Empty forest or empty rivers? A century of commercial hunting in Amazonia
| Autor: | Rachel M. Fewster, Glenn H. Shepard, Taal Levi, André Pinassi Antunes, Fabio Rohe, Carlos A. Peres, Eduardo Martins Venticinque |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
neotropical wildlife
0106 biological sciences Conservation of Natural Resources wildlife resilience Rainforest Amazonian historical ecology media_common.quotation_subject Population Biodiversity hunting sustainability 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Animals Ecosystem empty forest education Research Articles media_common Wildlife conservation education.field_of_study Multidisciplinary Ecology source-sink dynamics Amazon rainforest 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology commercial and subsistence hunting SciAdv r-articles Subsistence agriculture refuges Geography wildlife conservation Threatened species hide and skin trade Psychological resilience Research Article |
| Zdroj: | Science Advances |
| ISSN: | 2375-2548 |
| DOI: | 10.1126/sciadv.1600936 |
| Popis: | Trend analysis of the massive international hide trade in Amazonia reveals differential resilience to hunting for aquatic and terrestrial wildlife. The Amazon basin is the largest and most species-rich tropical forest and river system in the world, playing a pivotal role in global climate regulation and harboring hundreds of traditional and indigenous cultures. It is a matter of intense debate whether the ecosystem is threatened by hunting practices, whereby an “empty forest” loses critical ecological functions. Strikingly, no previous study has examined Amazonian ecosystem resilience through the perspective of the massive 20th century international trade in furs and skins. We present the first historical account of the scale and impacts of this trade and show that whereas aquatic species suffered basin-wide population collapse, terrestrial species did not. We link this differential resilience to the persistence of adequate spatial refuges for terrestrial species, enabling populations to be sustained through source-sink dynamics, contrasting with unremitting hunting pressure on more accessible aquatic habitats. Our findings attest the high vulnerability of aquatic fauna to unregulated hunting, particularly during years of severe drought. We propose that the relative resilience of terrestrial species suggests a marked opportunity for managing, rather than criminalizing, contemporary traditional subsistence hunting in Amazonia, through both the engagement of local people in community-based comanagement programs and science-led conservation governance. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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