Many conservationist and practitioners view hunters—and overhunting—as key human drivers of biodiversity decline. With this view is the growing recognition that culture influences how and why diverse groups of people perceive and use biodiversity. In Latin America, despite great attention on local and traditional communities as targets and participants in conservation efforts, conservationists tend to understand relatively little about interplay among the cultures, the local and traditional ecological knowledge (LTK), and importance of hunting in campesino (small-scale farmers) communities. Indeed, most research centers on the cultures and roles of hunting among indigenous groups. This reflects or, perhaps, reinforces longstanding biases towards studying the cultural and material importance of natural resource practices among indigenous societies in the tropics. In turn, the lack of understanding of campesino hunting leads to conflicts as conservationists miss the cultural significance of campesino LTK linked to biodiversity use. In this study, we used ethnographic methods (interviews, focus groups, participant photography, and participant observation of hunting trips) to evaluate campesino hunting culture and LTK in Cárdenas, Nicaragua. Content analysis of textual and photographic data from 50 campesinos/as (30 men and 20 women) showed that knowledge and experiences with hunting are shared by most campesinos, supporting the presence of a hunting culture in this region. Themes about knowledge and cultural significance of hunting not only comprised hunting strategies and animals, but were also interrelated with diverse components of campesinos’ lived experiences, including the social (e.g., hunting beliefs), political (e.g., restrictions), and historical (e.g., as part of Nicaraguan past) aspects of hunting. When matched with narratives and observations, these data revealed how shared histories in poverty and limited resources are foundations of the campesino hunting culture and are built on LTK. Our results further indicate that the aspects of campesino livelihoods that often inform outsiders’ perceptions of campesinos are components of their cultural identity and knowledge, which in turn, shape their resource use strategies. We suggest conservationists can improve conservation outcomes by understanding campesino hunting as not only a conservation concern, but also an extension of a shared knowledge and identity tied to poverty and resource scarcity.
Topics: Changing Demographics and Fish and Wildlife Management , Topics: Hunting and Fishing , Topics: Community-Based Conservation
