Hunting Calendar in the Management of Amazonian Game Fauna: Implications and Recommendations

Abstract

The hunting activity considered as subsistence is of great importance for the families residing in the interior of the Amazon Forest, since it is one of the main sources for obtaining protein and fat, besides reflecting socio-cultural and economic aspects of their livelihoods. As any natural resource exploitation, if carried out in a disorderly way, the practice of hunting may lead to the depletionof that natural resource, translated as a decline of their population abundance, and, ultimately, to the local
extinction of some species, as well as to compromise important ecological processes, not to mention the
loss of regional socio-cultural aspects. This study presents methodological aspects of the tool called the
Hunting Calendar, which aims to obtain information, based on third party data, related to hunting pressure
on game species practiced by traditional peoples and communities for subsistence purposes, that is, for
protein provision to their families. This methodology was applied successfully in the Extractive Reserves of
Cazumbá-Iracema and Alto Tarauacá in 2010 and 2012, respectively, in the state of Acre. The calendar is
composed of pictorial plates of wild game animals known to occur in the sample area and based on a joint
and interactive construction with the traditional population researched. The calendar allows the identification of most targeted taxa, to quantify the individuals killed and the respective biomass, the average hunting impact caused by the resident and his family, to know the selectivity of taxon per hunting, as well as the yield by type of hunting. It has proved to be relatively efficient in characterizing and monitoring hunting pressure in remote areas of the Amazon, and its community-based participation and involvement, contributed to improve the data quality and resource management.