Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game

Despite growing industrialization, the shift to cash economy and natural resources overexploitation, indigenous people of the Amazon region hunt and trade wildlife in order to meet their livelihood requirements. Individual strategies, shaped by the hunters' values and expectations, are changing in r...

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Autores principales: Ponta, N., Cornioley, T., Dray, A., Vliet, N. van, Waeber, Patrick O., Garcia, C.A.
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Frontiers Media 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/112311
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author Ponta, N.
Cornioley, T.
Dray, A.
Vliet, N. van
Waeber, Patrick O.
Garcia, C.A.
author_browse Cornioley, T.
Dray, A.
Garcia, C.A.
Ponta, N.
Vliet, N. van
Waeber, Patrick O.
author_facet Ponta, N.
Cornioley, T.
Dray, A.
Vliet, N. van
Waeber, Patrick O.
Garcia, C.A.
author_sort Ponta, N.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Despite growing industrialization, the shift to cash economy and natural resources overexploitation, indigenous people of the Amazon region hunt and trade wildlife in order to meet their livelihood requirements. Individual strategies, shaped by the hunters' values and expectations, are changing in response to the region's economic development but still face the contrasting challenges of poverty and overhunting. For conservation initiatives to be implemented effectively, it is crucial to take into account people's strategies with their underlying drivers and their adaptive capabilities within a transforming socio-economic environment. To uncover hunting strategies in the Colombian Amazon and their evolution under the current transition, we co-designed a role-playing game together with the local stakeholders. The game revolves around the tension between ecological sustainability and food security—hunters' current main concern. It simulates the mosaic of activities that indigenous people perform in the wet and dry season, while also allowing for specific hunting strategies. Socio-economic conditions change while the game unfolds, opening up to emerging alternative potential scenarios suggested by the stakeholders themselves. Do hunters give up hunting when given the opportunity of an alternative income and protein source? Do institutional changes affect their livelihoods? We played the game between October and December 2016 with 39 players—all of them hunters—from 9 different communities within the Ticoya reserve. Our results show that providing alternatives would decrease overall hunting effort but impacts are not spatially homogenous. Legalizing trade could lead to overhunting except when market rules and competition come into place. When it comes to coupled human-nature systems, the best way forward to produce socially just and resilient conservation strategies might be to trigger an adaptive process of experiential learning and scenario exploration. The use of games as "boundary objects" can guide stakeholders through the process, eliciting the plurality of their strategies, their drivers and how outside change affect them.
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spelling CGSpace1123112024-10-03T07:41:01Z Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game Ponta, N. Cornioley, T. Dray, A. Vliet, N. van Waeber, Patrick O. Garcia, C.A. hunting wildlife livelihoods animal-based food Despite growing industrialization, the shift to cash economy and natural resources overexploitation, indigenous people of the Amazon region hunt and trade wildlife in order to meet their livelihood requirements. Individual strategies, shaped by the hunters' values and expectations, are changing in response to the region's economic development but still face the contrasting challenges of poverty and overhunting. For conservation initiatives to be implemented effectively, it is crucial to take into account people's strategies with their underlying drivers and their adaptive capabilities within a transforming socio-economic environment. To uncover hunting strategies in the Colombian Amazon and their evolution under the current transition, we co-designed a role-playing game together with the local stakeholders. The game revolves around the tension between ecological sustainability and food security—hunters' current main concern. It simulates the mosaic of activities that indigenous people perform in the wet and dry season, while also allowing for specific hunting strategies. Socio-economic conditions change while the game unfolds, opening up to emerging alternative potential scenarios suggested by the stakeholders themselves. Do hunters give up hunting when given the opportunity of an alternative income and protein source? Do institutional changes affect their livelihoods? We played the game between October and December 2016 with 39 players—all of them hunters—from 9 different communities within the Ticoya reserve. Our results show that providing alternatives would decrease overall hunting effort but impacts are not spatially homogenous. Legalizing trade could lead to overhunting except when market rules and competition come into place. When it comes to coupled human-nature systems, the best way forward to produce socially just and resilient conservation strategies might be to trigger an adaptive process of experiential learning and scenario exploration. The use of games as "boundary objects" can guide stakeholders through the process, eliciting the plurality of their strategies, their drivers and how outside change affect them. 2019-03-28 2021-03-08T08:25:23Z 2021-03-08T08:25:23Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/112311 en Open Access Frontiers Media Ponta, N., Cornioley, T., Dray, A., Van Vliet, N., Waeber, P.O., Garcia, C.A. 2019. Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 7: 34. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2019.00034
spellingShingle hunting
wildlife
livelihoods
animal-based food
Ponta, N.
Cornioley, T.
Dray, A.
Vliet, N. van
Waeber, Patrick O.
Garcia, C.A.
Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game
title Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game
title_full Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game
title_fullStr Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game
title_full_unstemmed Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game
title_short Hunting in Times of Change: Uncovering Indigenous Strategies in the Colombian Amazon Using a Role-Playing Game
title_sort hunting in times of change uncovering indigenous strategies in the colombian amazon using a role playing game
topic hunting
wildlife
livelihoods
animal-based food
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/112311
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