Influências dos sistemas de manejo formal e informal na atividade de caça de subsistência na RDS Piagaçu-Purus, AM

Abstract

The combination of preferences, foraging strategies and cultural systems fix regulation mechanisms concerning the wildlife use by human populations. All the restrictive mechanisms that constrains human action created by human choice, are called institutions and can be shared in formal or informal manners. In Brazil, the legal mechanism that allows the interaction between formal and informal institutions in the wildlife management are the Sustainable Use Reserves, such as the Sustainable Development Reserve Piagaçu-Purus (SDR-PP) that was enacted in 2003 at the Lower Purus River, Amazonas State. I analyze how the formal and the informal institutional systems interact and reflect on the actual hunting profiles at five terra firme communities in the SDR-PP. Therefore, (i) I followed one year of hunting self-monitoring; (ii) performed semi-structured interviews and informal conversations to describe informal rules shared among residents; (iii) analyzed the content of the Management Plan of the RDS-PP and laws regarding hunting and (iv) performed structured interviews and analysis of consensus on the agreement of concepts between residents and Management Council (MC) representative. With 459 data-sheets filled by 37 residents who participated effectively on the self-monitoring, I checked what were the main species harvested in spatial and temporal scale. The selectivity in killing is not correlated to animals’ weight (p=0.4). Preferred species represent the greatest energetic benefit, but also have more rules and arrangements associated with their use. Concepts spread across different cultures in the Amazon, reima, panema and visagem represented ritual regulations of the wildlife use by the residents. The use of natural licks to forage tapirs aggregates the different approaches in a mixed and complex system of regulatory measures and protection of these sites and specie. There is agreement between residents and representatives of the MC on the concepts of formal and informal institutions, but there is disagreement regarding issues related to conflicting points about hunting. The interaction between the formal and local systems is possible in RDS-PP for developing efficient strategies for wildlife management. This requires legal apparatus of public policies on wildlife protection and understanding of the interaction between symbolic and ecological factors in the hunting practices, which should be accompanied by an efficient monitoring system of wildlife use.