Hunting and Monitoring: Community-Based Research in Xerente Indigenous Land, Brazilian Cerrado

Abstract

Community-based research that involves participatory monitoring has been increasingly used in studies on hunting activity in traditional societies of the Neotropics, particularly in the rainforest environment. We present the results from a year-long study of participatory monitoring of hunting in 10 villages in Xerente indigenous land in the Brazilian Cerrado, an initiative to build a sustainable-use program for local hunting. Fifty-two hunters recorded data on 390 hunts involving 451 kills and 5,878 kg of estimated biomass from 34 game species. Medium-and large-sized mammals were the most hunted species, while hunting activities were predominant in forest environments. Indigenous hunting techniques associated with collective hunts using fire are no longer used, and the use of traditional weapons such as the bow and arrow is now uncommon; firearms were the main weapon used. The data revealed current patterns of wildlife use as well as hunting activities. The implications of these results for future research on the management and conservation of wildlife hunting in Xerente indigenous land are presented. We present our findings to facilitate improved preparation of new monitoring programs in traditional societies that live in the Cerrado.

Community-based monitoring of Indigenous food security in a changing climate: global trends and future directions

“…The same authors also emphasized the importance of knowledge sharing back to the community: 'However, we sought substantial input regarding the format and content of research results to be returned to collaborating communities' (p. 772). In another study categorized as externally-driven, hunters were invited to participate on a voluntary basis, and those who accepted were trained to fill monitoring data sheets [91].…”

“…Community members are involved only in data collection or as research assistants, researchers make all decisions 18 [76,90,91] increase in the number of publications on this topic by more than two-fold. This trend is consistent with previous studies on broader environmental CBM [52,69] and reflects the need to include different sources of knowledge and different knowledge users in monitoring efforts, instead of conventional monitoring approaches which are typically externally driven [55,94].…”

“…When examining the implementation of the monitoring system, articles generally emphasized participation of men only or both men and women. The quality of participation or reasons for participation were unclear due to lack of reporting in these articles; however, the predominant focus on men in monitoring efforts could be due to the role of many Indigenous men in hunting, fishing, and natural resource management in several contexts [85,87,91]. Challenges to women's participation in, and benefit from, monitoring efforts could be due to failure to recognize and address gendered power imbalances in project objectives or inadequate considerations of gender in the program design [96,97].…”

Use of game fauna by Fulni-ô people in Northeastern Brazil: implications for conservation

“…Likewise, most studies report a higher frequency of hunting on mammalian species, followed by birds and reptiles [10,46], that we did not observe in our findings. The preference for mammals is not only due to their size or availability but also to the taste of the protein in relation to the other taxa [8,10,15,41]. The most common mammal species observed in our research are mainly small animals, such as G. spixii.…”

“…Concerning indigenous peoples, this relationship becomes even stronger, contributing to the subsistence of these peoples, as well as to the maintenance of their cultural identity [6][7][8]. It is secured to them by the Brazilian constitution their rights to maintain their lands, way of life, and traditions [9].…”