Amazonian agriculturalists bound by subsistence hunting

As rural Amazonian caboclo households transition from subsistence to increasingly market-based economies with systems of individualized production and consumption, the non-market exchanges of cooperative labor and game meat integral to the practice of subsistence hunting maintain bonds between households in the community. Further, subsistence hunting strengthens kinship ties across households wherein both men and women are important actors, an additional important component of local resource management. This study conducted in Brazil's first sustainable development settlement, Projecto de Desenvolvimento Sustentavel (PDS) Sao Salvador, suggests that not only are use rules important in the local management of natural resources, but also that inter-household relations of social conflict and social cohesion expressed in subsistence hunting reinforce community social structure while simultaneously impacting the natural resource base. In the effort to link social with ecological sustainability, conservation and development planners must recognize that extra-community government regulation may interfere with the socio-cultural dynamics of local community identity and governance explicit in subsistence hunting in rural Amazonian coboclo communities and could potentially produce negative consequences for community social structure and the natural environment.