Managing Abundance, Not Chasing Scarcity

* Article: Managing abundance, not chasing scarcity: the real challenge for the 21st century. Jerome Lewis. Radical Anthropology. No. 2

URL = http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal_files/journal_02.pdf

Summary

"Lewis pursues a classic anthropological strategy – to learn something about ourselves by paying close and sympathetic attention to how others see us. In his article for Radical Anthropology, Lewis considers what the Yaka hunter-gatherers of Congo-Brazzaville make of Western ‘conservation’ efforts. The clue to the truth of what ‘conservation’ is all about is to be found in a simple but puzzling fact: the Yaka do not discriminate between the activities of the loggers cutting down their forest for private gain – supposedly the main villains of the piece – and conservationists.

This is not because the Yaka have made a stupid mistake. It’s because both loggers and well-meaning conservationists do in fact work hand in hand. They both come from a culture that has already destroyed its forests and put a safety fence around the charred ruins that remain. Conservationists pursue a strategy that makes sense if what you want is to accept defeat and preserve the ruins. If, on the other hand, we truly want a future for the forests, maybe we should turn for advice to those who have been its custodians for millennia. From their point of view, the forest is not a scarce resource to be protected, but an abundant resource to be shared. As Lewis puts it, the onus is on us to change our point of view from “one that endlessly chases and protects scarce natural resources to one that sees natural resources as adequate, even abundant. Seeing that there is enough for everybody, but it just needs to be shared properly, is the lesson that we can learn from the Yaka”. How the Yaka achieve this sharing way of life is also touched upon in Lewis’s brilliant article.

That they have achieved it is not in any serious doubt, which may come as a surprise to those who insist that human nature must militate against such communist arrangements. This confidence about what human nature is and must be is another dominant feature of Western thought – if you like, our inherited common sense. Common sense can be a reliable guide in our lives – how could we account for its existence otherwise? But sometimes it is so disastrously wrong that we need a way to think beyond it.

We need to know the truth behind appearances because better knowledge of our human nature will allow us to make living arrangements that are in accord with that nature. We also need to know the truth if our moral codes are to be anything more than hot air – what kind of behaviour can we expect from human animals? And if that leaves something to be desired, what social arrangements can we make so that the darker sides of our inherited behavioural strategies can be better managed in the interests of all? The first question, though, must be, how are we to acquire the truth about human nature if common sense is no guide?" (http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal_files/journal_02.pdf)

Excerpt

Jerome Lewis:

"This article explores the cultural conceptions and observations that underpin their conflation of what seem to us opposed activities. The Yaka’s analysis challenges basic assumptions underpinning dominant western approaches to environmental conservation, particularly current attempts to assure the future of the flora and fauna of the Congo Basin by establishing protected areas. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the Yaka’s analysis accords with the principles behind the latest attempts to improve forest management through forestry certification schemes which allow for sustainable human exploitation of the forest.

Broadly speaking, people use two contradictory models to conceive and understand forest resources in Northern Congo-Brazzaville. In general, people coming from industrialised countries value forest resources because of their scarcity whereas those people living in or near the forest value them because of their abundance. Here it is argued that Yaka understanding of how people can maintain an abundant nature offers conservation organisations a new paradigm for conceptualising their role in the management of Central African forests, and establishes the basis for a meaningful dialogue with local people. Local conceptions of forest resources as abundant provide a more appropriate model for resource management in Central Africa than the continuing imposition of Euro-American derived models based on scarcity.

The Yaka (Mbendjele) Pygmies2 living in northern Congo are forest living hunter-gatherers who are considered the first inhabitants of the region by themselves and their farming neighbours, the Bilo3. Each Yaka associates her or himself with a hunting and gathering territory called ‘our forest’. Here, local groups of Yaka visit ancestral campsites in favoured places where they will gather, fish, hunt and cut honey from wild beehives depending on the season and opportunities available. Though many occasionally make small farms or work for money or goods, they value forest activities and foods as superior.

Yaka value travelling through the forest and camping in different places. Social organisation is based on a temporary camp generally containing at most some 60 people in ten or so quickly but skilfully built leaf and liana huts. Camps are able to expand or contract easily in response to changing conditions relating to the viability of hunting and gathering activities or social events and needs. If Yaka have difficulty finding game in one area of forest, they simply move to another area, allowing game to replenish. In general, Pygmy peoples use their mobility and flexibility to avoid or resolve problems like hunger, illness, conflict, political domination or disputes among themselves." (http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal_files/journal_02.pdf)