion, ‘3.4 percent of what?’ For the State, theunit of reference is the recently-created adminis-trative zone of 350,000 square kilometres, two-thirds the size of France. This ‘James BayTerritory’ represents for them ‘an immense terri-tory for development’, awaiting the progressiveexploitation of water, forest, mineral and othernatural resources. For the traditional inhabitantsof the land, however, the unit of reference has quiteanother set of boundaries. It is the local huntingband, or more recently the village, which deter-mines territory and identity for the Cree. Cree ter-ritories are many times smaller than the JamesBay Territory of the State, and for the Chisasibiband in particular the percentage of land that hasvanished beneath the La Grande reservoirs is anorder of magnitude greater than the figure set forthby Hydro-Quebec.

Figure 10.1: Map of eastern James Bay, Quebec, showing the village of Chisasibi near the mouth of La Grande River and the series ofreservoirs created by the La Grande Hydroelectric Project. This map is part of a pamphlet prepared by the Cree Board of Health, the CreeRegional Authority and Hydro-Quebec, which instructs the Cree not to eat any fish of any kind caught in the river between the LG1 (FirstRapids) and LG2 dams because of high concentrations of mercury in their flesh.

Petite riv ière de la Baleine(Little whale R.)

Grande rivière de la Baleine

(Great whale R.)

LacBienville

Réservoirde La Grande 3

(La Grande 3 Reservoir)

LacSakami

(Lake Sakami)Lac

Boyd(Lake Boyd)

RéservoirOpinaca

(Opinaca reservoir)





RéservoirCaniapiscau

(Caniapiscau Reservoir)

Fontagnes(Lake Bienville)

KuujjuarapikWhapmagoostui

R. Kanaaupscow

R . Caniap

iscau

R. S akami

R. East

main

R . Eastmain

R. Opinaca

La Grande RivièreChisasibi

Eastmain

Matagami

Wemindji

Restriction only for women 15 to 40 years oldRestriction seulement pour les femmes de 15 à 40 ans

Do not eat any of the predatory speciesNe pas consommer les espèces prédatrice

Do not eat any fish from that part or the riverNe pas consommer de poisson de cette partie de la rivière

LG 3 LG 4LG 2

Baie James(James Bay)

Baie d’Hudson(Hudson Bay)

LG 1

R. Vincelot t e

0 20 100 km

Km 20Km 80

Km 580

Km 520

Km 460

Km 40 Km 100Km 160 Km 220

Km 280

Km 340

Km 400

Km 460

Km 520Km 580

Km 400


Upichuun - The First Rapids: place ofproduction and of reproduction

The First Rapids, or Upichuun in the Cree language,located some 35km upstream from the mouth of theLa Grande River and the former Cree village of FortGeorge, was of great importance for fishing from lateJuly to early September. During this summer periodbetween the brief goose-hunting seasons of springand autumn, fish was and is still today the source offood par excellence. But fish and fishing are not byany means important only in summer. They play acritical role throughout the annual Cree subsistencecycle (Weinstein 1976). In sub-Arctic ecosystems,populations of terrestrial animals are subject to dras-tic, cyclical changes in abundance. Populations ofArctic hare (Lepus americanus), for example, passfrom maxima to minima with a periodicity of 7 to 10years. During peak years, Arctic hare may accountfor up to 25 percent of the Cree subsistence harvest,whereas at the bottom of the cycle the take may bealmost nil. Similarly, for caribou (Rangifer tarandus),the Northern Quebec population which had greatlydecreased by the turn of the century and all but dis-appeared by 1910 (cf. Nakashima and Roué 1995),began its comeback around 1960 and today num-bers more than 600,000 head. Amidst this variabil-ity and uncertainty, fish species, along withwaterfowl, are stable resources which the Cree canrely upon from one year to the next. But while wa-terfowl are strictly seasonal, fish are accessible theyear around. Many stories recount how people havebeen saved from famine because they managed tofind their way to a reliable fishing spot.

Of all of the fishing places known to the FortGeorge Cree, the First Rapids of the La Grande Riverwas by far the most productive. The two main spe-cies of fish were members of the whitefish family:cisco (Coregonus artedii) being the most important,followed by whitefish (C. clupeaformis). Theseanadromous populations returned to the First Rap-ids from their sojourn in the sea at somewhat differ-ing dates from one year to the next. Nevertheless,the moment of their arrival was made known to theCree by the flowering of the fireweed, Epilobiumangustifolium, along the banks of the river closeto the fishing site. This use of an ‘ecological indi-cator’ has been documented in many cultural tra-ditions. In contrast with the fixed solar calendar,natural phenomena which co-occur in time in re-sponse to common environmental factors providea flexible marker sensitive to year-to-year varia-tion. From long observation the Cree know thatwhen the fireweed comes into flower, it is time toprepare their nets.

Once at the First Rapids, the Cree establishedcamps and fished day in and day out (see Figure 10.2).All accounts attest to the incredible abundance of fish.There was no need for any other food. Some familiespreferred to paddle back and forth between the rap-ids and the village on Fort George Island. They didnot have to stay long before their canoes were filledwith fish. As soon as they had enough, they set offback to the village. Even the residential school atFort George relied on a stock of fish from the FirstRapids to provide for its young Cree boarders: ‘Wewent there by canoe to catch fish. The minister hadasked us for some fish, dried fish for the children inthe residential school to eat. That is what he toldus. We stayed there for one week. We caught so manyfish. It seems we could barely keep up with cleaningall the fish’. (Unless indicated otherwise, all cita-tions are words of the Chisasibi Cree from D.Nakashima and M. Roué, 1993-94, Unpublished FieldNotes, Chisasibi).

Fish were also conserved by smoking or dry-ing. All parts of the fish including the head and theentrails were used, the latter being boiled beforedrying. These stocks of dried fish would be carriedby the ‘Coasters’ along the shore to their goose hunt-ing camps in September, or provide for the ‘Inland-ers’ during their long treks back into the interior.Fish scales and any other remaining parts were fedto dogs brought to the First Rapids to be fattened upfor autumn and winter when they would be an in-valuable source of traction.

A place that both divides and unites, the FirstRapids – Upichuun – was of unique significance tothe Chisasibi Cree. Along the La Grande River, theprincipal travel route for the Cree between sea andinterior, the First Rapids represented the dividingplace between coast and inland. On the way down-river, once Upichuun was passed, no other barriersstood between the people and the sea. On the wayinland, Upichuun was the first of a long and arduousseries of portages.

Coasters and Inlanders: segmentation andcomplementarity

Like many other Cree communities along the JamesBay coast, the Chisasibi band is divided into com-plementary groups: Coasters and Inlanders. Turnedtowards the resources of the sea and the coastal re-gion, the Coasters were hunters of seals and belugawhales, as well as geese, ducks, loons and othermigratory birds which each spring and autumn mi-grated in great flocks along the shores of James andHudson Bays. They were also more closely associ-ated with the Hudson’s Bay Company, as they


Figure 10.2: Series of photographs taken byJames Bobbish (a Coaster and at that timeChief of the Band) illustrating the uniqueseine-fishing technique employed by the Creeat First Rapids.

Awaiting the signal to deploy the seine. Whena large wave surges into the small bay, thetwo men on the river bank (foreground)rapidly pull the seine net across its mouth.The group of men at the tip of the bedrockarm projecting into the river are responsiblefor carefully feeding the net into the water.

Beginning a sweep of the bay. The two menin the foreground, holding one end of thenet, walk along the bank to join the othermen out on the arm of bedrock.

Surrounded by onlookers, includingnumerous children, the men haul the seinenet up the smooth face of the bedrock.

As the net is pulled out of the water, thechildren rush to help gather up the strugglingfish.


constituted the principal source of labour for the trad-ing post on Fort George Island. The Inlanders, onthe other hand, would only descend the rivers fromthe interior in late spring, to join the Coasters alongthe shores of James Bay for the brief summer period.

The following account by an Inlander from FortRupert in southern James Bay reveals the nature ofthe annual spring encounter between the two groups.Inlanders would offer the meat and fat of caribouand receive in exchange the meat and fat of geese.Inlander songs about running rapids would be an-swered by the Coasters’ songs about flights of geese.

‘... the Inlanders, they kill caribou, and dry upthe meat and save all the grease. And the Coast-ers kill the geese, and dry them, and also savethe grease ... And then they take the meat andthe grease to the Coasters, usually the oldestman in the group. And then the Coasters go tothe oldest Inland man, and give him the driedgoose meat, and also the grease. And then theybuild a big wigwam. And when they are finishedall of the people join in the feast... The old peo-ple start dancing and using their drum. And theInlanders start singing about shooting down therapids, and the Coasters start singing about thegeese... The Inlanders and the Coasters sharetheir food at this time. And they usually do it inthe spring when all of the people from inlandcome in for supplies.’ (cited in Preston 1981)

In this manner, these two groups within theband organize the sharing of biodiversity from twoecological systems. Through an exchange of food andskins, accompanied by songs and stories, they makethe most of the ecological, social and cultural diver-sity forged by the ways-of-life of those in the interiorand those on the coast. This dualistic world viewwhich is their shared construction, asserts their dif-ferences while reinforcing the cohesion of the band.At Upichuun, everyone camped together, exchang-ing food and stories and sharing in a fishery whichwas extraordinarily productive. Now that the rapidshave been destroyed, the memories of these joyfulperiods of reunion are tinged with sadness and re-gret. A Coaster recalls his father’s strong ties to theinland people: ‘The part that really hurt me, when Isaw (Upichuun after the damming), is that both myparents loved it there. This is why it hurt... Becauseit was also all those memories that were in that place.I thought of so many people. ... I remembered howhappy my father was to be there. He loved the in-land people so much. When the inland people cameback, he would be gone all day... to the homes of theinland people.’

The Inlanders did not stay long on the coast,but soon headed back to their territories in the inte-rior. They relied on the First Rapids fishery to pro-vide them with a stock of dried fish for the long andhard journey upriver, paddling and portaging. Theyfished for themselves, but also received fish fromthose already camped there as fish were part of thetraditional cycle of gifts and exchanges. ‘People usedto get food to bring along when they went inlandright here at (Upichuun). Sometimes they had enoughfood to bring all the way to Caniapiscau (the head-waters of the La Grande River system). This fishwas given to them by the ones who hunted here.’

Men’s roles - women’s roles

The process of production dominated by men is com-plemented by the preparation and distribution of thefish in which women play the major role. Throughthis division of techniques and practices, the socialrelations that create and recreate Cree society areperpetuated. When the Cree reflect back upon thedays passed at Upichuun, they recall how the air wasfilled with excitement and laughter. The abundanceof food allowed everyone to share in these carefreemoments. While the men fished, the women cleanedthe catch, scaled the fish and then hung them up todry or to be smoked. ‘People were walking back andforth to their tents all day, the men bringing theirfish back to the tent so the women could clean themand smoke them. And when they finished one batch,there were more.’

Fishing at the First Rapids also coincided withanother important event, the ripening of blueberries,Vaccinium uliginosum and V. angustifolium. When abreak could be taken from cleaning fish, the womenset off into the nearby bush to enjoy a peaceful mo-ment together, seeking out their favourite berry-pick-ing spots. ‘I think about this so often. There was ahilly area on the north side. I used to go there all thetime to pick berries. The women always picked ber-ries there. They picked blueberries. They ate thesealong with the fish.’ Plump fish and ripe berries werebrought together to make a traditional dish which con-tinues to be highly prized today at feast time. The fishwas boiled, the flesh separated from the bones and thenshredded and mixed in with the berries.

Biodiversity conserved, but the fishnevertheless are lost

From an engineering viewpoint, the natural narrow-ing and precipitous drop in height of the river at theFirst Rapids made this location an ideal site for apower station. For this reason, Hydro-Quebec chose


it as the site of the La Grande 1 (LG1) dam. In a bidto save the First Rapids fishery, the Cree managedduring a first round of negotiations to have the LG1dam relocated some 35km upriver. Despite this firstreprieve, subsequent negotiations reinstated LG1 atthe First Rapids site. Knowing that the outflow ofthe La Grande River was to be more than doubled bythe hydroelectric development, the Cree were in-formed that the island on which their village waslocated could be eroded away. In exchange for giv-ing up the Upichuun site, they received Hydro-Que-bec’s commitment to construct a new village (to becalled Chisasibi) on the adjacent mainland, where to-day virtually all of the people of Fort George now live.

Construction of the La Grande hydroelectricproject posed a number of challenging environmen-tal problems. Of serious implication for the fish andthe fishery of the First Rapids was the filling of theimmense LG2 reservoir, situated immediately up-stream. The dilemma was how to proceed with res-ervoir filling which would require a complete orpartial cut-off of the river for about one year. A totalcut-off at LG2 would allow saltwater driven by tidalcurrents and uninhibited by a countering freshwaterflow, to penetrate all the way to the First Rapids.This exceptional penetration would eliminate a fresh-water stretch below the Rapids. For the estuarinepopulations of cisco and whitefish, this freshwaterpocket is critical as it is their only shelter from theexcessively low temperatures that occur in saltwa-ter in winter. If eliminated for even one winter, thecisco and whitefish of the La Grande estuary wouldbe condemned to certain extinction.

How could Hydro-Quebec go about the fillingof the LG2 reservoir without endangering the fishpopulations of such importance to the Cree? Addi-tional research solicited by the Société d’Energie dela Baie James (SEBJ – a branch of Hydro-Quebec)revealed a possible solution. It appeared that if alayer of ice were allowed to form on the river sur-face before cutting off the flow, the presence of theice layer would dampen the tidal effect and halt theintrusion of saltwater several kilometres short of theFirst Rapids. This would allow the persistence of afreshwater pocket and ensure the over-winter sur-vival of the fish. Accordingly, by modifying the projectschedule, the development corporation successfullycontrolled saltwater intrusion and rescued the fish(Berkes 1988; Roy 1982). For this phase of theproject, SEBJ had taken remedial measures such thatno loss of biodiversity had occurred.

This ‘rescue’ offers insights into the limitationsof technocratic representations of human–naturerelationships. It reveals the incapacity of a self-pro-claimed leader in sustainable development, and

beyond that the incapacity of our society as a whole,to comprehend the linkages between a people andtheir natural environment. The paradox is striking.On the one hand, the developers boast of their envi-ronmental consciousness and technical skill whichhave allowed them to preserve (at least until proofto the contrary) the anadromous fish of vital impor-tance to the First Rapids fishery of the Cree (SEBJ1993). Yet at the same time, they proceed with theconstruction of the LG1 dam which obliterates thesesame rapids and destroys along with them the siteswhere fishing takes place. Without a place to fish,the disappearance of the fishery is assured.

In short, biodiversity has been conserved, butthe fish have been lost! For even though the popula-tions may still exist, they are inaccessible to the Cree.Of the four fishing sites that existed along the riv-er’s banks, three have been blasted away during con-struction. The fourth and most important can nolonger be used. This small bay which the Cree fishedwith their seines is choked with boulders thrownthere by dynamite blasts. Although these rocks wereremoved as part of remedial measures to reduceproject impacts, the specific current patterns whichmade fishing feasible at that site no longer exist.Furthermore, the river below the dam is subject tosevere fluctuations in water level. During a visit tothe site in July 1994, the flat bedrock arm from whichfishing seines were deployed was completely awashwith waves.

As if this were not sufficient to seal the fate ofthe First Rapids fishery, the spectre of methyl-mer-cury contamination and Minimata disease now alsohangs over the river. Already in the 1970s, the ap-pearance of elevated organic mercury levels in thepiscivorous or fish-eating fish of the reservoirs wasconsidered an unexpected impact of the project(Weinstein and Penn 1987; Roué and Nakashima1994). But Hydro-Quebec biologists were even moreastounded to record even higher mercury concen-trations below the LG2 dam in all fish types, includ-ing non-piscivorous fish. By feeding on the mincedremains of large predatory fish such as pike and laketrout that had been drawn into the turbines, non-predatory fish had been transformed into super-predators, bio-magnifying mercury as wouldorganisms at the top of the food chain (Verdon et al.1992). As a result, fishing of all species has beencompletely prohibited along major stretches of theriver.

So biodiversity may indeed have been con-served, but for whom? Without the sites where theycan fish, with fish contaminated with mercury, thisconservation of biodiversity is meaningless to theCree.


Nothing can replace the abundance offered byUpichuun. In an attempt to compensate, the Creeare intensifying fishing along the James Bay coast,but these sites do not come close to providing suchlarge numbers of fish with so little effort. Men haveeven been salaried to fish for those no longer able tofulfil their needs. This economic arrangementwhereby fish become a commodity, however, is un-dermining networks of sharing and exchange. Be-yond the value of fish as food, the First Rapids wasalso a place to camp together and to socialize, a placeto transmit to the young a specialized know-how. Asthe women point out, the fish they consume nowa-days are no longer the live fish caught by their ownhands and eaten fresh from the water. By erasingpractices, knowledge and the bases for sharing andco-operation, the social cohesion of the group iscalled into question. By troubling the ties betweenhunter and prey, it is the symbolic relationship withnature that is placed in doubt. The task of enrichingthe notion of biodiversity with that of cultural diver-sity still remains before us.

Today, the people of Chisasibi live with manybitter memories, aggravated by the towering silhou-ette of the LG1 dam which has silenced forever theFirst Rapids.

[Marie Roué and Douglas Nakashima, CNRS/MNHN,Paris. Research supported by the ProgrammeEnvironnement, CNRS (France) and the Grand Coun-cil of the Crees of Quebec].

Gwich’in attitudes to fish(Gleb Raygorodetsky)

The Gwich’in inhabit Arctic and sub-Arctic regionsfrom the Mackenzie River Valley in Canada’s North-west Territories (NWT) in the east, through the Yu-kon, and into Alaska, USA, in the west. The Gwich’inNation still depend on the environment for their liveli-hood as their ancestors have done for centuries. Thisrelationship has been kept alive through the con-tinuous flow of their traditional knowledge from gen-eration to generation. With changing life-styles inthe last half century, however, opportunities for thetraditional oral and on-the-land ways of teaching andlearning began to disappear. The Gwich’in Environ-mental Knowledge Project (GEKP), an initiative ofthe Gwich’in Renewable Resource Board to docu-ment local traditional ecological knowledge, beganin the summer of 1995 as a result.

The GEKP concentrated on several species offish, birds and mammals important for Gwich’in sub-sistence, including: black bear, grizzly bear, beaver,caribou, marten, moose, muskrat, Dall’s sheep, wolf,

geese, black and mallard ducks, ptarmigan, swan,charr, coney, herring, loche and whitefish. The follow-ing two sections extracted from the GEKP reportGwich’in Words about the Land (Raygorodetsky 1997)detail Gwich’in knowledge of and attitudes towards twoimportant fish species: charr and whitefish.

Dhik’ii – Dolly Varden Charr (Salvelinusmalma)

Charr is considered a delicacy because it is very richand tasty, and it is often hard to come by. Peopleshowed the same respect for charr that was given towhitefish and other fish and game. People did notwaste charr and they shared their catch with oth-ers. They pulled their nets out for a time if they couldnot process all the charr. Because fishermen sharedtheir charr with big families and old people who couldnot fish, everybody had something put away for thewinter. If one family got far too many charr, severalwomen from different families came together to cleanit. Afterwards they shared the fish, so everyone hadthe same amount. In the 1940s, some people did nothave proper nets, and the fishermen with good netsshared their catch. Today it is different – the old wayof sharing is dying, and money always comes first.In the old days, people never joked about charr, orany other fish or animal, because their survival de-pended on having a good relationship with them.

Charr, like any other fish, follow the shortestroute along the river – from eddy to eddy. In smallrivers, most eddies occur at points where the rivermakes a turn, and this is where people set their nets.On large rivers, for example the Mackenzie River,eddies develop anywhere along the shore. Charrtravel in schools so people catch many at one time.Sometimes the net is loaded to the bottom, and twopeople have to check it. People fish for charr whenthe water in the river is low. When the water is high,they have to pull their nets out because of the dirtand debris that comes down the river, and becausethere are no charr to be caught during this time.During the charr run, nets must be checked at leasttwice a day, in the morning and evening; otherwise,charr become water-logged and the meat becomessoft and spoils. If there are many charr, the net mustbe checked three times a day. In the old days, somepeople set three-inch-mesh herring nets, and caughtmany young charr. Today, people use four- and four-and-a-half-inch nets so they catch only large charr,allowing the young ones to escape and grow. Whenthe charr season is over, a good fisherman cleansand repairs his net for the next season.

In the old days, people made nets out of willowbark and set fish traps to catch charr. They also


swept deep pools along the river with their nets.People also caught charr in the clear waters of theupper Rat River with spears made out of antlers.The antlers were boiled to soften them, and thenshaped into two hooks. The hooks, and a centralbone spearhead, were attached to the end of a longpole. Today, people can catch charr on store-boughtlures.

Over the last several years, some people wantedto catch lots of charr, and so they set many nets,almost blocking the river. Elders said people botherdhik’ii too much today. They should leave charr alonefor several years, and let them come back and growin numbers.

Women usually clean and cut up charr the sameway as whitefish. Men help if they have time in be-tween looking after the nets. Elders taught boys andgirls how to clean and net fish, so when the kidsgrew up, men knew how to do some of the women’swork and women knew how to do some of the men’swork.

Charr must be smoked or dried soon after it iscaught, otherwise the meat becomes too soft to beused for anything. After a charr is gutted, it is splitin half along the back, leaving the halves attachedat the tail. Then, a cut on one side is made acrossthe skin at the base of the tail. This way the fishdoes not slide from the drying poles. Dhik’ii is toofat to dry well. After being smoked in a smoke-housefor some time, it becomes dry on the surface. Dhik’ii,as any other fish, dry best when it is warm, and alittle overcast, with a light wind blowing. If it is sunnyand hot, the meat simply cooks in the sun and spoils.Charr is good to eat when it is freshly smoked, but ifstored in this way for long, it turns rancid becauseits meat is very oily. Today, many people smoke charrimproperly, and the charr comes out too oily andnot dry enough. To stop charr from spoiling aftersmoking it, most people take it to town and put itin a freezer in a plastic bag. In the old days, charrwere stored in underground pits or ice-houses forthe winter.

The first freshly-caught charr is usually cookedon the fire or boiled right away. Charr liver is cookedwith charr eggs and then mashed with cranberries.Charr eggs are also dried. In the old days, when peo-ple came back after fishing for charr at the RatRiver, they had a feast, where everybody ate fried,boiled and smoked charr. Guts are usually not usedfor food, although some Elders like to eat themcooked. The guts may also be cooked to render oilfrom them, which is added to the dog food. Thisoil is also a very good medicine. For example, peo-ple use it as ear drops when they have hearingproblems.

Luk zheii – Whitefish (Coregonus nasus)

For a long time, whitefish has been important topeople because it is a good source of food. Peoplethink it is the best fish, because it has the best tasteand relatively few bones. People who were raised onLuk zheii, say that they cannot live without it. In thepast, people made lots of dry fish for their dogs inthe winter. Today, whitefish are not as importantbecause very few people still live out on the landand catch fish for themselves or their dogs. Somepeople, however, still catch whitefish to dry for them-selves or for sale.

Long ago, people made fish traps for catchingwhitefish at the beginning of the fishing season.Usually, they drove posts into the bottom of an eddy,to form a fence. On the upstream side, a long, tubu-lar, chute-like basket was fastened between twoposts. Except for an opening into the basket, theposts forming the fence were close together to pre-vent fish from passing through. The whitefish swim-ming upstream rest in the eddies, and then enterthe trap, ending up in the basket chute. People liftedthe basket out of the water and pushed the fish withscoops on to a little platform.

Long before cotton nets were introduced, peo-ple made fish nets from willow bark. In the spring,when the willows are full of sap, people peeled thebark off and made long strands out of it, as thin assinew, and soaked them in water. Then, they usedthe strands to make nets. These strands had to bekept wet constantly otherwise they broke easily.Later, people made nets using three or four spoolsof store-bought cotton thread. After the fishing sea-son was over, they washed the nets and dried themfor next year.

People caught whitefish during the summer tomake dry fish, and in the fall they would freezefreshly caught fish. In the summer, the best place toset nets for whitefish is in the eddies. Big eddies arebetter for setting nets because they hold more fish.Eddies in front of creeks are also good for settingnets. In the winter, nets are set under the ice any-where on the river.

A good fisherman works every day, checkinghis nets regularly. If he cannot check them at leasttwice a day, he should remove the nets so the fish donot spoil. Fishermen should check their nets threetimes a day when there are lots of whitefish. Duringheavy rains and high water, people do not catchwhitefish because the fish do not travel in these con-ditions. People set five- to five-and-a-half-inch meshnets for whitefish. When the fisherman finds a goodeddy in which to set his net, he drives a big woodenpole into the bank or close to the shore. The top and


bottom lines of the net are tied to this pole beforethe fisherman paddles out from the shore, remain-ing within the eddy, and sets the net from the noseof the boat. Sinkers and buoys are attached alongthe length of the net, and finally it is checked fortangles and straightened out.

In the fall, when the ice reaches two to threeinches thick, nets are set under the ice for whitefishmigrating to the coast. Most people take them outby December, or whenever the ice gets too thick, butfish can be caught all winter. To set a net under theice, people cut a line of holes, eight to ten feet apart,with an axe or a chisel. The net is then pulled underthe ice so it stretches between the end holes. If thetiming is right, a fisherman may get 500 whitefishfrom under the ice in one day. Sometimes, the holein the ice must be enlarged to allow the net to bepulled through with fish in it. When the ice is five tosix inches thick, people usually stop setting nets be-cause it becomes hard to draw the nets under the ice.

Long ago, there used to be a fish camp almostevery five miles along the Mackenzie River. Peoplestill could not catch all the whitefish and reduce theirnumbers. Today, only a few active fishing camps re-main in the delta. Only a commercial fishery wouldcause the whitefish to disappear in this country. Iflocal people prevent commercial fishing on the riv-ers, whitefish will always be plentiful.

As with other animals, people should respectwhitefish by catching only what they need, and bysharing their catch with others, not joking aboutwhitefish, making use of all parts, and cleaning thefish promptly so there is no waste. Although in theold days there were no laws on how much fish peo-ple could catch, they knew how much they neededfor their families, relatives and Elders, and caughtonly what they needed. Some people said when afisherman catches too many whitefish, or too muchof any animal, something bad will happen: for exam-ple, the fisherman or somebody in his family will die.

People said that long ago a person alwaysshared his or her catch. When people got lots ofwhitefish, they froze it and put all the large white-fish aside for Christmas or Easter, at which time theygave each other a fish as a sign of their respect forone another. Some people say that only few peoplestill follow the tradition of sharing, but instead selltheir catch.

People use whitefish for food, trap bait and dogfood. Dried and frozen whitefish are also a source ofincome. In the past, people fished more in the sum-mer, when they could dry the fish for themselves andtheir dogs. When people travelled with dogs to themountains, it was easier to carry dried whitefish thanfrozen. Since people do not use dogs any more, they

prefer to fish in the fall and freeze the fish for thewinter.

Whitefish can be fried, roasted and boiled. Manypeople think lake whitefish taste better than riverwhitefish. The flesh of whitefish caught in the springis very soft, and therefore less desirable. Sometimes,people eat whitefish heads. They collect and washseveral of them, and then boil them for food. White-fish stomach, also called a fish pipe, or its’agoghoo,is cut open, rinsed, and then roasted on a stick overa fire. People also fry it in a frying pan with fisheggs. Whitefish stomachs are also used as bait when‘jiggling’ for loche. Liver and hearts are also eaten.People collect blood in a bowl from freshly caughtwhitefish while it is being gutted. This blood, andhearts, may be mixed into a broth made from a boiledwhitefish, making good fish soup. Dry fish can bepounded to make pemmican in the same way as isdone with caribou meat.

Frozen whitefish eggs are called ‘Indian ice-cream’. In the fall, people open up freshly caughtfemale whitefish, and pour the fish eggs into a panand freeze them. Later, people break them up andeat them frozen, just like ice-cream. To keep white-fish eggs fresh throughout the winter, a fish is leftunopened and a small stick is put into the fish’s anus.This keeps the eggs from drying up and going ran-cid. The fish eggs of lake whitefish are creamy andtaste better than those of the river whitefish. White-fish eggs can also be roasted or dried. Some peoplemake a soup out of fish eggs.

Oil made from dried whitefish is good eye medi-cine. If a person has sore eyes, a drop is put in eacheye. Fish oil is also used in tanning skins. It issmeared on the surface of a dried skin and left forseveral days to make it softer.

Seasonal wetlands (Fleur Ng’weno)

In Africa, seasonal wetlands cover a larger area thanpermanent fresh water during the rainy season. Theyplay a vital role in the collection, storage, purifica-tion and discharge of fresh water. Seasonal wetlandsprovide people with water, food, building and weav-ing materials and ceremonial grounds. They serveas breeding and feeding grounds for fish, reptiles,amphibians, invertebrates and birds, including mi-gratory waterfowl. They are especially important inarid and semi-arid areas, where there is little per-manent fresh water.

Seasonal wetlands include flooded grassland,seasonal marshes, lakes and springs, temporarypools, flooded rock slabs and seeps. Many are invis-ible during the dry season. Animals and plants dis-appear as the water dries. They survive the dry


season as eggs, seeds or buried under the mud. Allthat remains is rock or soil, and sometimes dry plantstalks.

Seasonal wetlands are among the most threat-ened habitats because they appear dry for much ofthe year. They are thus converted to agriculture; notreserved during land demarcation; and ignored inroad construction and other development activities.Plants and animals in seasonal wetlands live life inthe fast lane. They grow rapidly and in great abun-dance for a short period. Microscopic plants andanimals fill the water. They include phytoplanktonsuch as algae and diatoms, and zooplankton, crus-taceans, worms, planaria, insects and molluscs.These serve as food for mammals, birds, reptiles,amphibians and fish.

Many fish disperse from the lakes into shallowstreams and flooded areas to breed. Seasonalwetlands provide feeding and resting grounds for

migratory waterfowl and breeding grounds forwaterbirds. Seasonal wetlands provide people withwater, food such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs andwater plant roots and seeds, grazing for livestock,especially in the dry season, materials for thatch-ing, mats, baskets and other woven products, andceremonial grounds for religious and cultural cer-emonies.

In many parts of Africa, rain falls only occa-sionally, but it falls with great force. Seasonalwetlands collect the floodwaters, preventing exces-sive runoff and destructive floods. As the waterslowly sinks through mud or porous rock, it is puri-fied. Water is thus stored in seasonal wetlands, andfiltered into underground aquifers. During the dryseason, the pure stored water is discharged into theenvironment.

The following story by Beatrice Maloba (Box10.1) brings out the cultural value of wetlands.

Box 10.1: The Flooding of River Sio

Beatrice B. Maloba

The River Sio empties into Lake Victoria in the Samia district in Western Kenya. The river in spatecauses the lake to flood and the fish mentioned are actually lake fish, but only get swept out onto theland when the river floods. There are many causes for reduced annual flooding on the River Sio and inKenya in general. They include a changing rainfall pattern, clearing of forest and wetlands for agricul-ture, soil erosion from farmland, cultivating close to river banks and construction along the lakeshore. These factors reduce beneficial annual flooding but cause destructive floods every few years.

‘A long time ago, the people of Sianja village in Samia looked forward to the River Sio’s floods withjoy. With joy, because the floods made fish readily available by spilling them into the Sianja swamp.River Sio usually flooded in April and May. It burst its banks just a few kilometres before spilling intoLake Victoria. As soon as the floodwaters subsided, village folk, both fishermen and non-fishermen,rushed to the swamp. There they simply picked up the fish of their choice. They left the unwanted fishto waste away, or for the birds to eat.’

‘The village people preferred to collect tilapia, called engeke, and lungfish, called obuyoko and emumi.Tilapia and lungfish were a delicacy, as well as being easy to preserve for future use. Sianja people ateobuyoko and emumi almost throughout the year. As soon as the people returned home, with specialbaskets full of fish, the fresh engeke was eaten. Engeke were cleaned, the scales scraped off, and thestomach cut open. The eggs were used as food, and the rest of the insides were thrown away. The fishwas then cut into pieces and cooked in a pot. About six medium-sized tilapia fish could fit into a largepot. It was a big feast for a family.

‘After eating there was a bit of rest. Then tasks were divided among the people. The women in thehomestead fetched water for cleaning the rest of the fish. In preparation for smoking, the young girlswent to collect firewood. The young men split logs for making fires for smoking the roasting fish. Fishwas an important food for the Samia people. In Sianja village there were experts in smoking and sun-drying techniques. In each homestead there was a special spot for preparing fish. Tilapia were pre-pared for smoking in much the same way as for eating fresh. Small lungfish were cleaned and theinner organs removed. Then they were strung on a special stick. Lungfish are long and narrow. Thefish’s tail was pierced, and the stick passed through it. Then the fish was folded over, and the stickpassed through its open mouth. A stick would hold a row of five to eight small lungfish. Depending onthe catch, some families would prepare a basket full of sticks, holding a lot of small obuyoko. Emumi,the large lungfish, were cleaned in the same way. If there were any eggs, they were removed very


Competition between ancestors andChinese traders in the Aru islands,Indonesia (Manon Osseweijer)

The Aru islands are located in the extreme south-east of Maluku province, near Irian Jaya in Indone-sia. The archipelago consists of six main islands –Kola, Wokam, Kobroor, Maikoor, Koba and Trangan– which are separated by deep channels, and manysmaller islands along the east coast, surrounded byvast coral reefs and sandy seagrass beds. The Aruislands are thinly populated with a population of al-most 60,000 in 1994 (Djohani 1996) spread over8,000 square kilometres with the majority living inone of 125 small villages. Beltubur is one such vil-lage on the southernmost island, Trangan.

The Aruese are sedentary coastal foragers,mainly involved in deer and pig hunting, gardening,fishing and gathering in the mangroves, on the beachand at sea. These activities are partly dependent onthe two climatic seasons, the monsoons: in general,the east monsoon (May–November) allows people tocollect shellfish, crabs and sea cucumbers on thebeach in front of the village and on the tidal flats; todo some subsistence fishing; to work in their gardens;and to hunt deer and wild pig in the savannah and for-est. During the west monsoon (December–April) peo-ple mainly focus on marine resources and are involvedin skin-diving for pearl oysters, collecting sea cucum-bers on the tidal flats and in deeper areas, and verysmall-scale commercial fishing (sharks and grouperspecies). Every village has specific family groups, calledkalaimon (clan) and golan (lineage), which own particu-

lar areas of land and sea (including flats and beaches)although marine resources are commonly utilized with-out asking permission.

Beside the local Aruese there are other, non-local, people active in this region: Buginese andButonese (from Sulawesi province) fishermen in-volved in large-scale shark fisheries; Sumatran–Chi-nese or Taiwanese fishing for ikan merah (redsnappers); Benjina-based shrimp trawling fishermen;live-fish traders from Hong Kong; Chinese ownersof pearl oyster farms; and Chinese traders–shopkeep-ers in the villages. Marine resources, as well as otherproducts like sago (Metroxylon), copra and some-times meat and vegetables, are all sold to these shop-keepers, either in the villages or in Meror, a smalltrade settlement. Trade in marine products has longbeen in the hands of outsiders – first the Buginese,Makassarese and ‘Malays’, and later, since the sec-ond half of the nineteenth century, the Chinese (VanEijbergen 1866). Aruese villagers collect marineproducts to sell to Chinese shopkeepers in exchangefor cash or to barter for commodities like consumablegoods. Traders or shopkeepers allow villagers to takegoods from the shop before their foraging trips and thenbring back marine produce to settle the debt.

The Chinese shopkeeper can also give credit tobuy an engine for a locally made boat (belang) or tofinance weddings, adat ceremonies or feasts such asLebaran (the end of Ramadan, the Moslem fastingmonth). Most of the time people have ongoing debtsto the shopkeepers.

For some within the Beltubur community, an-cestors are important and people understand the

Box 10.1 (continued)

carefully and kept separately. Eggs were the most delicious. The lungfish were cut into three seg-ments which were smoked to prevent the fish from rotting. In addition, the smoking process softenedsome bone, particularly the head bones. Since they were soft, they were chewed when eating smokedfish. The skin of smoked fish acquired a special tasty flavour. Children liked having a bite of the skinof cooked smoked fish to eat. Fish was also sun-dried. The fish was cut on one side and opened outflat. Eggs and internal organs were removed. The fish was flattened, and put in the sun to dry. Some-times salt was added as a preservative. When a large emumi was opened out, its width was more thanhalf a metre! Once dry, it would keep for a long time. Whenever the owner wanted to eat fish a smallpiece was cut off. It was soaked in water for a while and then cooked to make a meal.’

‘Sianja people liked to catch tilapia and lungfish when the river flooded, because at that time thefemale fish had many eggs. The fresh fish eggs were shaped into mounds, about 15-20cm wide andweighing nearly a kilogram. Such a fish egg cake is called esiche (ebiche in plural). Ebiche were dried inthe sun each day preventing the eggs from going bad. Once completely dry, ebiche were kept in astorage pot. They were checked now and then to make sure they did not grow mouldy. Ebiche in ahouse was a handy protein, for just a small portion was rich in food value. It was soaked for a while,and washed to remove any dust. Then it was boiled on a slow fire, in order to become soft and for theflavour to form. It was eaten with obusuma, a starchy food made from millet.’

‘When River Sio flooded, other activities stopped, and all attention was directed towards the fish.’


environment as reciprocating; in return for appro-priate conduct, nature will provide food and re-sources. Others leave their fate in the Chineseshopkeepers’ hands.

Traditionally, every marine species has an an-cestral keeper, and people who want to extract some-thing out of the sea have to adhere to specificbehavioural rules. In daily practice, tobacco offer-ings are made to the sea before pearl-diving or col-lecting sea cucumbers. Mama Ida explained to mehow to behave on the tidal flats and the sandy seagrass beds when collecting crabs and sea cucum-bers or when pearl-diving or fishing at sea: ‘You see,the sea is like a backyard. Just as people in the vil-lage have a yard in front of or behind their house, sodo our ancestors of the sea. Just like a mother in thevillage does not like children making too much noisein the yard and eventually sends them away, so doour ancestors of the sea. When we are making toomuch noise while foraging at sea, the ancestors willsend us away with signs such as big waves, strongwinds and, in general, a small harvest. You see, tomake a living we are searching the sea, the backyardof our ancestors. Therefore we have to adhere torules of behaviour by collecting quietly, not shout-ing, not laughing, not talking about sexual topics,not being greedy, and so on. As long as you respectthese rules, you will have good harvests and do nothave to be afraid of dangers like getting hurt by stingrays, getting overwhelmed by sudden bad weather,or coming home with no harvest.’

Respecting these rules is the only way to pre-vent the decrease or disappearance of natural re-sources. When the ancestors are disappointed aboutthe behaviour of people at sea and in the village,they can decide to hide the resources. For example,in 1996, when Beltubur and neighbouring villageKarey were fighting a law suit over sea and beachrights in the region, sea cucumbers were less fre-quently encountered by villagers – a punishment ofthe ancestors because of the discord. Certain ani-mals are ancestral or of human origin and cannot becaught or eaten by certain families. These restric-tions directly define and regulate foraging behaviour.People from Mangar, for example, are representedby ancestors who had skin like the garotong fish(Serranids – species of grouper) and came from therainbow. As a result they are prohibited from catch-ing this fish. Ignoring this rule will bring death anddisease in the family. Accidents at sea can be as-cribed to misbehaviour with regard to these ances-tral animals.

In 1991/92 an unknown virus attacked localoysters causing the collapse of the pearl industry.With the loss of their main source of income, the

Aruese have been stimulated to collect more spe-cies of edible sea cucumbers (trepang). Men, womenand children are now involved in trepang gathering dur-ing the west and east monsoons (Osseweijer 1997).

Interestingly, Chinese shopkeepers are given arole in Aruese knowledge of the environment. Somevillagers, when asked about the threatening deple-tion of sea cucumbers from over-exploitation, seemedundisturbed: ‘When the sea cucumbers are gone,‘The Chinese’ will tell us what to collect next. Untilnow it has always been this way’. Even people whothink their fate is primarily in the shopkeepers’ handscannot follow the Chinese without considering cer-tain customary rules. In villages around Beltubur,for example, there is a prohibition on catching, kill-ing or eating hammerhead sharks (Sphyrnidae) andcertain grey-spotted sharks (Orectolobidae). However,villagers now sell the sharks’ fins, saying, ‘As longas the carcass is thrown overboard, not taken withyou ashore nor eaten, it is quite all right’.

This trend of adapting ancestral rules to presentmarket demands will probably go on. The Chinesetraders will instigate the collection of ‘new’ re-sources, but ancestors will always play their part inthe Aruese image of the natural environment. When-ever things go wrong it will be because of the ances-tors, who are the keepers of natural resources andresponsible for biodiversity. As explained by a fish-erman, ‘When sea cucumbers get depleted, it is be-cause we have collected too much, because we wereled by greed and therefore the ancestors will takethe sea cucumbers away from us’. Still, at present,Aruese people do not seem to be worried about thefuture of marine resources, and the Chinese shop-keepers continue to gain.

The loss of cultural diversity andmarine resource sustainability: theimpact in Hawai’i (William WallaceMokahi Steiner)

The marine ecosystem has always played a focal partin Hawaiian culture. Hawaiians had to rely on manydifferent aspects of their culture in order to traverseocean realms and open new island systems to colo-nization. The principles of building ocean-going ves-sels, sails and ropes, storage systems for food andfibre, etc. would have to be well established in orderto undertake the long journeys over water, some-times lasting for months, completely out of sight ofland. Likewise, the knowledge gained of the biologyand behaviour of marine life, navigation and as-tronomy had to withstand the test of time in orderfor Polynesia to come into existence and survive.Ancestral Hawaiians believed that all life other than


human life springs from the gods since it is out ofthe control of humans. Thus other life-forms and eveninanimate forms were viewed as alive with spiritforce. There were four main male gods, and two mainfemale deities. Kane was the creator, the father ofeverything, whose dwelling place was the sun. Lonowas the gentle giver of peace and healing, whoseabodes were the clouds and plants. Kanaba was lordof the sea and all it held. Ku was the source of powerin all its manifestations, and dealt with war. Withhim came his consort Hina, whose feminine attributescomplemented the masculine Ku. And special toHawaii was Pele; blazing, impulsive, hot-tempered,unpredictable, yet who could take forms as makerof mountains and islands, devourer of men who didnot heed her power, and grandmother, Kuku Wahine,who could receive the bodies of men and care forthem in gentleness in her soil.

Of interest is the connection the Hawaiiansmade between marine and terrestrial resources.Dudley (1990) presents this as recognition of a ‘prin-ciple of dualism’ – that things of the cosmos pre-sented as pairs of opposites. Beckwith (1977)discusses the extent to which this occurred, andpoints out that this enabled Hawaiians to arrive atan organized conceptual form with paired oppositesdepending on each other to complete the whole. Herexamples run the gamut from night versus day, maleversus female, land versus water, and po (darknessor nothingness) versus ao (light or existence). Thispairing occurs often in the chants passed down totoday. The pairing is often hidden or implicit, allow-ing chants to carry almost double the informationcontent they would otherwise carry, and suggestingone reason why their careful formulation had to bepassed conservatively between generations. One re-sult of this pairing process is that for most marineorganisms there was a terrestrial counterpart, theopposite inherent on land versus that found in themarine. In the over-2,000 stanza origin chant, thekumulipo, it is significant that the land is seen asrising out of the opposite, that is, the ‘fathomlessdepths of the ocean’ (Beckwith 1951). This sets upthe ensuing birth of marine and botanical life by stan-zas 15 through 43. But in stanzas 35 through 43 thepairings of sea life forms with land forms has begun.These inevitably involve plant pairings, some ex-tremely practical such as in Hawaiian native medi-cine where if one takes a dose of a land-basedmedicinal herb, the first food taken afterwards is thatpaired with it which grows in the sea (Dudley 1990).

This practical basis of dualism was importantbecause one could invoke the terrestrial form or useit in dances and chants and thus allow access to themarine form while on land. Implicit in this is the

idea that Polynesian societies recognized the ma-rine world as equally important as the terrestrial.This idea is reinforced in the sharing of the naturalworld by gods deemed to have counterparts in theopposing realms such as the god Ku-ula-kai (god ofabundance in the sea, thought by some to be namedafter the man who invented the adze for buildingcanoes) and his brother Ku-ula-uka, considered tobe the sacred god of cultivators (Beckwith 1940).

Realization of the importance of the marineworld is a conceptual breakthrough in the develop-ment of the Polynesian culture. Here, the sea is nolonger seen as a boundary beyond which humankindcan not venture. It becomes instead a herald of op-portunity; a provider as source of raw materials forfood, and a medium for carrying humans over farhorizons to new worlds. Such a breakthrough has tocontribute to technological advancement similar tothe way the development of the rifle leads to theability to conceptualize fighting wars at greater andgreater distances rather than hand-to-hand. It be-comes a new way of adding to the knowledge baseof the society and thus contributes to the growth ofculture.

The kapu system as a response to naturallaws

It is likely that the kapu system of prohibitions arosefor several reasons, including a need to control thecommon people, a need to provide a warning aboutattitudes or behaviours considered dangerous tohealth, and a need to control access to the economicbases of the culture for one reason or another. Plac-ing the harvest of natural resources under kapu couldbe made for any of these reasons. However, the ex-tent of kapus placed on fishing and the harvesting ofmarine life suggests the latter two reasons probablyplayed an inordinate role in making the decision.

The old Hawaiian calendar was a lunar calen-dar based on a 29 1/2 day cycle with each day of thecycle named. Two seasons were recognized, a dryseason and a wet season. Summer, or Kau, began inMay when the Pleiades set as the sun rose, whilewinter, or Ho’oilo, began in October when the weatherturned cool and wet (Cunningham 1994). Knowingthe month and day of the old calendar enabled house-holds to observe monthly rituals. Planting, fishing,harvesting, kapa (cloth) making and prayer were allobserved on a strict schedule. Other days were sim-ply ‘off limits’, or kapu: upon fear of death you didnot fish those days at all. Some months were alsokapu for particular species of fish, and these corre-sponded to exactly those months when the specieswas spawning.


Still other kapus applied because of the gods. Afishermen never wore red because the god Ku in hisform as Ku’ula (god of fishing) found it offensive. Afisherman never took a kino lau (representative) ofanother god out to sea while fishing either; thus ba-nanas as the kino lau of Kanaba (god of the ocean)was not taken out in the canoe while fishing. Onshore, women would be forbidden to eat kino lau ofKanaba such as sea tortoise, porpoise, whale andspotted sting ray lest the ocean take their husbandsor sons.

Examination of these kapus in some cases yieldsinteresting insights into the culture. Five of the sixhousehold kapus, for example, would ease the mindof the fisherman and help him focus on the task athand. That concerning eating the fisherman’s baitconcerned fishing directly: probably a day would bespent before the actual fishing trip gathering the baitwhich for offshore fishing would be inshore bait-fish.Red, though it could not be worn, could be used andwas effective in making squid or octopus lures; thusthe colour would have more than just passing inter-est in harvesting the resource.

But the most interesting kapus are those thatrelate to harvesting directly. Only eight of the daysin any month would be considered good for fishingexcept during the Makahiki (the winter months cel-ebration for the primary god Lono and the periodwhen the Chiefs collected the tribute owed them asa form of taxation) when fishing in general might beavoided, and during the spring months of April andMay when fishing was avoided for specific speciesof fish. In any month, four kapu periods apply, sa-cred in turn to Ku (1st, 2nd and 3rd days), Lono (12thand 13th days), Kanaba (23rd and 24th days) andKane (27th and 28th days). Thus, harvest restric-tions applied which not only acted to protect the re-source, but also enabled the resource to spawn,reproduce and replenish itself to provide a continualfood source for the people.

Learning the breeding seasons of certain spe-cies would have required two things: keen observa-tion on the part of the native populace, and therecognition of its importance. Kirch (1982) and Storrsand James (1991) suggest that the early Hawaiians,after first discovering and settling the islands, had agreat impact on the ecology and even geomorphologyof the islands. These perturbations include the ex-tinction of large flightless birds of the FamilyAnatidae, including four large Moa-like birds, sixlarge geese, and at least one duck, presumably byhunting (although this point is not proven as intro-duced dogs and rats, and fire, may have had a largerimpact). The culture was in a relatively stable den-sity upon its discovery, with a population estimated

at around 1 million at the high end and 200,000 atthe low end (Stannard 1989). (It should be pointedout that Stannard considers it likely that about800,000 would have been right given the 20:1 lossexperienced by other native tribes due to diseaseintroduced by Western cultural contact). If Kirch andStorrs and James are right, it is likely that the Ha-waiians, who had developed advanced methods inagriculture, aquaculture and marine fisheries, wouldhave learned what the impact of their tools and tech-niques could be on the local marine resource. Thiscould, in fact, have given rise to the kapu system asa means of protecting the resource and notoverfishing it.

Problems in Paradise

Pre-contact Hawaiian culture was highly structuredand was governed by strict religious customs, cus-toms that helped relate the Hawaiian to his naturaland political environment. Many of the customs re-lated to marine resource harvesting were taught bya class of teachers known as kahuna, in schools spe-cially designed to teach the skills, knowledge andtechniques and pass them on to future generations.The kahuna also related their special knowledge tothe gods and to natural elemental forces the godscontrolled. These same gods were derived from an-cestors who had gone before them and achieved theirgodlike status from discoveries that enabled theHawaiian to better survive over time. In a sense, theHawaiians were derived from a world which theythemselves had invented.

Several things happened in the 30 years be-tween 1790 and 1820 which changed the religion,system of kapus, and political structure under whichthe Hawaiians had been living for the previous 500years, and under which they had achieved some bal-ance between population density, cultural stabilityand resource use. All are associated with the dis-covery by and continued contact with Western cul-tures.

First was the conquering of the islands by thegreat war-chief, Kamehameha of the Big Island ofHawaii. By bringing all the islands under one rule,Kamehameha set up the political structure that wasto allow (a) continued contact (usually on his terms)with Western culture which led to the underminingof traditional ways of living and allowed a new be-havioural pattern associated with desire and greedto supplant that of communal sharing; (b) increasedexposure to Western diseases such as venereal dis-eases and cholera which decimated Hawaiians andresulted in possibly a 75 percent loss of the popula-tion in this period alone (Gutmanis 1995; see also


the cogent arguments of Stannard 1989), and (c) agrowing demand on labour and certain componentsof their natural resources which undermined theiruse by the native populations for sustenance effort.

The second factor followed close at hand. TheHawaiian populace noticed that the breaking of strictkapus, such as that of men and women not eatingtogether, did not harm the foreigners who came tothe islands. In addition, these foreigners seemed somuch more sophisticated and certainly more tech-nologically advanced. Thus, a basic and growing dis-belief in the old kapu system began to evolve in thepopulation at large.

Finally, into the heart of this growing dissatis-faction with their plight and their gods, came themissionaries with promises of Utopia and safety. Thatthe Western god seemed to combine the best of themajor Hawaiian gods helped the conversion to thenew Western religions No longer was it necessaryto call to a dozen different gods and ‘aumakua to pro-vide guidance and safety on a daily basis through-out a dozen different rituals common to everyday life.

Today, Hawaii struggles with the loss of theculture and the kapu system and what it meant forHawaiian marine resources. There is no replacementin terms of the religious context in which Hawaiianresource use and conservation took place. The lawsthat have been enacted to protect resources havebeen weak or too late at best. Although some head-way has recently been made in protecting availableand still extant resources, problems still abound –for example, the continuing siltation and pollutionof reef flats and the over-fishing of algae-eating fishis leading to reefs becoming overgrown with algae.

Documentation of the decline of Hawaiian fish-eries for food fish has just begun. Although in somecases, such as ‘ama’ama or mullet, the decline in fishhas been reduced by augmentation with fish fromhatcheries, not enough is known about augmentingfisheries for other species although moi, an inshore

fish, is being considered next for stock releases. Inthe cases of ‘ama’ama and moi, the state hopesaquaculture will maintain these fisheries.

Loss of world

Are there ways to prevent the continued loss of re-sources and biodiversity we are now experiencing inthe marine area? An examination of the differencesin management practices between pre-contact andpost-contact (modern) Hawaii is summarized in Ta-ble 10.1 and gives some insight into what actionsmay be needed.

Clearly, there are three aspects of Table 10.1that define the difference between the past and thepresent in terms of management practice. These in-clude differences in the use made of biological knowl-edge, the harshness of the restrictions, and the orderof precedence in terms of who could draw on theresource. The lessons seem easy. In the first case,we need to establish as much biological knowledgeabout the resource as we can. Then we need to ap-ply it, and indeed make all harvesting completelydependent on it. Only in this way can we assure thatthe resource will survive.

The second case is a lesson in itself: we needto make the punishment of infraction of the lawsprotecting our resources resolute. That is, if theyare dealt with harshly it is likely that infractions willdecline. This accomplishes two things. It demon-strates to would-be lawbreakers such as high seadrift-net users that violate United Nations resolutionsand international treaty agreements that we meanbusiness. Second, it could break the economic meansby which lawbreakers can operate and get away withit. Examples include not only the confiscation ofboats and equipment but also, as in the new drugtrafficking laws, the requirement that lawbreakersgive up homes and all property that could have beenbought and/or paid for by illegal gains.

TABLE 10.1: PRE-CONTACT AND POST-CONTACT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN HAWAI’I.

MANAGEMENT PRACTICE PRE-CONTACT POST-CONTACT

Restrictions on harvest kapu days dependent on spawning season or seasonal, not dependent on spawning butreligious restriction some size restrictions

Market restricted to local population not necessarily restricted, world-wide in some cases

Sanction to breaking rules death monetary fine, licence restriction

Tie to knowledge base exclusive occasional

Systematic collection of knowledge not known occasional, dependent on monetary (derived)resourcesabout the resource


With respect to precedence, it should be a re-quirement that in any fishing grounds the needs oflocal populations take precedent over those of theworld at large. Once local demand is satisfied, thenadditional fish or other natural resources could besold on broader markets. Or the fishery, if such, couldbe closed for the remainder of the season to allowstocks to build up. This gives the control of fisher-ies and other natural resources back to the largestpossible number of those who directly benefit by themand takes that control out of the hands of multina-tional corporations who see only the bottom line andprofit.

What we are experiencing is not only the lossof biological diversity, but also the loss of a worldupon which humanity in general has evolved. Theloss of world experienced by the Hawaiian culturewas in part due to the loss of the knowledge base ofthe culture itself. But today we differ in that we arefully aware of what we are doing, and of the possi-ble consequences of such actions. We differ in an-other sense as well. There is some evidence, giventhe kapu system which the Hawaiians used, that theywere willing to protect their resources on pain ofdeath. We have no such taboos in place, and the eco-nomic and legal sanctions we bring to bear have ob-viously, based on the post-contact experience in theHawaiian islands, not worked. Today, the marineresources continue to decline: world, our world, con-tinues to be lost. Somewhat worrisome is this idea:with the loss of cultural diversity, do we also losethe many different ways in which world can be per-ceived, invented, lived in? It the answer is yes, thenwe have lost more than we realize.

Western Samoan views of theenvironment (Clark Peteru)

Popular images of tropical islands as paradises arequite misleading. For the residents it is not a life ofease. Few adults spend much time swimming orbasking in the sun. For the majority, it is a constantstruggle with nature. ‘Gagau le vao’ (literally, ‘breakthe bush’) is the common encouragement to theyoung men in a family to clear the bush or forest forcultivation of crops. If one does not plant, onestarves. Survival requires pragmatism not aestheti-cism, and for that reason Samoans have a utilitarianview of nature. Nature exists to feed, to house, thento satisfy cultural obligations. Usually it is only atthe end of the day that one can relax and enjoy one’ssurroundings and the coolness of the approachingevening. To my knowledge the environment is nei-ther revered nor protected for its own sake. The gov-ernment, along with NGOs, has recently intervened

to protect the environment, but the reason is prima-rily economic rather than aesthetic or cultural. Con-servationists now invoke taboos, citing them astraditional conservation devices, but many traditionaltaboos didn’t have a deliberate conservation goal.Samoan beliefs do not reveal a tradition of natureworship.

One of the great heroes of Samoan folklore, Pili,is credited with having made the first fishing netand to have introduced taro planting to Samoa. Whenhe died, the country’s principal island was dividedamongst his children who were left with three em-blems: the planting stick (signifying a planter’s role),a club and spear (signifying the role of a warrior),and a staff and fly whisk (the emblems of an oratorchief). A fourth child received the office of mediator.Pre-Christian Samoans believed in many gods. Thesignificant ones were known as ‘aitu’. Sixty-five aituhave been described but there were probably morethan double that number. They took the form of liz-ards, bats, cuttlefish, stones, leaves, lightning andother objects. The main aitu were war gods or gen-eral village gods. People’s relationship to them wasgenerally one of dread and appeasement. Signifi-cantly, none relates to ‘mother earth’ or representsnature. Even proverbs (of which over 500 have beenrecorded), invariably quoted by orator chiefs at cer-emonies, have practically nothing to say about thevirtues of an unspoilt environment.

There is, however, a preoccupation with rankand with food which is aptly illustrated by a proverbthat compares Samoa to a fish taken from the sea.Like other living creatures, the parts of a fish, evenbefore it is killed, have already been earmarked fordistribution to chiefs and dignitaries in the village.So it is with Samoa: its political divisions have beendetermined. Taking the proverb further, every man,woman and child within a village has a rank of whichhe or she is aware: pastor, chief, chief’s wife, untitledman, unmarried woman, child, etc.

The reference to food is not to belittle the cul-ture: the observation has been made that food is prob-ably the most culturally valuable product of Oceaniceconomic systems and that its classification byPolynesians provides an analytically useful and cul-turally meaningful point of entry into their valuesystems. This is certainly true of Samoa where onformal occasions rules determining the apportion-ment, delivery and serving of food must be followedclosely.

In the past, people may have been aware of theeffect of their activities on the environment and mayeven have consciously attempted to control or elimi-nate such activities. But today there are few exam-ples of self-control. The reefs and lagoons have been


described as among the most degraded in the Pa-cific. In 1993 it was estimated that at prevailing ratesof depletion, all remaining merchantable timberwould be gone in six to seven years. The same re-port attributed 20 percent of forest clearing to log-ging, with the remaining 80 percent a result ofagriculture and other activities. These impacts arecaused by overfishing and expansion of plantationsinto forested areas.

Perhaps this is not a surprising result giventhe utilitarian view of nature. Yet in a subsistenceeconomy there is little incentive to work for a sur-plus because it would have to be shared. So why theenvironmental crisis?

I attribute resource depletion to several newfactors – increasing individualism; a shift from sub-sistence farming to cash cropping reflecting an in-creasing need for money; an increase in population,and improved harvesting technology – and one oldfactor – cultural obligations. Family, church, work,village and other obligations are onerous, requiringcontributions of food, money and traditional goods.Chiefs need to contribute according to their statusand prefer saving face to saving resources. In allceremonies, more is better. Yet even if one is aware,for example, of diminishing fish catches from the reef,there is no incentive to conserve because what onefisherman leaves behind in order to breed, anotherfisherman will most certainly pick up in order to eat,thus accelerating the spiral of resource depletion.

Although the country is becoming increasinglycash dependent, I would not describe the trend as ir-reversible. Not yet, anyway. Conservation projects havecommenced, resource laws are to be drafted, and aware-ness programmes have been under way for several yearsnow. Hopefully the trends can be reversed. Despite theturmoil, people still survive from their own plot of landrather than the supermarket shelf.

Customary Maori fisheries (Nga Kai OTe Moana, Ministry of MaoriDevelopment, 1993)

For Maori, a kinship exists between all elements ofthe natural world, of which people are one. ThisMaori world-view has traditionally been brought tothe management of natural resources, including fish-eries. It is reflected in protocol, rituals and regula-tions. Maori used fisheries to uphold customaryobligations within, and between, whanau (extendedfamily), hapu (sub-tribe) and iwi (tribe). Because thefulfilment of these duties depended on safeguardingtheir fisheries, Maori developed a system of practi-cal rules, checks and balances to manage this im-portant resource. These practices reflected a

philosophy that extended to all the natural world.They formed part of a holistic system of environmen-tal management by which Maori ensured the sus-tainability of each natural resource.

For Maori, waterways have always had specialsignificance. Waters and their resources are a sourceof spiritual life:

‘All water begins as a sacred gift from the de-ity to sustain life. Waste water is defiled waterwhich must be purified by returning it throughthe cleansing qualities of the earth. Here freshwater is also the life-giving gift of the Gods andis also used to bless and to heal. Separate wa-ter streams are used for cooking, drinking andcleaning. Waste water is purified by return tothe earth, ritualistic purification or, with theexception of water containing animal waste, bymixing with large quantities of pure water.’

All waters have their own mauri (the physicallife force). These waters, and their mauri, mix natu-rally when rivers flow into the sea. They mix un-naturally when, for example, waste waters aredischarged into clean waters. Scientists might considerthe harm caused by waste-water discharge to resultfrom water temperature changes or contaminants car-ried in the waste water. Maori have traditionally seenthese harmful effects as due to the unnatural mixing ofmauri from different waters. These are simply differentcultural perspectives on the same issue.

The traditional Maori view is that fisheries, likeall elements of the natural world, originate from thegods, and are thus imbued with mana atua (the pres-tige and power of the gods). Like all living thingsthey are possessed of mauri, they are mahinga kai(places of customary food gathering) and because oftheir origins and utility, they are taonga (valued re-sources). The rules and practices by which Maorimanaged their waters and fisheries reflected the sig-nificance of this view. Conservation has always beenimportant to Maori. Customary Maori fishing prac-tices included measures intended to maintain thehabitat, preserve fish stocks, and regulate fisheriesuse. This knowledge has been retained and thesemeasures are still practised today.

Fisheries and fishing grounds, like other aquaticresources, were not common property available toall. A complex set of rights existed which determinedwho could harvest certain fish species, fish in par-ticular areas, or at what times harvesting could oc-cur. ‘Marine tenure’ was no different to Maori thanland tenure. Fisheries were seen as whanau, hapu oriwi property. In most cases, ownership rights restedwith those in occupation of the adjacent coastal


lands. The fisheries themselves were clearly definedareas with known rights of access. The use of physi-cal formal markers was not common, rather theknowledge of boundaries was handed down throughgenerations. The boundaries were minutely known,and included mountains, hills, rocks, trees, streamsand rivers. From these geographical features fish-ing areas were delineated. Knowledge of particularfishing grounds was closely guarded by whanau andcommunity and great care was taken to pass on thisknowledge. All fishing grounds, banks and rocks hadspecial names which often feature in story, song andproverb. Landmarks were sometimes named after boththe species found in the fishing grounds and the sea-son or month in which they could be fished. In thatway, marks told the Maori fisher not only where to look,but also when to look and what to look for.

Although fisheries were community-owned,they were subject to traditional forms of authority.This was usually administered by the Rangatira (hapuor iwi head) – for it was their responsibility to en-sure the sustainability of the resource. It was muchthe same with other indigenous peoples throughoutthe Pacific. Kaitiaki (individuals responsible for gov-erning a particular resource) used a system of rulesand prohibitions based on spiritual concepts. Tapu(a prohibition or restriction) and rahui (a temporarytapu) found everyday use in the regulating of fisher-ies. Rahui were used, for example, to retire groundsthat were in danger of being over-fished. The conse-quences of breaking these rules ranged from supernatu-ral punishment to the practice of muru (ritualpunishment). The use of tapu and rahui was guided byethics of custodianship and conservation. Where divineretribution failed to deter potential transgressors, moredown-to-earth measures like muru prevailed.

The importance of mana (prestige and socialreputation) within Maori society is paramount. His-torians have described the life-style of pre-EuropeanMaori as involving a constant pursuit of mana. ForMaori, the mana of a people is demonstrated whenfulfilling the obligations of manaakitanga – a dutythat compels a conservation ethic. To manaaki some-one is to show respect for, and hospitality to, thatperson. The mana of the Maori is based in part onthis ability to contribute and share. Naturally Maorideveloped rules to protect the resources which con-tributed to mana. If their fisheries were thriving,users could express suitable hospitality and enhancetheir mana.

For Maori, the inability to demonstrate appro-priate hospitality to guests, visitors or relationsmeans being diminished in their eyes. Potential lossof mana remains a compelling factor in the carefuland controlled management of fisheries by Maori.

Indigenous knowledge and Amazonianblackwaters of hunger (Janet M.Chernela)

From the point of view of the Eastern Tukanoanspeakers of the Brazilian north-west Amazon, theforested river margin is part of the aquatic, not theterrestrial, realm. Accordingly, the Tukano preservethe river margin as a grazing area for fish, ratherthan deforesting the river margins for agriculture.Indeed, the river and adjacent areas are demarcatedinto ethnobiological zones thought to be protectedby spirits, linking interests to rights, privileges andprohibitions.

From the point of view of the outsider, the deci-sion to maintain the forested river margin as a fishreserve makes good management sense for threereasons: first, the forested river margins are essen-tial to the regeneration of fish stocks as they pro-vide both nutrients and spawning conditions; second,by attracting fish they create favourable conditionsfor fish harvesting; and third, they are unfavourablelocations for agriculture since the floodplain soilsare poor in nutrients, and no advantage is derivedfrom removing the riparian forest for farming. In sum,more protein can be derived per unit labour from fish-ing in the flooded forests than from utilizing suchareas for agriculture (Chernela 1982, 1994).

In the Uaupés River, a tributary 1,200km northof the Amazon proper, which is home to about 10,000Eastern Tukanoan speakers like the Arapaço, fishare less abundant than in the main channel of theAmazon, and the size of the individual fish is smaller(Meggers 1971). Moreover, the region is known forits nutrient-poor rivers, referred to by local inhabit-ants and researchers alike as Starvation Rivers (Riosde Fome) (Meggers 1971; Junk and Furch 1985). Itis therefore surprising that the Eastern Tukanoansrely more heavily on fish than does any other groupof Amazonian Amerindians (Carneiro 1970; Chernela1989; Goldman 1963; Jackson 1983; Hugh-Jones1979; Moran 1991).

The Uaupés River flows 850km south-easterlyacross the eroded, quartzitic sandstone uplands ofColombia to enter the Rio Negro at São Gabriel daCachoeira in Brazil. Rising from the tertiary rockbase of this catchment area, the waters of the Uaupésare nutrient-deficient, likened by some scientists todistilled water (Chernela 1982; Santos et al. 1984).Most of the nutrient sources in this river system arederived not from internal primary production, as theyare in temperate rivers, but from sources externalto the river (Knoppel 1970; Goulding 1980). The sin-gle most important contributor of nutrients is thesurrounding forest. While debris from the flanks falls


year-round into the river, flooding dramatically aug-ments the terrestrial input into the aquatic system,as the rising river encompasses the riparian forest.The water levels of the Uaupés fluctuate significantlywith seasonal rain regimes, averaging seven metresin height per year (Chernela 1989, 1993). Lowlandsmay be submerged for periods of up to eight months,distributed in two annual peak high-water seasonswhen waters flow up to 20km into the adjacent for-ests. The spreading waters carry fish into the for-est, where they disperse to feed on the abundantfoods only then available.

Tukanoan fishing

The Arapaço Tukanoans are fisher-horticulturists,with fish providing the principal source of proteinand garden products the principal source of carbo-hydrates. Apart from a few small mammals and birds,fish provides almost all the animal protein in theTukanoan diet. As fishermen dependent on theseriver systems, the Arapaço are acutely aware of therelationship between the life-cycles of fishes and thelocal environment, particularly the role played by theadjacent forest in providing nutrient sources thatmaintain vital fisheries.

In direct opposition to the expectations of manyscientists (see, for example, Roosevelt 1980), mostfish caught by Tukanoan fishermen derive fromflooded forests. Since Amazonian ecologists, econo-mists and anthropologists have associated high wa-ters with reduced fishing yields, it is of specialinterest that data gathered over one year in theUaupés demonstrate the dramatically high percent-ages of fish captured in seasonally flooded forestsas opposed to other habitats. Data collected over oneyear in the Uaupés River showed that a total of 860kgof fish were captured in the flooded forest, comparedto 270kg of fish captured in the next most produc-tive habitat, the rapids (Chernela 1993). Thus, ap-proximately three times as much fish was obtainedfrom flooded forests than from any other fishing lo-cation. Furthermore, these findings reveal that theaverage weight per fish obtained in flooded forestsis 363 grams, compared to 92 grams per fish for non-flood seasonal uplands, lending further evidence tothe strong correspondence of feeding season withwater level (Chernela 1993). It is of some interest,therefore, that while the Tukano regard the stand-ing forests as a significant food supply, they prohibitfishing these areas at certain times of year.

Unlike Western thought, the Tukanoan systemof classifying living beings subsumes human andanimal beings within a single system. The systemsupposes a nested hierarchy of inclusiveness based

upon principles of patrilineal descent where the ref-erence point at each level of inclusiveness is a puta-tive named ancestor who emblemizes or stands forhis descendants. At each level of inclusiveness adifferent pivotal ancestor becomes relevant, and thusa different calculus of membership is applied. Start-ing at the lowest level of inclusiveness, an individualis a member of a local descent group known as ‘thechildren of X’, where X is the founding ancestor ofthe local branch of a patriclan. All of the settlementsof a single patriclan are known to be the children ofthe founding ancestor of that clan, and all of the clansof a single language group consider themselves tobe descended from a single focal ancestor. At a stillhigher level of inclusiveness, ancestors of severallanguage groups recognize common origin from asingle ancestral anaconda-fish. At each level, thename and recognition of a focal, totemic, ancestorunites persons into a putative brotherhood. The sizeof the brotherhood, defined by common ancestry,expands or contracts in direct relation to the tempo-ral distance to that ancestor.

Topography is socially mapped so that each lo-calized patriclan has a designated location in space,based on principles of historic precedence. For hu-mans as well as animals, the proper ‘sitting-and-breathing-place’ (duhinia) is that where the ancestors‘sat’, for their souls are recycled in alternate gen-erations. The absolute dominion of each group in its‘sitting-and-breathing-place’ (duhinia) must be re-spected. (Families may be out of place, but this sim-ply reinforces the model of things as they should beand may not always be.) A breach in this rule callsfor retaliation. Space is thus socialized through auniversal principle of precedence, based in the his-toricity of space. Lithographs and stone formationsin the river indicate ancestral events and the ‘houses’of spirit guardians. The river as such is an encapsu-lation of history, a reading of positions and origins,a codex in which are inscribed the signs of history.The specificity of placement is significant, and dis-putes over ancestral rights can lead to violence.

Context-dependent and spatially-situated, de-scent is anchored in space. This is what the totemicguardian figure stands for. The challenge is to main-tain intact the socio-spatial configuration of differ-ence based upon patrifiliation as the legitimizingfunction that links spatial demarcation to pastevents.

At the basis of a Tukanoan theory of efficacy isthe assumption that spatial designations, the resultof historic processes, influence future events. A pan-Tukanoan founding myth recounts the placement ofclans along the river from a sacred anaconda-fish-canoe that constructed the proper ‘seating’ (duhinia),


or settlement, of each local descent group. In thismyth, the ancestral anaconda-fish swam upriver froma primordial Water Door until arriving at the head-waters of the Uaupés river. There the great anaconda-fish ancestor turned, with its head downriver andits tail upriver. From the segmentations of its bodyemerged the first ancestors of each of the localizedpatriclans of the Uaupés river basin. (Today, localdescent groups are situated at high points along theriver edge, with front paths leading to the port andrear paths to the gardens.) The birth order of clansfrom the body of the ancestor is regarded as an or-der of status fixing the relations between groups andthe connections between social units and space. Themyth narrates the foundation of a socio-topographi-cal order, a ‘territorialization’ and emplacement ofpeoples, animals and spirits.

At the basis of a Tukanoan economy and ecol-ogy of resource exchange is the notion of an eternalgauge writ into nature. The sacred ‘houses’ of fishtotems are always located within flood zones. A clanguardian, descended from and exchanged for the‘first ancestor’, guards its progeny and avenges thosewho prey on its members. The rule of retaliation ortit-for-tat prevails: the guardian spirit will take onehuman offspring for every one of his offspring taken(cf. Reichel-Dolmatoff 1976; Smith 1981). Eating andbeing eaten are regarded as a single mode of ex-change, a retaliatory dialogue between families whotrade in life and death. Principles of reciprocity linkpredator and prey, as killing is a means of rectifyingan imbalance, inherited and requiring correction.Only equity is capable of producing and maintainingpeace.

There are several lessons for the outsider. Thefirst is that what appears to be the area of food pro-curement may be greatly reduced by restrictions re-lating to a concept of the sacred. The secondconcerns implications for management of fish popu-lations and sustainable harvesting. The conse-quences of such proscriptions could serve to conservefish stocks in the long run, if the areas under re-striction were critical to the maintenance of the fishpopulations. This would be the case, for example, ifthe restricted areas corresponded to spawning sites.Exploring this hypothesis through observation andinterview revealed that in the Arapaço case, all zonessubject to flooding and known to be spawning sitesare heavily restricted in the high-water season, aform of intermittent prohibition and exploitationknown as ‘pulse fishing’. Fish samples obtained atvarious sites along the Uaupés revealed that the pro-tected areas corresponded to the spawning groundsof the Leporinus species of fish known in lingua geralas aracú. These findings show a correspondence

between restricted areas and spawning grounds. Byproviding refugia for the reproduction of fish popu-lations, these areas, off-limits to human predationduring significant portions of the year, could con-tribute to the growth and preservation of fish popu-lations.

The floodplain, primary target of fishing effortand related fishing yields, is the same habitat thatis selectively regulated during seasons of greatestpotential productivity. In the absence of prohibitions,fishing yields might be increased considerably. In-stead, a strategy of ‘pulse fishing’ protects sitesduring periods critical to fish growth, and may re-duce pressures due to localized and specialized fish-ing.

The agricultural alternative

The Tukanoan practice of preserving river marginsfor fisheries maintenance is in conflict with the wide-spread trend among developers to utilize this areafor agriculture. It is therefore relevant to examinethe agricultural alternative.

The Tukano practise a form of rotationalpolyculture in which a variety of plant types aregrown simultaneously. While other crops, includingpeach palm (Bactris gasipaes) and pineapple (Ananascomosus) are grown along paths, in gardens, or along-side houses, manioc (Manihot esculenta)occupies 91percent of all lands in cultivation, furnishing from85 to 95 percent of daily caloric consumption.

Soils generated by the geologically ancient gra-nitic and gneissic Guiana Shield, across which theUaupés River flows, are among the least fertile soilsin the world. The two predominant soils of the re-gion, white sand spodosols, and red and yellowpsamments, are acidic, infertile soils, whose highleaching potential results in aluminium toxicity aswell as in deficiencies in important micronutrients,including phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magne-sium, sulphur and zinc, all of which are necessaryfor reasonable agricultural yields. In evaluating thesesoils, tropical agronomists (Sanchez 1982) concludethat ‘... the agricultural potential of these soils isvery limited and their erodability high’. PedroSanchez, known for his optimism regarding the pos-sibilities for agriculture in many tropical soils con-sidered unfit by opponents, recommends against theclearing of either psamments or spodosols in thehumid tropics (Sanchez 1982).

Generally, Tukanoan farmers maintain threegardens: one recently-planted, a second of one ortwo years in age, and a third of two or three years inage. Since soil nutrients are principally derived fromthe forest cover, and are quickly eroded with clearing,


the consequences for agriculture are dramatic. Heavyrainfall leaches the already depauperate soils, de-clining fertility further and reducing agriculturalyields with each succeeding crop. Accordingly, utili-zation periods are short while fallow periods are long.Tukanoans use the same plot for only two consecu-tive plantings, a period never exceeding four years.Yields from the second planting are substantiallylower and further plantings in the same location areregarded as futile. After the second crop, the plot isabandoned and, except when there is a shortage of land,left to lie fallow for a period upwards of twenty years.

In the depauperate soils of the Uaupés basin,the slow-growing manioc tuber is harvested aftereighteen months. Since the crop is susceptible towaterlogging, there is no advantage to utilizing floodzones for manioc production. Nevertheless, nationaland international funding in agricultural researchand development has been dedicated to identifyingfast-growing subspecies of manioc capable of reach-ing maturation between wet seasons. A programmeof dedicating the floodplain to agriculture, ratherthan to fish and fishing, is based upon assumptionsgained in observations of fertile whitewaterfloodplains. The extension of these models to zonesother than the principal east-west Amazon River it-self reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of thedifferent floodplain ecologies of the basin.

Common representations of the river margin asa fertile plain are based on models derived from theecologies of whitewater river systems. These mod-els cannot be applied to blackwater systems. Unlikeblackwater rivers, whitewater rivers carry suspendedsediments across great distances, washing new nu-trients onto the river flanks with each flood.

The floodplains of whitewater and blackwaterrivers contrast dramatically. In blackwater rivers,nutrient source materials are characteristically poorand the waters are not laden with silts. Unlike therich, silt-laden whitewaters, flooding does not im-prove the adjacent soils in blackwater rivers and doesnot increase their potential agricultural productiv-ity. Rather, the pattern of fertility renewal is the re-verse: it is the forest that restores and rejuvenatesthe river system.

Conclusions

The current status of Amazon fisheries is a growingconcern as the rate of exploitation increases and asdevelopers and colonists apply pressure to convertgallery forests to cropland. Fish has been a princi-pal food source for several million residents of theAmazon basin. Moreover, fish is one of Brazil’s prin-cipal exports. A sizeable portion of these fish are

freshwater. Closely tied to the forest are not onlyrich terrestrial resources but also the aquatic life ofvast tracts of water courses.

The Eastern Tukanoan Indians of the Upper RioNegro basin in the north-west portion of the Brazil-ian Amazon rainforest have managed the delicateecology of the floodplain over generations, structur-ing subsistence activities around the physical andlimnochemical limitations of infertile blackwaters.By reserving the natural vegetation of the riparianforest for fisheries maintenance rather than defor-esting the margin for agriculture they demonstratethe potential of the forested floodplain as an impor-tant source of animal protein. Experimentationshows no comparable potential for agricultural pro-duction on blackwater soils. For the Tukanoans, for-est maintenance and restricted fish harvestingtransforms a potentially infertile system into a rela-tively productive one.

The Tukanoan view of the environment de-scribed here contrasts with Western belief models.For the Tukano, boundaries are respected and reci-procity is the mode of boundary-crossing. Breachingthe rules creates imbalance and retaliation.

According to Tukanoan ideology, humans, fishand other living forms are finite and precarious,locked into a carefully monitored relationship of ex-change and balance. Nature is socialized into ethno-ecological zones pertaining to specific categories(families) of living beings. The logic is based on aschemata underlying the relations of efficacy thatinclude the principles boundedness, precedence andreciprocity. Boundaries are to be respected, accord-ing to this ideology. A belief that breaching these rulescreates an imbalance that in turn carries dangerousconsequences serves to separate realms and reduceintrusion into what might be considered, from the pointof view of the outsider–conservationist, refugia.

When such ideologies are lost, the natural re-sources protected by them are likely to disappear aswell. The next step may well be rapid environmen-tal deterioration, unless the underlying lessonslearned can be put into practice.

A Japanese view on whales andwhaling (Arne Kalland)

In 1982 the International Whaling Commission (IWC)declared a total moratorium on all commercial whal-ing, beginning with the 1985/86 season. Conse-quently, Japan sent her last commercial fleet to theAntarctic in 1986, and in 1987 the last Japanese landstations for large whales were closed. In 1988 theban was extended to include coastal whaling forminke whales. At present, Japan is only conducting


scientific whaling of minke whales in the Antarcticand North Pacific, and nine small coastal vessels ofless than 48 tons each are licensed to catch a totalof about one hundred Baird’s beaked whales and pi-lot whales, which are two species not under theIWC’s jurisdiction.

When the IWC imposed a moratorium on com-mercial whaling, the majority argued that the mora-torium, which was to be reconsidered not later thanin 1990, was necessary until better population esti-mates and a new management regime (the RevisedManagement Procedure, RMP) were available. IWC’sown Scientific Committee, however, did not sharethe opinion of the Commission and found a blanketmoratorium on all species unnecessary. Of the spe-cies targeted by the Japanese fleets, only the spermwhale was defined as ‘endangered’ by the US En-dangered Species Act of 1973. The other species –the minke, pilot, Bryde’s and Baird’s beaked whales– were among the 57 species of cetacean that to-wards the end of the 1980s were at or near theiroriginal level of abundance (Aron 1988). The Ant-arctic stocks of minke whales are particularly abun-dant (Gulland 1988). Since the moratorium went intoeffect in 1987, the Scientific Committee has con-cluded that several whale stocks can be exploitedsustainably, and the RMP has been completed. Yet,the moratorium has not been reconsidered as calledfor in the 1982 decision.

The Japanese have difficulties understandingthe logic of the moratorium, which prohibits themfrom catching the abundant minke whales while per-mitting the Alaskan Eskimos to catch the endangeredbowhead whales. The IWC rationale for this differ-ent treatment is that Japanese whaling is ‘commer-cial’ whereas Eskimo whaling is classified as‘aboriginal subsistence whaling’ (ASW) or whalingfor purposes of local aboriginal consumption carriedout by or on behalf of aboriginal, indigenous or na-tive peoples who share strong community, familial,social and cultural ties related to the continuing tra-ditional dependence on whaling and the use of whales(IWC 1981). However, nowhere does IWC definewhat it means by ‘aboriginal’, ‘subsistence’ or ‘com-mercial’. As recently as March 1997, an IWC work-shop discussing the ‘commercial elements’ ofJapanese coastal whaling refused to define these im-portant concepts.

Japan has since 1986 argued that minke whal-ing along the coasts (so-called small-type coastalwhaling, STCW) shares many characteristics withASW, not covered by the moratorium. Due to thesmall size of the vessels, the boats usually leave theharbours early in the morning and return after darkthe same day. Most of the boat owners have their

own small flensing stations where highly skilledmaster-flensers do the initial partitioning of the car-cass. Less skilled flensers, often women and retiredwhalers, do the final cuttings. In several of the com-munities the whales are sold at auction by the localfishing associations. The owners of these small whal-ing companies, many of the crews, and most of theflensers and the distributors, live in these communi-ties, where much of the meat is consumed.

According to the Japanese position, people infour STCW communities do ‘share strong commu-nity, familial, social and cultural ties related to thecontinuing traditional dependence on whaling andthe use of whales’. Between 1986 and 1994 Japanpresented to the IWC 33 papers documenting thisclaim, most of them written by social scientists fromeight different countries; and several books havebeen published on the subject (e.g. Takahashi 1988;Akimichi et al. 1988; Kalland and Moeran 1992).Japan has even designed an ‘Action Plan’, placingthe distribution of the meat under firm control ofmanagement councils appointed from governmentoffices and community organizations. The main pur-pose is to reduce the commercial elements and pre-vent any of the whale products from reaching themarkets in the expectation that the IWC would grantJapan an interim quota of 50 minke whales for thenine small STCW boats, ‘to make possible the con-tinuation of the cultural, social, religious, dietary andhistorical heritage of the four traditional coastalwhaling communities’ and thereby ‘to alleviate theprofound social, cultural and dietary distress suf-fered’ in these communities (GoJ 1995). It is notsurprising that the Japanese have argued along twomain lines: the cultural significance of whaling andthe social, economic and cultural impacts of thewhaling moratorium. In the following I will limitmyself to discussion of the former. (For discussionsof the impacts, see for example GoJ 1989, 1997;Kalland and Moeran 1992; Freeman 1997).

The cultural significance of whaling

Anthropologists usually define culture as sharedknowledge, values and norms that are transmitted(usually with some modifications) from one genera-tion to the next through processes of socialization.In addition to knowledge related to the technologiesused to catch whales, the Japanese whaling culturecomprises a detailed understanding of an ecosystemin which both men and whales have their roles toplay; rituals and belief systems that surround whal-ing activities; an elaborate cuisine based on whale prod-ucts, and a large number of other activities that relateto the production, distribution and consumption of


whales. Within this complex, attention has particu-larly been given to the importance of local cuisine,to non-commercial exchange, and to rituals associ-ated with the hunts.

Japan is a country poor in natural resources,and the Japanese early in their history had to learnto make the most of the scarce resources they had.This applies also to the utilization of whales. Whaleoil, which had long been used for lighting, becamein the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) an importantinsecticide used in the rice fields and was thus animportant factor in averting serious famines (Kalland1995a). The bones and some of the entrails wereused as fertilizer, and there developed an importantmarket for such products. Baleen, whale tooth, jawbones and sinews became raw materials for varioushandicraft products. But most important, whale meat– including blubber, skin, cartilage, fluke, intestinesand genitals – has for centuries been used as food.During the first post-war years, whale meat ac-counted for 47 percent of the animal protein intakeby Japanese, many of whom are convinced that thewhale saved them from a major famine. Some of theirattachment to whales and whale meat possibly stemsfrom this belief.

The importance of whale meat as food has givenrise to a rich culinary tradition. The quality of themeat is finely graded, and the various parts are re-garded as suitable for different dishes. Whale meatrecipes have been included in Japanese cookerybooks since at least 1489 when it was mentioned asa superior food. In 1832 a special whale cookerybook, Geiniku chomiho, was published in Hirado,north of Nagasaki, and this divided the whale intoseventy named parts, each described in terms of tasteand method of cooking. According to this source,roasted red meat (akami) might ‘taste better thangeese and ducks’ and unagi (the outer side of theupper gums near the baleen) is tender and has a ‘no-ble’ taste, whereas the trachea (nodowami) is ‘givento servants in the countryside’ and the duodenum(akawata) is eaten by the poor. What part of the whalepeople ate thus signalled their social position in thecommunity and therefore carried important symbolicsignificance. In 1989, the only wholesaler inArikawa, not far from Hirado, still dealt in 60 itemsof whale meat, although he had run out of stocks oftwelve of these (Kalland 1989).

Regional food preferences have emerged as aresult of the history of whaling in particular commu-nities. Such preferences exist both in terms of spe-cies eaten and in method of cooking. In Arikawa themost cherished meat in the past was that of rightwhale, but because this meat is no longer available,salted blubber of fin whale has become a new

favourite. Dried, salted dolphin meat is also regardedas a delicacy, while on Iki Island in the same prefec-ture dolphin meat is regarded as non-food (tabemonoja nai). In Taiji, not far from Osaka, people have de-veloped a special liking for pilot whale, which is of-ten eaten raw as sashimi. In Wadaura outside Tokyo,a local speciality is dried, marinated slices of Baird’sbeaked whale (tare), while raw red meat (sashimi) ofthe minke whale is preferred in Auykawa andAbashiri in the north. A special New Year’s dish inAbashiri is soup boiled from salted blubber. The meatof sperm whale is the preferred food in some areasof north-eastern Japan.

Few things are as symbolically laden as food,and local cuisine is one of the strongest markers ofsocial identity in Japan. The various ways of prepar-ing meat have become important social markers, andwhalers from different communities never seem togrow tired of discussing local whale cuisine. Besidebeing a staple – even now some people in these com-munities will try to have a small piece of whale meatdaily ‘just to get a taste of it’ – whale meat is anindispensable part of all types of community gather-ings and celebrations. It is extensively served atweddings, funerals, memorials for the ancestors, aswell as to celebrate the building of a new house, achild’s first day at school, and so on. (See Braund etal. 1990 for a complete list of such occasions inAyukawa.) It is often the typical food for New Year,and in Arikawa about a fifth of the annual sale ofwhale products occurs during that season. The otherpeak in consumption occurs in August, which is themonth when Bon (All Soul’s Day) is celebrated(Kalland 1989). Manderson and Akatsu classifywhale meat in Ayukawa as ‘super food’ due to itsdouble role in being ‘highly valued culturally and asa staple’ (1993). Moreover, food often figures in the‘special products’ of localities; and whale meatserves that purpose in whaling communities. Peo-ple will travel to whaling communities in order toeat the ‘special product’, and whale meat is thus aimportant tourist attraction for these communities.No wonder than that the question of food culturehas been one of the main arguments used by the Japa-nese Government, and a number of the papers pre-sented to the IWC since 1986 focus on this theme(e.g. Braund et al. 1990; GoJ 1991a, 1991b, 1992;Ashkenazi 1992).

One of the arguments for permitting AlaskanEskimos to hunt whale was the non-commercial char-acter of the distribution and consumption of whaleproducts in their society. It is therefore not surpris-ing that many of the Japanese reports focus on thedistribution of whale products, and particularly onthe non-commercial channels of distribution. The


importance of gift-giving in Japan is well known andwhale meat makes excellent gifts. There are anumber of occasions when whale meat is given away.Although such gifts are known in all kinds of whal-ing communities (in Arikawa a gunner used to bring100–120 kg of salted blubber home from a season inthe Antarctic), they have been of special significancein the communities engaged in small-type coastalwhaling. A large portion of a minke whale caught byan STCW boat never reaches the commercial mar-ket, but enters an elaborate system of exchange. Thewhalers are partly paid in kind, and when a whale isbrought ashore for flensing, people will come to lenda hand in return for some meat. Fishermen are givena chunk of meat if the whale has been caught as aconsequence of information received from them. Thedistribution of meat becomes particularly extensivein connection with the first catch of the season(hatsuryo) and the launching of new boats. One ofthe boat-owners in Ayukawa, for example, usuallyreceived about 300 bottles of sake plus whisky, beerand Coca Cola in connection with the commencementof the minke whaling season in May. Additional bot-tles were given to crew members and the boat. Thesebottles were given under the assumption that theywould be reciprocated by gifts of whale meat (Kallandand Moeran 1992; see also Akimichi et al. 1988;Manderson and Hardacre 1989). This particularowner estimated that between 10 and 20 percent ofthe total amount of minke meat is distributed in thisway.

Most of those who gave sake received whalemeat on several occasions, relatives more often thanfriends and neighbours, and these again more oftenthan business associates. Much of the meat receivedas gifts was further sub-divided and given away torelatives, neighbours and acquaintances. Accordingto a survey in Ayukawa and the neighbouring vil-lage of Kugunari, about two-thirds of the householdsreceived gifts of whale meat during the minke whal-ing season (GoJ 1991b). Meat is not given only torelatives and friends, but community institutions alsoreceive a share. In the old days the villages beinghosts to whaling operations received meat to com-pensate for inconveniences this may have causedfishermen and others who did not benefit directlyfrom whaling. More recently, STCW owners inAyukawa and other communities have frequentlygiven meat to community centres, old people’s clubs,schools, the fire brigade and to temples and shrines(Akimichi et al. 1988).

Through this extensive gift exchange, in whichwhale meat is the essential commodity, social con-nections have been kept ‘warm’. Although gifts ofwhale meat to relatives and friends living outside

whaling communities also occur (and serve as animportant means through which such social relationsare revitalized) the intensity and the particular char-acteristics of gift exchange within these communi-ties set them firmly apart from villages in theirvicinity, thus strengthening the community identityfurther.

Whaling also contributes to the local identityin other ways than through local cuisine and giftexchange. All the communities that have been en-gaged in whaling have a set of myths, legends andother stories about whales and whaling. These sto-ries have through the centuries contributed to a richcultural heritage. They provide a picture – althoughat times quite distorted, perhaps – of how peoplelived in these communities in the past and at thesame time provide models of behaviour for youngwhalers today. Many stories tell about legendaryharpooners and gunners, and such legends ‘providelocal residents with an appropriate cultural or folkhero with which to identify’ (Akimichi et al. 1988:75). New legends are always in the making.

This common cultural heritage is expressed andreinforced in festivals, songs and dances, throughwhich the present is linked to the past. Rituals giveeach community its distinct character: the set ofShinto deities is unique to each community, and thefestivals are different as well. But they are all varia-tions on common themes based on a conception ofthe whale as a creature with an immortal soul, anda world-view stressing the interdependence of su-pernatural, human and animal worlds. According tothe prevalent world-view in Japan, all animals areendowed with souls. There is a common belief thatpeople, animals, plants and even inorganic objectshave ‘souls’, or some inert power. In Buddhist doc-trine one takes a holistic view and talks about ‘Bud-dha–nature’ in all things, while in Shinto one talksabout kami, a supernatural power that resides inanything and which gives a person a feeling of awe.There is no sharp line, as in much of Judaeo–Chris-tian thinking, between people and the rest. This has,of course, far-reaching implications for Japanese at-titudes but has not induced the Japanese to take a‘no-touch’ approach to nature, as is the case withmuch of the recent ecological movement in the West.It is recognized that it is the nature of things thatone organism feeds upon another, creating relationsof indebtedness in the process (Kalland 1995b). Awhale that has been killed is regarded as havinggiven itself up to mankind so that we can live, andin return the whalers become indebted to the whale.The whales are also gifts from nature, which itselfis infused by Shinto deities (kami). Thus, whalingactivities become intimately bound up with religious


beliefs, and as a gift the prey has to be utilized tothe fullest. To do otherwise would be an insult tothe animal. To repay the whales for sacrificing theirlives, the whalers have to take care of their souls;otherwise the whale souls can turn into ‘hungryghosts’ that might cause illness, accidents and othermisfortunes.

It has, therefore, been the practice in manywhaling communities to treat the souls of whales ina manner similar to that in which they treat the soulsof deceased human beings. The whales have beengiven posthumous names (kaimyo) which have beeninscribed on wooden memorial tablets (ihai) and in-cluded in temples’ death registers (kakocho). Tombsand memorial stones can be found in at least 48places, from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in thesouth, and annually at least 25 festivals (matsuri)and memorial rites (kuyo) are held in honour ofwhales (Akimichi et al. 1988). A tomb at Koganjitemple (Yamaguchi prefecture) has been designateda national historical monument. Built in 1962, itmarks the burial of 75 foetuses found in whalescaught before 1868. The temple, which is dedicatedto whales, is moreover the stage for elaborate me-morial ceremonies with Buddhist priests recitingsutras from 28 April to 2 May every year in order tohelp the souls of deceased whales to be reborn in ahigher existence. Such services have a number ofimplications, and people may have different inter-pretations of the rites. The temple priest may per-form the memorial service in the belief that the whalewill reach enlightenment and thus be released fromrebirth into this world and enter Paradise as ‘Bud-dha’ (hotoke), whereas some people may believe thatthe whale will be reborn as a human being or as an-other whale to be hunted. Finally, memorial serv-ices are held to ensure that the whalers, and thegunners in particular, are forgiven (tsukunaru) for thesin involved in taking life. Memorial services there-fore carry special meanings to the gunners, and theyfrequently go directly to the temple upon returninghome in order to conduct memorial services for thewhales they have killed.

This rite, then, also serves to secure safe voy-ages in the future by preventing whale souls frombecoming malevolent. Successes as well as failuresare explained in relation to the divine. Accidents maybe caused by failure to repay the whale’s sacrificethrough rituals, or by breaking taboos. There aremany stories about the malevolent spirits of whales,and some of them are known throughout Japan. Themost famous is the disaster that struck Taiji in 1878when whalers attacked a right whale with calf. Onehundred and eleven whalers lost their lives in thefollowing gale. A similar story is told from Ukushima

where 72 whalers perished in 1715 after attackinga blue whale with calf, allegedly on their way toworship at a famous temple (Kalland and Moeran1992). These accidents, which have become part ofthe communities’ cultural heritage, and thus help ingiving them their peculiar identities, have reinforcedthe validity of the taboo, a taboo which, incidentally,has great value in the conservation of the stocks.

A number of lesser ceremonies and rituals areperformed in order to repay whales for their personalsacrifices and thus to prevent accidents. The whal-ing companies used to gather the whalers and theirwives for a joint ceremony before the commencementof the season, as well as after, and in some placesthe wives would go on pilgrimages to local shrines.Daily religious observations are conducted in frontof the family Shinto altar (kamidana), praying for thehusband’s safety and for good catches. Similar ritu-als are performed on the boats, where a piece of thewhale’s tail may be offered to the Shinto altar. The manyrituals tie whalers to each other, to their families, tothe whales, giving the local residents both a feeling ofthe common heritage and meaning to their lives.

Discussion

In order to hunt whales successfully it is necessarynot only to acquire skills in navigation, shooting andthe handling of meat but also to acquire detailedknowledge about the migratory, mating and feedingbehaviour of various species of whales (Takahashiet al. 1989; Kalland and Moeran 1992). The whalershave learnt to take account of such natural phenom-ena as tides, currents, winds, wave patterns, watertemperature and colouring. They are also keen ob-servers of fish and bird behaviour. But the knowl-edge of the whalers goes beyond this. They need anunderstanding of how whales are part of a largerecological system in which other maritime organismsas well as humans are also parts. The whalers’knowledge of this ecosystem is based on centuriesof accumulated experience and is intimately linkedto religious beliefs and practices.

Whaling in Japan, then, is more than just earn-ing a living. It is a way of life. Whaling activities arefirmly embedded in the local culture which encom-passes religious beliefs and rituals, food habits, spe-cial ways to socialize children, and so on. In manyways this culture is common to all communities thathave based their economy on whaling. There are,nevertheless, distinctive features unique to each ofthem. The distinct character of STCW is the veryclose connection between whaling-related activitiesand the communities from which the boats operate;the localized distribution network where a large part


of the whale meat is used for gift exchange; and therelatively egalitarian work organization found bothon the STCW boats and on the flensing stations. Inthese qualities, Japanese community-based whalingresembles the whaling conducted by the AlaskanEskimos. With the current moratorium on whalingthis culture is being eroded. A culinary tradition isbeing lost and rituals are disappearing. In Ayukawa,in particular, solidarity is further undermined by thecollapse of the intricate gift exchange system. Thisloss of social identification, coupled with losses incommunity identity and solidarity, has caused stress-related problems among some whalers and their fami-lies.

Social and cultural changes are inevitable, andthe whalers and their families might have been ableto cope with the situation if they had been convincedthat the moratorium was necessary in order to saveendangered species. But the species hunted by theJapanese STCW boats are not endangered. Thatwhales should not be killed for ethical reasons isfurthermore incomprehensible to most Japanese, whorather would question the ethics of killing domesti-cated animals for food. To an increasing number ofJapanese the moratorium is therefore interpreted asan assault on their culture, and groups have beenestablished to protect ‘the Japanese food culture’.In the announcement of one such group it is statedthat its purpose is to argue ‘strongly against the eth-nocentric Western coercion to change Japanese eat-ing habits’ (GoJ 1989). The best guarantee forbiodiversity might in fact be the maintenance of cul-tural diversity.

Global preservation and the creationof a pest: Marine mammals and localresponse to a moratorium in arcticIceland (Níels Einarsson)

To Icelandic artisanal fishermen, the prime exam-ples of alienated Westerners are whale and seal con-servationists, who they see as dangerous extremists.They feel that such people should not be taken seri-ously as they have no understanding of how natureworks or how to survive in it.

While whale watching has become a major in-dustry and an ever more popular pastime, it hasgained little ground in Iceland in spite of some po-tential (see Linquist and Tryggvadóttir 1990). Un-like whale watchers, for fishermen whales are anintegral part of everyday reality. In their everydaywork artisanal fishermen encounter marine animalsin a range of situations. Being out at sea in a smallboat often means that they come into close contactwith animals under conditions that the fishermen

have not chosen. In contrast, most urbanized West-erners leave their cities not for their livelihood, butfor recreation.

Whereas the visiting urbanite may seek outwildlife to look at and admire, fishermen are prima-rily engaged in hunting (the Icelandic word trans-lates into English as both ‘to hunt’ and ‘to fish’) andthey find little reason for coming close to animalsfor other purposes. Sometimes contact with animalscan indeed be too close for comfort, as in the case ofbreaching whales. In the village where I worked, afairly big boat was nearly capsized at night when awhale threw itself against its stern. Had it been asmaller open boat, fishermen say, there would havebeen little hope for survival as it would have beencrushed. In Arctic waters a man can survive for onlya few minutes. The fishermen did not know whatkind of creature ‘attacked’ the boat involved but con-sidered it likely to have been a minke whale, the‘jumper’ (or ‘stökkull’). When breaching, minkes jumpinto the air and hit the sea making sounds like can-nons being fired.

Icelandic fishermen are not incapable of appre-ciating the beauty of nature. In fact, one of the rea-sons small-scale fishermen often give for their choiceof occupation is that it gives them the opportunityto experience the beauty of the fjords and the coast-line where they fish, and to do so in total tranquil-lity and at their own pace. It is seen as one of thepositive attributes of being a small-scale fisherman.To use nature and animals does not mean to denythat it can at the same time be of aesthetic valuealthough many environmentalists see these as mu-tually exclusive. They may never have seen a fisher-man take a large and fat cod and with a smile ofappreciation describe it as particularly beautiful. Theword used about a catch of big fish of high monetaryvalue is indeed ‘beautiful fish’ (fallegur fiskur).

Fishermen see whales as predators eating mil-lions of tonnes of fish that would otherwise be avail-able to them, while the fishermen are facingdecreasing quotas which pose a serious threat totheir livelihood. Focusing on minke whale predationon Norwegian cod and herring fisheries, Flaaten andStollery (1994) conclude that, ‘the cost of predationis large, [with] a 10 percent increase in the 1989minke whale stock causing estimated damage of overseventeen million $US in value; 5.2 and 12.4 per-cent respectively of the total gross profits of theNorwegian cod and herring fisheries’. Assuming thatthe diet of the minkes in Icelandic coastal watersdoes not differ significantly from Norway then whalesin Icelandic waters consume 4.6 to 4.8 million tonnesof fish per year. The Icelandic economy is recover-ing from its lowest economic slump since World War


II, and from drastic reductions in fish quotas (seeMatthiasson 1994). Many small-scale fishermen havebeen forced to give up fishing since quotas have notsufficed to keep their businesses going, yet scien-tists at the International Whaling Commission main-tain that, given restricted and regulated quotas, theminke could be hunted sustainably. Fishermen claimthat there have never been as many whales as todayand that numbers are out of control, threatening whatthey think of as ecological balance in the sea. Allthis is transforming whales into vermin for Icelan-dic fishermen.

The effectiveness of protests of various envi-ronmental groups concerns Icelanders. Many worrythat arguments about animal welfare might bestretched to include all fishing. Fishermen think oftheir occupation as a natural way of life. They main-tain that, as hunters, they are an integral part of theecosystem and as their methods of fishing are smallin scale, they pose no threat to fish stocks or to theenvironment. They like to juxtapose what they seeas a natural way of living with the lives of ‘citydwellers’, who they claim are becoming ever moreremoved from nature – living in crime-ridden, in-humane surroundings and buying all their prod-ucts, including nicely packaged meat, fromsupermarkets. Fishermen point to the inconsist-encies in the treatment of animals by their criticswho may even call themselves ‘animal lovers’while at the same time tolerating the mass suffer-ing of factory-raised animals: animals that ordi-nary people never know and never see.

The stigmatizing view fishermen have of whaleconservationists is understandable in terms of theorganizations and individuals they see as represent-ing the movement. Paul Watson, the leader andfounder of Sea Shepherd, a marine mammal conser-vation group, is one of the militant ‘eco-warriors’ (aterm endorsed by the members) engaged in whaleconservation. He firmly believes that in the futurepeople will be able to communicate with whales.After partially succeeding in scuttling a minke whal-ing boat in Norway in 1992, he wrote to a Norwegian

newspaper: ‘Do you want your children to hear aboutwhat you did to the whales from the very same be-ings that you have helped to slaughter? It is a cer-tainty that the whales will talk about you in the samevein as Jews now talk of Nazis. For in the eyes ofwhalekind, there is little difference between thebehaviour of the monsters of the Reich and themonsters behind the harpoon’ (quoted in Nordlys,p.7). Such messages and actions only serve to re-inforce the image of environmentalists as poten-tially dangerous extremists who are not to betaken seriously.

The present moratorium on whaling is leadingto the perception of whales as pests. Icelandic fish-ermen do not share the common feeling of what hasbeen called ‘sentimental anthropomorphism’ to theextent observed in urban Western culture (see Jas-per and Nelkin 1992). They do not believe that whalesare especially intelligent or otherwise endowed andthat they should therefore be spared from hunting,and they draw the moral circle narrowly around hu-mans. Outside that circle come animals with verydifferent moral rules attached to them. This is seenas self-evident and a part of a life-style that involvesfishermen in direct confrontation with animals. Thesedifferences in the perception of whales are obviouslynot the intention of whale conservationists, but maybecome the actual consequences of total protection.Icelandic small-scale fishermen have an intimate,practically-based experience with the resources fromwhich they gain their livelihood. Their attitudes to-wards sea animals are shaped by this fact. They areanother example of how people construct their moraluniverse to fit their convenience. Fishermen main-tain that they have the right to hunt or otherwisemanage animals in the ecosystem in which they par-ticipate. It is a matter of principle. To question thatprinciple is to question what fishermen feel is theirself-evident right to survive. By referring to the factthat they work in close contact with the natural en-vironment they exploit, they make claims on a truerversion of reality and therefore a licence to speak ofnature ‘as it really is’.


Box 10.2: Theoretically

William Wallace Mokahi Steiner

I have been thinking about this for a long time,just as centuries of color have, wondering atwhy it is the pale ones exploded out of their circles

engulfing all before them with their own culture,their own unique way of reading the world

as if they owned it; there it was, apple for the picking; theyswept all before their wave, not knowing or caringor sometimes even noticing anyone else was there, that

world had adjusted to us, that the different songs in thedifferent voices promoted the same thing, a kind of

peaceful coexistence with nature if not with each other.Oh I know about the theories; there is one about the roleof a pale God imaged in their own shape to reduce their

fear of such things, make him (always him) morepalatable and recognizable and in his great

parochialism give them the right to seize the worldby its very throat. To give them strength, they said.And there is the one about survival of the fittest, words

taken from a context which recognized that rules appliedand one of those rules meant that the survivors did not have

a thinking brain and reacted only in need which raises the questionwhat is the need of this tiresome and pale race? And how aboutthat other theory, the one that was used to subtract the Indian,

the Hawaiian, the Aborigine from the spirit of some nurturingsoil or sea, you know, the one which said we did not know

what to do with what we had. Did not know how to be efficient killersand miners and traders enough so as to control, to own, to buildempires with the resources at our feet; they would teach us how

even if we did not want their language, their plans, their seed,even if we did not need these new thoughts on how to be a human.

And in the thinking about these things I have a new theory, a kind ofpathogenic idea, one which builds on the very best of their own knowledgeand is the only explanation I can see. It goes like this: suppose there

is a virus that recognizes only certain gene sequences in thearchetype of the pale ones; suppose it knows how to destroy the spirit of

Moral Conscience.....?

The discourse of Ecological Correctness : of Dam Builders Rescuing Biodiversity

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