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Human Ecology [huec] PP316-361622 November 22, 2001 18:39 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999

Human Ecology, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2001

The Common Property Regime of the HuaoraniIndians of Ecuador: Implications and Challengesto Conservation

Flora E. Lu1

This paper shows that the Huaorani Indians of the Ecuadorian Amazon pos-sess a long-standing common property management regime fostered by se-cure ownership status of the land, the small size and kinship ties of residencegroups, the existence of mutual trust and reciprocity, and culturally sanctionedrules of behavior. This regime, however, was focused on maintaining harmo-nious relationships between residents of the nanicabo and not on resourceconservation (although it may have fostered epiphenomenal conservation).It cannot be presumed that communal management of resources invariablyleads to conservation; other factors need to be present, such as a perceptionof resource scarcity. The common property regime was designed for a situ-ation of plentiful resources, low population density, clear membership, andbehaviors held in check by respect for kin and the desire for good standing. Itwas a sufficient and simple system for delimiting common property resourcesfrom private property, based on implicit social boundaries and cultural under-standings. Now, confronted by powerful external forces, population growth,and intermarriage with non-Huaorani, the system is faltering. Conservationistpractices, however, can be encouraged by adapting the earlier system to reflectcurrent conditions.

KEY WORDS: Huaorani; common property; Amazon; conservation; indigenous peoples.

INTRODUCTION

Using models from optimal foraging theory, Alvard (1993, 1994, 1995)tested the hypothesis that the Piro Indians of Peru are conservationists,

1Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University, Building 360, Stanford,California 94305-2117; e-mail: [email protected].

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i.e., make “subsistence decisions that are costly to the actor in the shortterm but aimed at increasing sustainability in the long term” (Alvard, 1995,p. 790). Alvard examined Piro hunting, specifically their inter- and intraspe-cific prey choice and patch choice, and his results did not support the hy-pothesis that they demonstrate conservationist behavior. The Piro were notfound to show restraint in hunting species vulnerable to overexploitation(the large primates, tapir, and cracid game birds); they were not prefer-entially killing individuals within a species with the lowest reproductivevalue (males and individuals not of reproductive age); and they did notavoid taking game opportunistically when travelling through depleted zoneson their way to more distant hunting areas. Alvard writes, “The apparentbalance of traditional peoples with their environments is more parsimo-niously explained with reference to their low population densities, lim-ited technology, and highly mobile foraging patterns. In such a contextthe people simply did not have the capacity of overexploitation” (Alvard,1995, p. 801).

Alvard’s work is commendable for its systematic exploration of con-servation, the use of quantitative field data, and the sparking of academicdebate. In a response to his work, Alcorn (1995, p. 803) provides a critiquethat includes two points salient to this paper: first that contacts with outsidersover the past several centuries have caused “drastic organizational changesand fragmentation of cultural based knowledge” among Amazonian pop-ulations, and second, that an investigation of conservation should examine“the hypothesis that communities can effectively implement conservationrestraints through common-property resource-management systems.”

Ruttan (1998) takes this debate a step further, pointing out that com-mon property management systems cannot be presumed to be resource-conserving and sustainable. For instance, monitoring the effects of extrac-tion on the resource base may be complicated by time lags, species withcomplicated population dynamics, and density-independent factors. More-over, the primary aim of these management systems may be “gain ratherthan restraint,” limiting who harvests the resource but not necessarily howmuch is harvested (Ruttan, 1998, p. 50). Thus, it is important to documentwhether populations of indigenous people are currently acting in a conser-vationist manner, and also to explore the larger context of forces influencingbehavior and the conditions under which conservationist behavior is likelyto emerge.

This paper addresses Alcorn and Ruttan’s comments and examinesthe resource management system of the Huaorani, a hunter–gatherer–horticulturalist population in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I show that theirsystem was indeed a common property regime. I assert that this regime wasfostered by secure ownership status of the land, the small size and kinship



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ties of residence groups, the existence of mutual trust and reciprocity, andculturally sanctioned rules of behavior. However, this regime did not nec-essarily conserve resources. Instead, it had more to do with mediating in-terpersonal relationships and boundaries than conservation of rain forestresources that the Huaorani did not (and still do not) feel are criticallyscarce. The common property regime was designed for a situation of plenti-ful resources, low population density, clear membership, and behaviors heldin check by respect for kin and the desire for good standing.

Those conditions are changing dramatically as the Huaorani are cur-rently undergoing a period of rapid cultural change. This process of ac-culturation was begun by missionary contact and subsequent market in-volvement, formal schooling, and sedentarization, and has been catalyzedby petroleum development leading to environmental degradation, increasedcontact with outsiders, and more wage labor opportunities. I show how theseexternal forces impact the Huaorani common property management regimeand specifically discuss the challenges posed by a breakdown of the formervalue system and demographic change. The common property managementregime, based upon cooperation and respect for cultural boundaries, nowis confronted by these rapid, pervasive, and profound forces of exogenouschange. Conservationist practices, however, can be encouraged by adaptingthe earlier system to reflect current conditions.

THE THEORY BEHIND COMMON PROPERTY

Any discussion of conservation needs to take into account not onlyactual patterns of resource use but also the social relations of property,resource use rules, and conceptions of ownership. According to Bromleyand Cernea (1989), property is not a physical object such as land, but rathera right to a benefit stream that is only as secure as the duty and obligation ofall others to respect the conditions that protect that stream. The nature ofproperty and the specification of rights to resources are determined by themembers of a society and the rules or conventions they establish, not by theresource itself (Gibbs and Bromley, 1989). A structure of rights and dutiescharacterizing the relationship of individuals to one another with respect toa particular resource is known as resource regime, of which there are fourtypes. The first are state property regimes, where ownership and controlover use of land and resources rests in the hands of the state (for example,a national park). The second are private property regimes, in which theowner has the social and legal sanction to exclude others and resist, throughthe power of the state, unwanted intrusions. Similar to private propertyregimes are common property regimes that can be viewed as private property



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for the group, and will be discussed further below. Finally, there are openaccess regimes, which are characterized by the lack of property rights andresult from a breakdown of a management or authority system. There areno property rights involved with open access, only capture, possession, anddefense (Bromley and Cernea, 1989).

Hardin’s claim that resources held communally are destined for overex-ploitation (Hardin, 1968) has been challenged by scholars such as Bromley,Ostrom, McKean, Berkes, McCay, and Acheson, who have argued thatHardin’s “tragedy of the commons” refers to a situation of open accessregimes, not common property regimes. Rather, in common propertyregimes, a group of individuals can act as a private owner, sharing prop-erty rights and creating a regime of common property rights for commonpool goods (McKean, 1996). A group of owners could still reap the bene-fits of private property rights through long-term planning, investment in theproductivity of a resource, and stewardship.

Common property regimes are not a free-for-all but a structured own-ership arrangement within which management rules are developed, groupsize is known and enforced, incentives exist for co-owners to follow ac-cepted institutional arrangements, and sanctions work to ensure compliance(Bromley and Cernea, 1989, p. iii). According to Stevenson (1991, p. 40),common property is a form of resource ownership with the following sevennecessary and sufficient conditions:

1. The resource unit has bounds that are well-defined by physical, bio-logical, and social parameters.

2. There is a well-delineated group of users, who are distinct from per-sons excluded from resource use.

3. Multiple included users participate in resource extraction.4. Explicit or implicit well-understood rules exist among users regard-

ing their rights and duties to one another about resource extraction.5. Users share joint, nonexclusive entitlement to the in situ or fugitive

resource prior to its capture or use.6. Users compete for the resource, and thereby impose negative exter-

nalities on one another.7. A well-delineated group of rights holders exists, which may or may

not coincide with the group of users.

All other resource use regimes fail to meet at least one of the conditions.Stevenson (1991) describes common property as lying between private prop-erty and open access on the gamut of resource regimes. Like private property,common property arrangements have a definitive set of users and excludeoutsiders from use, and users control resource extraction. Like open access,common property arrangements include multiple users who compete for the




resource. But because common property regimes define a specific user groupand control individual use rates, such arrangements—like private propertyregimes—offer a solution to the open access problem.

Common property regimes are a human invention specifically appropri-ate for the management of a certain category of resources, called common-pool resources. Common-pool resources are characterized by two traits: (1)an exclusion problem and (2) subtractability. As with public goods, it is costlyto exclude noncontributing beneficiaries from them, which makes it unlikelythat these resources will receive investments in maintenance or protection.As with private goods, the resource units harvested by one user are notavailable to others; common-pool resources are at risk of being depleted(McKean, 1996). Many environmental resources fall into the category ofcommon-pool resources, such as forests, grasslands, arable land, fisheries,animal populations (especially mobile species), and waterways. A commonproperty regime is created when members of a group agree to limit individualclaims on resources in the expectation that others will do the same. With-out a critical mass of cooperation, resource conservation in a commons isnot possible. Without coordination and restraint an individual will consumewithout regard to the whole.

There is increasing recognition that common-pool resource manage-ment by local communities can promote the sustained use and conservationof natural resources and ecosystem services. Case studies exist from suchdiverse locations as Canada (Berkes, 1987), the United States (Acheson,1987), Switzerland (Netting, 1981; Stevenson, 1991), Southeastern Borneo(Vondal, 1987), Ethiopia (Bauer, 1987), Morocco (Gilles et al., 1992), India(Blaikie et al., 1992; Jodha, 1992; Wade, 1992), Japan (McKean, 1992),England (McCloskey, 1976), and Peru (Campbell and Godoy, 1986). Inter-estingly, despite the commonly held perception of native Amazonian peoplesexemplifying the ideals of communal and collective living (e.g., Clad, 1988),there are few studies (one exception being May, 1992) pertaining to commonproperty regimes in Amazonia. This omission is an egregious one given theotherwise enormous attention given to sustainable use and conservation ofNeotropical rain forests.

THE HUAORANI

The Amazonian region of Ecuador, or Oriente, encompasses substantialcultural and linguistic diversity. Quichua and Jivaroan (Shuar and Achuar)speakers are the most prominent, while the Cofan, Siona, Secoya,Huaorani, and Zaparoan speakers comprise small groupings (Whitten, 1978).Of these, the Huaorani are considered one of the least “acculturated” into



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Ecuadorian society. Numbering approximately 1500–2000 individuals,the Huaorani are scattered into two dozen villages located in the Napo,Orellana, and Pastaza provinces of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Prior to sus-tained contact with outsiders beginning in the late 1950s, the homeland ofthe Huaorani was spread over an area of 20,000 km2, bordered on the northby the Napo River and on the south by the Curaray River (Yost, 1991,p. 97). These boundaries were maintained for generations by warfare amongHuaorani groups and with all outsiders, who were considered cohouri, a termmeaning “nonhuman cannibal.” This pattern of violence led to the title ofauca, a Quichua term meaning “savage” or “barbarian.” They refer to them-selves as huaorani, meaning “the people,” speak huao tededo (a linguisticisolate), and are known for their ornamental wearing of large balsa woodearplugs (although this practice has declined dramatically in the youngerpopulation). The first peaceful contact with the Huaorani by outsiders wasin 1958 by two women from the Summer Institute of Linguistics/WycliffeBible Translator Inc., and Christian Missions in Many Lands. The mission-aries strongly discouraged Huaorani practices of warfare, infanticide, andpolygamy, and concentrated many of them into a “protectorate zone” ofabout 1605 km2. This concentrated settlement pattern not only facilitatedthe process of evangelization, but also removed “hostile” Huaorani fromareas that, beginning with a large find by a Texaco-Gulf consortium in 1967,were being used for petroleum exploitation.

As in precontact days, the Huaorani economy is based on hunting, hor-ticulture, gathering, and fishing for subsistence. They derive most of theircarbohydrates from domestic crops and most of their protein from huntedgame or fish. Before the advent of firearms, arboreal prey such as monkeysand birds were hunted with blowguns, whereas terrestrial game such as pec-caries and tapir were taken with spears. Increasingly important sources ofprotein, fish are taken with barbasco poison, scoop nets, hook and line, smallharpoons and diving visors, dynamite, and weighted nets. The greatest bulkin the diet comes from manioc (Manihot esculenta), which is consumed asa premasticated drink many times a day. Plantains, peanuts, peach palm(Bactris gasipaes), and sweet potatoes also are important cultigens. TheHuaorani receive important supplements to their diets from wild fruits, nuts,and tubers that they eat almost continually while walking through the forest(Larrick et al., 1979, p. 162).

Currently, like the vast majority of native Amazonian societies, theHuaorani are becoming increasingly integrated in the market economy.Money earned from oil company work, tourism, sale of handicrafts andtimber, and work for the Huaorani federation is used to purchase shot-guns, ammunition, flashlights, clothing, pots, medicine, rice, tuna, lard, cola,radios, and a slew of other manufactured items and outside foods. Young




Huaorani men especially spend significant periods of time living away fromthe communities in towns such as Puyo or Coca.

Before missionary contact and subsequent aggregation and sedentariza-tion, the typical Huaorani settlement pattern involved one or two extendedfamilies uniting to make a clearing that they occupied together (called ananicabo). The preferred pattern of residence is matrilocal, but is charac-terized by a high degree of flexibility. They would move to other locationsevery three to four months, always returning to the same locations cycli-cally (Larrick et al., 1979, p. 163). This seminomadic pattern served manyfunctions: it dispersed human depletion of soil nutrients, faunal populations,and other natural resources, and reduced the threat of attack by cohouri orother Huaorani. The Huaorani possess an egalitarian political structure, andare intensely independent and individualistic. There are no strict sex rolesin Huaorani society, but generally speaking, the men provide the familywith meat, clear the large trees for new gardens, and—before the advent ofthe missionaries—protected the household and engaged in warfare. Womenundertake most of the agricultural tasks (planting, weeding, harvesting),prepare the meals, and take care of the children. Women may engage inhunting, and men may engage in more agricultural tasks than just choppingtrees, and there is no assessment of greater value or worth on one sex orthe other because they perform different tasks (Yost, 1991, pp. 108–109). Arecent assessment of changes in Huaorani gender relations and time alloca-tion is beyond the scope of this discussion and will be the subject of a laterpaper.

HUAORANI CONCEPTIONS OF COOPERATIONAND PROPERTY

When beginning dissertation fieldwork in 1996, I thought it would besufficient to devise a questionnaire asking about which resources are scarceand how these resources are regulated, as a first step to learn more aboutHuaorani concepts of property and resource regimes. In the 7 months I spentliving in the two communities of Quehueiri-ono and Huentaro, located alongthe Shiripuno River, I conducted interviews with heads of all 18 households.I inquired about resources available for use by all community members, userules and sanctions, areal extent and condition of resources, and require-ments for membership and rights to use resources. Interviews were mostlyconducted in Spanish with Huaorani conversant in the language, or in Huaotededo, with the assistance of a resident teenage girl as a translator. I inter-viewed knowledgeable non-Huaorani (such as the Quichua schoolteacher inthe village and missionaries). In particular, interviews with Patricia Kelley,



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who has worked with the Huaorani for over two decades, provided a lon-gitudinal perspective otherwise lacking because of a paucity of historicaldocuments. Participant observation was also undertaken at community ac-tivities, such as mingas (communal work days, discussed below).

The answers I received time and again from my Huaorani informants,however, indicated that I was approaching the issue incorrectly by assumingthat the regime was conscious and codified. Repeatedly, I was told that noresources were rare or scarce (except one instance when someone said thatthe white-lipped peccary was uncommon). Different people used almost thesame phrases. One man said, “No faltan nada” (We lack for nothing), andanother said “No faltan recursos aquı” (We do not lack resources here).Responses about the existence of resource use rules were again very similar,often using words like “libre” (free), “cualquier” (whatever, wherever), and“tranquilo” (tranquil). One man told me very bluntly:

No hay control. Aquı es libre. Nadie dice nada. Quiere pescar, pesca. Quiere hacercaza, caza . . . Huaorani quiere vivir libre, cualquier sitio quiere hacer casa; cualquierlugar, quiere hacer pesca; cualquier lugar, caceria. Libre, sin problemas.There is no control. It is free here. No one says anything. If you want to fish, then fish.If you want to hunt, hunt . . . The Huaorani want to live free, want to build houseswherever, want to fish wherever, want to hunt wherever. Free, without problems.(My translation)

Such responses highlight the point that property regimes, like other resourcemanagement systems, do not have to be conscious, explicit, deliberate, orcodified, but maybe instead embodied in a cultural “script” (sensu Alcorn,1989).

Little has been written about Huaorani collective activities, conceptionsof property and ownership, and resource use regimes. Rival (1992) reportedfew traditional collective activities among this population, such as grouphunting of white-lipped peccary herds. Patricia Kelley (personal communi-cation, April 30, 1997) added that when the Huaorani lived in small, kin-based settlements (nanicaboiri), food preparation, house building, and evenbirth could be community-level activities. However, day to day obligations,economic and otherwise, are limited to resident members of the group. Evenwithin the kindred, autonomy is the rule and active participation is minimal.Outside the household or house cluster, little or no sharing or cooperationtakes place (Robarchek and Robarchek, 1998, p. 103).

In terms of traditional Huaorani concepts of property and ownership,one of the few published sources I have found on the topic is Rival, whowrote:

Common property, like private property, is a very confusing concept for the Huaorani.The village site is associated with the grandparents of the village founders. Therefore,the Huaorani live in a particular village in their capacity as “followers”. They are free




to move their houses around, and to cultivate gardens wherever they choose, butthere is no notion of land property. . . . In sum, the Huaorani do not seem to have aconception of collective ownership, because belonging to all, public property wouldnot belong to anyone in particular. Such an abstraction is non-sensical. They do notconceptualize ownership as either private or public. When they say that a person(generally an older person), is the owner of a nanicabo onco, it means that he/shehas built it with those who live in it with him/her: they are his/her “followers,” buthe/she has no particular rights or obligations over them. (1992, pp. 305–306)

Huaorani concepts of ownership, as “libre” as Rival makes them sound, stillmanifest a form of property rights and the right to possess as well as the rightto exclude. By saying that “he/she has no particular rights or obligations overthem,” Rival asserts that the Huaorani use a system of open access, but thisis not the case. Open access exhibits the absence of ex ante (prior to capture)rights and duties. In open access, no one has the right to exclude anotherfrom extracting a resource, nor is there any security of possessing a certainamount of a resource. With no relationships based on rights and duties, in anopen access situation there is no property and no owners (Stevenson, 1991,p. 51). I also disagree that the concepts of common property and privateproperty are “confusing concepts” for the Huaorani. Their culture providesa means to conceptualize and categorize property that is sensible and ex-plicable for them, but may not be easily described using Western conceptsand a Western frame of reference. I believe that the traditional Huaoraniownership regime can be categorized as common property, and I will showthis using the seven necessary and sufficient conditions for common propertyfrom Stevenson (1991). I will also show that counter to Rival’s assertions,the Huaorani differentiated between private and common property in twoways: the capture or creation of a resource, and the establishment of culturalboundaries.

Hill (1996, p. 167) described the resource use regime of the Ache ofeastern Paraguay as follows:

Individuals hunt, fish, and gather fruits anywhere on the reservation. They collectfirewood and fell trees for honey, insect larvae, or toolmaking whenever and wher-ever it suits them. Communal fishing . . . takes place whenever a sufficient number ofpeople are willing to work together. There are no controls on the number, age, or sexof any animal species that is harvested, and there are no controls on the harvest offruit trees (whole trees are often cut down). Although small plots of land do becomethe temporary property of individuals who clear them for planting (farmland is abun-dant and there is no competition for location or amount), the reservation’s resourcesare considered the property of any community member who wishes to exploit them.

The Ache regime has many parallels to the Huaorani situation. I have men-tioned earlier that the Huaorani deny the existence of any rules or quotas onthe number, types, or locations of any animal species harvested. People arefree to choose any location not already being used to clear a plot of land fora garden. I have witnessed Huaorani out foraging for forest fruits cut down



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multiple trees in one excursion. Despite sounding rather “open-access,” Imaintain that the Huaorani resource use regime falls under the categoryof common property. These aforementioned behaviors hardly equate withWestern notions of “conservation,” and one of my points is that a com-mon property regime is not always synonymous with conservation. The keyquestion is, what conditions foster the development and maintenance of con-servation? One factor, the perception of natural scarcity, will be discussedlater.

The first requirement for a common property regime is that the re-source unit being owned or managed has well-defined physical, biological,or social boundaries. I do not propose that the Huaorani have common prop-erty regimes for all resources, only for certain ones, such as forest land forgardening and in some cases, hunting areas. Huaorani populations in vari-ous communities have clearly defined physical boundaries for their territoryversus that of other ethnic groups, and between the territories of differentHuaorani subpopulations. According to Yost (1981), when contact was es-tablished by missionaries in 1958, the Huaorani population was divided intofour groups (the Guequetairi, Piyemoidi, Baihuairi, and Herpeiri) totalingabout 500 people who were mutually hostile to one another. These groupsoccupied distinct areas within the larger land base and were hesitant to tra-verse boundaries for fear of attack; thus, social boundaries existed as well.As the settlement pattern changed to that of more permanent communitiescentered around a school and/or landing strip, what has not changed is a well-understood conception of the area belonging to each village. My Huaoraniinformants were able to indicate on a topographic map where the area allo-cated to Quehueiri-ono ended, which areas belonged to other villages, andwhere there were interstitial regions.

Another body of evidence that supports the notion of physical and socialparameters defining resource unit boundaries is the names given to somewaterways in Huaorani territory (P. Kelley, personal communication, April30, 1997). For instance, “Tonampare” means “Tonae’s stream” and Quihuaromeans “Quihua’s river,” (Tonae and Quihua being the names of two men).Interestingly, Quehueiri-ono means “river of the cannibals,” which indicatesthat historically, the area was occupied by non-Huaorani, the cohouri. Thus,it is possible that the naming of waterways after specific people or groups ofpeople was a means of territorial identification.

The second condition for common property according to Stevenson is awell-delineated group of users, distinct from persons excluded from resourceuse. Resources in Huaorani territory belong to a specifically defined groupof members, the Huaorani themselves, as distinct from other ethnic groupssuch as the Quichua, Shuar, mestizos, etc. This distinction between Huaoraniand cohouri was traditionally clearly, and forcefully, made through Huaorani




spearing raids of all outsiders. To this day, Huaorani are very clear on thefact that only people belonging to their culture (and some of those who havemarried in, as I elaborate below) can use the resources in their territory.

Another, even finer, distinction can be made between huaorani andhuarani. Huaorani literally means “the group of us,” and is a collectiveterm referring to the house-groups that share the same territory, feast to-gether, and intermarry. Huarani literally means “others,” and is used to nameHuaorani who are not related and who live in a different territorial unit(Rival, 1992, p. 427). Traditionally, all huarani were seen as enemies or po-tential enemies, and were not to be trusted. So membership and the abilityto use resources in a specific area was not only limited to Huaorani peo-ple, but even to a subcategory of Huaorani based upon kin relations. Thedistinction between huaorani and huarani was perhaps more marked and im-portant during the period preceding outside contact, when subpopulationsof Huaorani were mutually hostile to one another. Back then, the use ofresources of a specific nanicabo (house cluster) by an individual categorizedas huarani would probably result in conflict.

The third condition for common property is that multiple included usersparticipate in resource extraction. In other words, multiple people are eli-gible to use a resource, and multiple people do the using rather than eachperson having an entitlement to a separate segment. This condition helpsto differentiate common property from private property, as the latter ob-viously involves control of a resource by one person, whereas commonproperty is shared private property. This condition is easily satisfied by theHuaorani case, in which subpopulations of Huaorani numbering from lessthan a dozen to more than a few hundred compose communities that uselocal resources.

The fourth condition is an important one, and is difficult to substan-tiate in the Huaorani case. This condition states that explicit or implicitwell-understood rules among users regarding their rights and duties to oneanother about resource extraction must exist in a common property regime.For the Huaorani, I believe that many, if not all, of these traditional rulesare implicit cultural scripts having to do with social boundaries and under-standings about when a resource was communal and when it was privateproperty. For example, peach palm trees are cultivated, and bear fruit aftera few years. This fruit ripens in the first few months of the year and cre-ates a time of plenty and a period of feasts and parties. Trees are owned byspecific individuals (those who planted them) and are handed down to fam-ily members when these owners die. So one implicit cultural understandingin Huaorani culture is that people are not allowed to harvest peach palmfruit from other people’s trees without permission. In another example, aHuaorani woman may discover a source of clay by the river with which to



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make pots. She will talk to others about this clay source, and may divulge thelocation of this resource, but it is understood that others will not go thereon their own to harvest it, but will instead ask her to take them to “her”clay source. Similarly, when a Huaorani encounters a rodent and chases itinto a hole, the prey belongs to the person who initially found it, althoughother people may help in flushing out the animal and killing it. In thesecases, the distinction between common property and private property has todo with creation, discovery, or capture of a resource. These examples illus-trate rules that establish individual claims from the Huaorani commons—theland, river, and faunal populations. An implicit mutual agreement existedbetween individuals to respect one another’s peach palm trees, clay sources,etc., and this recognition was rewarded. When people brought back meat, orfruit, or resources to make handicrafts, they would often share those amongother residents. And if others needed garden produce, clay, etc., all that wasrequired was to approach the owner of that resource and ask him or her toaccompany them to harvest it. These requests were rarely turned down. Byrespecting the property of others, the Huaorani maintained good relationsand kept themselves in a favorable position in sharing networks and socialstanding.

The Huaorani also differentiated between common and private prop-erty through the establishment of spatial social boundaries; for example thespace within a longhouse or nanicabo where, each hearth and associatedhammocks belong to specific people and define a social boundary. Whendinner was ready in each cooking-fire site, the members of that microspacecould simply turn their backs on the others and eat, and others respectedtheir privacy. Even children knew about these social boundaries. They maywant the food being consumed around one hearth, but they know that theyare not free to just walk into that space and take it. Patricia Kelley men-tioned the sight of a young child standing outside of another’s hearth, cryingand pointing at the food he desperately wanted but could not just go over toeat! As part of their shared cultural understanding, the Huaorani had a clearsense of social space and social boundaries that informed them about whatwas a common area and what was private property. These boundaries wereestablished through mutual agreement and mutual understanding and werenot conceived of as explicit “rules” regarding rights and duties to one anotherabout resources. As Stevenson states, “In cases in which the rules of resourceextraction are traditional and implicit . . . this authority may be no more andno less than the group consciousness and peer pressure” (Stevenson, 1991,p. 42).

Condition number five for common property states that users sharejoint, nonexclusive entitlement to the in situ or fugitive resource prior toits capture or use. This condition also helps to further distinguish a private




property regime from common property. Under private property, the in situresource is said to belong to a particular person, who has secure expecta-tions about possessing particular physical units as well as particular amountsof the resource. Under common property, however, users may have secureexpectations about possessing certain amounts of the resource but not par-ticular physical units. This condition means that participants in a commonproperty arrangement share simultaneous prior-to-capture claims on a re-source. Therefore, an essential step in the use of common property resources(except those which are more like public goods) is that they are “reduced”to sole ownership through capture (Stevenson, 1991, p. 42). In the Huao-rani situation, the resources of the territory are open to any member whowishes to exploit them, but the member must first clear and plant the gar-den, stalk and kill the animal, pursue and capture the fish, or identify andgather the forest fruit before he or she becomes the sole owner of thatresource.

Condition 6 states that users compete for the resource, and therebyimpose negative externalities on one another. This is not to imply that userscannot cooperate in terms of resource extraction, but this condition helps todistinguish common property from a corporation, in which two or more usersfound an enterprise to exploit a resource by pooling their real and financialassets and skills in order to enjoy a common return (Stevenson, 1991, p. 43).This condition clearly applies in the Huaorani case. One user’s harvest ofanimals means that fewer are available for another user; one user’s dayof barbasco fishing in a small stream renders that stream unproductive forfishing for a few weeks until more fish recolonize and replenish it. Wheneverone user collects Astrocaryum chambira fiber, vines to make curare, tepengafruit, or any other wild forest product, that resource is unavailable to the nextuser.

The last condition for a common property regime is that a well-delineated group of rights holders exists, which may or may not coincidewith the group of users. This condition recognizes, for instance, that com-mon property rights holders may rent their resource use rights to the actualusers. Where the rights holders and users diverge, this condition requiresthat the rights holders be a group of people who fulfill the other institutionalcriteria of common property. So if the Huaorani chose to rent part of theirterritory to a company or to a rancher to start a cattle farm, continuing todeem the use regime as common property would still be appropriate.

To summarize, I assert that traditional patterns of Huaorani resourceuse falls under the category of common property. They were forms of re-source management in which a well-delineated group of competing users(i.e., Huaorani people) participated in the extraction or use of a jointlyheld fugitive resource according to implicitly understood rules (the cultural



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script). These rules are not the type common in other societies with de-tailed operational rules, for instance involving closed seasons or huntingquotas, but are rather mutual understandings about how people relate to oneanother vis-a-vis resource extraction, when common ownership of stock al-lows individual capture of flow, and about the nature of social boundaries.With a small body of members controlling a large territory (a density ofabout 0.06 persons per square mile at the time of sustained contact (Yost,1981, p. 679)), a small, adamantly maintained membership obviated the needfor more formal regulations. Apparently there was enough concern to pro-tect lands and resources from others for the Huaorani to have laid exclusiveclaims to their resources, but not enough perceived scarcity for them tohave started to worry about creating detailed and binding use rules. Thisresource use regime developed in a specific sociocultural context, and nowfaces the challenges of adapting to rapid and profound changes among theHuaorani.

CURRENT NOTIONS OF COOPERATIONAND COMMON PROPERTY

The nature of cooperative activities has changed within the last few gen-erations. The temporary nanicabo longhouses have largely been replaced bymore permanent, nucleated, school settlements. In contrast to the types ofactivities the Huaorani engaged in before as a community (processes cru-cial to life, like hunting, food preparation, house building, and birth), theactivities they undertake now that could be considered collective often areassociated with external influences. For instance, the minga, or communalwork day, has been instituted along with the advent of formal schooling andthe establishment of landing strips. Most mingas in Huaorani territory in-volve using machetes to clear overgrown grass by the school, the teacher’shouse, and on the landing strip. Another minga observed in the study com-munity involved a group of about a dozen Huaorani going the oil town ofCoca to solicit school supplies from the military base there. These examplesillustrate that many collective Huaorani activities now deal with maintainingthe school and requests for goods from outsiders.

Not only has the nature of cooperation changed, but also the Huaoranisystem of common property. Goodland et al.(1989) described five factorsleading to the breakdown of traditional common property managementsystems: (1) increased participation in market economy, which encouragesoverexploitation of resources previously harvested for subsistence; (2)breakdown of traditional value systems; (3) population growth, leading to




overexploitation of resources to meet subsistence needs; (4) technologicalchange, making it easier to overexploit; and (5) increased centralizationof power and application of inappropriate pricing, subsidies, legislation,or other government incentives. Each factor is relevant to the changes inHuaorani resource use regimes, but I will confine myself here to two: thebreakdown of traditional value systems and population growth.

A key attribute of the implicit property rules and social boundariesdiscussed above was that they were tacitly understood and maintained bymutual agreement. When the Huaorani lived in small subpopulations ofclosely related kin, people were much more apt to obey these rules and bemutually interdependent and much more accountable to each other. Peoplemoved often to be where the resources were, and if individuals moved to acertain village, it was to be with a sibling or parent or other close relative.Now communities are defined by a school, landing strip, and soccer field,and people now move to take advantage of these amenities. As settlementsbecome centered around a school and landing strip, communities becomelarger, more permanent, and filled with more non-kin and non-Huaorani.These residents are not necessarily accountable to each other.

In one of the villages in which I worked, it was clear that those so-cial boundaries and practices of respect for other people’s property werebreaking down. People began overstepping the bounds of what used to beconsidered appropriate behavior, taking advantage of a traditional systemwhere possessions were shared extensively, and people were readily willingto fulfill requests to share resources. One female head of household told mehow she had planted many plantain trees, which had begun to bear fruit.Such a surplus of food was not lost on some other women, who requestedthat she take them to her garden to harvest plantains. As this was the custom,she readily agreed, but later realized that her initial generosity was takenadvantage of as the other women continued to harvest from her garden sur-reptitiously. There are also many instances of theft between households. Asnon-kin live together in communities with increasingly disparate levels of in-come and are consumption, people who are not able to get access to desiredgoods and are not in a kin position to ask for them resort to stealing. Almostevery household I spoke with admitted that they had lost some things totheft, such as pots, nice clothes, money, chickens, and purchased foods. Mosthomes in this village had padlocks on the doors, and families tried to haveat least one person at home at all times to stand guard. Former implicit un-derstandings of, and respect for, property ownership, as well as mechanismsfor accountability so integral to the traditional common property regime,are currently being undermined by market forces, settlement patterns, andchanges in the socialization of youth.



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As cultural understandings successfully followed in the past begin tobreak down, there are few forms of recourse for individuals who have beenwronged. When I asked a shy man in his early twenties what he does whensomeone borrows his canoe without asking and leaves him without transport,he just shrugged and replied, “Camino” (I walk). When asked about theirresponses to theft of their belongings, most of the people I interviewedadmitted that they did nothing and said nothing, preferring to “deja nomas” (just let it go). Although most of the time the victims of theft werealmost certain who the thieves were, the only time I observed punishmentbeing enforced was when the thief was a child who had been caught red-handed. His punishment was to spend a night alone in an abandoned hut.In precontact times the Huaorani had few methods of social control, relyingon the small size of settlements, constant face-to-face interactions, socialpressure and gossip, and the incentive of potential marriage partners tomaintain amiable and peaceful interpersonal relations. With contact andthe concomitant rapid change in the size and composition of communities,non–family members have lost the power to control or to sanction, so unlesssomeone is angry enough to resort to violence, the only responses are tokeep quiet and let it go, or to move away.

Another important factor leading to the breakdown of the traditionalcommon property management system is population growth, either throughreproduction or immigration. From my limited data set for two villages to-taling 161 individuals, I calculated the gross reproductive rate, children everborn, and cumulative fertility rate and consistently found that women werehaving an average of eight offsprings during their reproductive span (Lu,1999). I lack data on infant mortality, but it has without a doubt declined be-cause of cessation of infanticide and improved medical care. Observation ofthe number of children and toddlers running around in the villages confirmsthis impression.

The Huaorani themselves seem less concerned with their birth rate thanwith the level of immigration of non-Huaorani into their territory. Most ofthese immigrants are Quichua from nearby communities who have inter-married with Huaorani. In the communities I studied, three of the eighteenhouseholds were intermarriages of Huaorani with Quichua, and one of theseQuichua spouses had brought her family to live in the community. Althoughthe Huaorani spouse and his or her family may welcome or accept theirQuichua in-laws because they see them as more savvy or “civilized,” therecan be intense resentment on the part of many other villagers because theseQuichua spouses now bring their kin to fish and hunt in Huaorani territory.Quichua vastly outnumber Huaorani (tens of thousands versus around twothousand), and Quicha territory is largely depleted of game. Quichua pop-ulation expansion has led to their migration toward forest areas not part




of their traditional territory. Two of the principal problems they face area lack of sufficient lands and legally established land tenure. The areas setaside for the Quichua communities near Puyo, Tena, and Archidona arenot sufficient for their populations, and the subdivision of plots that weretitled earlier has left numerous families unable to subsist on their own pro-duction. This has forced people to move to other areas where their landrights are less secure and has created conflicts with colonists and other na-tive groups (Hicks, 1990, p. 32). Huaorani territory—defended for genera-tions with spears, sparsely inhabited, and still rich in fauna—is an enticingoutlet for the Quichua. But the territory is finite, and the Huaorani havelegal title to only a small fraction of their ancestral lands. With a high birthrate, low death rate (due to medical care and the cessation of warfare andinfanticide), and the immigration of Quichua spouses and their families,it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the common property regimeand increasingly important to devise a new regime with clear limits on re-source extraction, penalties for cheaters, and strict definitions of membersand boundaries.

FUTURE PROSPECTS FOR COMMON PROPERTY

As the former property regime becomes increasingly ineffective in me-diating resource use because of culture change and population pressure,the establishment of a different common property regime will become in-creasingly important in the future to avoid resource degradation. If theHuaorani do not make some enforceable rules to restrict aggregate use,they will lose the resources. Some characteristics of the Huaorani cultureand environment facilitate such a transition and have been linked to suc-cessful common property regimes (Ostrom, 1992). The Huaorani have avast and detailed knowledge of their land base, identify clear-cut boundariesbetween their lands and those of other groups as well as between differentHuaorani communities, and can also detect measures of resource condi-tions. As members of a common property regime, the Huaorani also benefitfrom a population size that is not yet overwhelming, an affinity and con-nection to the land, a certain degree of homogeneity in terms of use pat-terns and cultural values, and legal title to their lands from the Ecuadoriangovernment.

Yet the barriers to the successful implementation of a different propertyregime are significant. One of the most important is that the Huaorani donot yet perceive their resources as scarce, and therefore worth the time andeffort to manage. Having experienced generations with a tiny populationrelative to a huge land base, they believe in the idea of natural plenty. This



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idea is based on the presumption that because the forest has always providedwhat was needed, it will continue to do so with the same amount of effortrequired on the part of the Huaorani. As Rival states,

The Huaorani refuse to produce more: they believe in natural abundance, and theirsocial relations are primarily based on food sharing and consumption. Their idealsocial order is to consume without producing . . . As gatherers, they prefer to rely onany kind of food they may obtain without having to produce it, i.e., through work.(1992, pp. 379–380)

This idea of natural abundance obviating the need for conservationbecomes more deleterious to the maintenance of a resource base in lightof technological changes that make it easier to overexploit resources, ofdemographic changes placing greater pressure on the resource base, and ofincreased participation in a market economy that introduces nonsubsistenceconsiderations in resource extraction. Ironically, one response to these in-creased pressures on resources has been for the Huaorani to make greaterdemands on oil companies operating in the area for food aid. They havetapped into a new food resource that for the time being allows them toretain their relations of production and consumption (Rival, 1992).

Again, it is important to note that even the traditional form of com-mon property regime did not promote resource conservation. I know of noresources deemed scarce enough to really implement substantial harvestquotas and rules. Since no individual had exclusive access to any particu-lar resource, there was no motivation to forgo short-term opportunities inexploitation in order to reap long-term gains. Any resource not exploitedimmediately may simply be harvested by some other community member inthe future. Thus, apart from cultural rules and understandings about otherpeople’s property and space (which do not rule out epiphenomenal conser-vation), the traditional common property regime of the Huaorani did notestablish explicit resource conservation rules in part because of a belief innatural affluence.

Apart from a concept of resource scarcity and worth, other factorsdeemed important for a viable common property regime include commonunderstandings about membership and the type of access conveyed by mem-bership, solid decision-making processes and mechanisms for conflict resolu-tion, some experience with minimal organization, and solid ownership to thearea that is not blocked by the government (Ostrom, 1992). These conditionsare not satisfied in the Huaorani case. As mentioned before, intermarryingwith Quichua has blurred the lines of membership and the type of access con-veyed by that membership. Most Huaorani agree that the Quichua spouseof a Huaorani and their offspring are entitled to full access to resources, butit is unclear to what extent the Quichua’s extended family can legitimatelysettle in Huaorani territory and exploit resources. Huaorani are increasingly




establishing compradrazgo (godparent) relationships with outsiders as well,not only with the Quichua but also other ethnic groups. This has advantagesin terms of aid in difficult times, a mediator with the outside world, or a placeto stay when away from their own territory, but it has potential costs if thoseoutsiders seek access to Huaorani resources.

In terms of decision making, conflict resolution, and social organiza-tion, Huaorani culture can be characterized as extremely individualistic andindependent. Before contact with missionaries, the Huaorani lived in smallkin groups, which were autonomous. Even within these groups there wereno headmen and no formal councils. Even within households and nanicabo,there was no authority beyond individuals’ powers of persuasion or coer-cion (Robarchek and Robarchek, 1998). Few opportunities existed betweendifferent kin groups to engage in joint decision making or conflict resolu-tion because of hostility and warfare. This individualistic pattern has con-tinued among the more sedentary communities of today, which do not haveelaborate decision-making processes based on consensus or discussion. Asexplained by Robarchek and Robarchek, Huaorani social organization isleaderless and decentralized, with few limits on individual autonomy andfew social obligations. With no institutions conferring authority or other-wise imposing social control, there are no mechanisms for resolving disputesor for containing a conflict (Robarchek and Robarchek, 1998, p. 143–144).When someone feels wronged or conflict arises, the only real options are forthe parties to let the grudge go, for one party to move away, or the increas-ingly rare mechanism where conflict provokes anger and spearing attacks.Moreover, the lack of institutions of social control means that no politicalstructure is in place to discourage individuals from maximizing short-termgains whenever a source exploitation opportunity presents itself. Thus, de-cision making occurs at the individual or individual household level, withlittle coordination at larger scales and few mechanisms to resolve conflict.Within communities, the only larger-scale social organization in place is aconsequence of the external influence of the school, and is tolerated but nottreated seriously by the Huaorani.

In regards to land ownership, the Huaorani have legal title to their ter-ritory. In 1983, the government legalized 66,570 hectares of their roughlytwo million hectares of ancestral lands as a Huarorani “protectorate.” OnApril 3, 1990, the Ecuadorian government granted the Huaorani legal ti-tle to an additional 612,560 hectares of their traditional lands (Kimerling,1991, p. 87). Under Ecuadorian law (“Ley de Mineria y de Hidrocarburos”),no land titles are truly secure because all subsurface minerals are claimedas property of the national government, which reserves the right to grantprospecting concessions to private enterprises. Within Huaorani territory,the Ecuadorian government has granted a number of concessions to foreign



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oil companies, including Conoco, Maxus, YPF, Petro-Canada, Elf Aquitaine,Petrobras, and Oryx. The Huaorani therefore have no control over when oilactivities will affect them, which company is involved, or where in theirterritory such activities will occur. This adds a great deal of uncertainty sinceany efforts to invest in a resource base could be undermined by petroleumdevelopment that the Huaorani themselves cannot control. Although somecompanies may negotiate with the Huaorani federation to establish a com-munity relations program to maintain their public image, these programsmostly entail a listing of gifts to the Huaorani in return for their cooperationduring oil activities. Thus, the Huaorani’s ownership of their territory can-not truly be called “solid” because at any time the Ecuadorian governmentcould permit a foreign oil company to enter and begin exploration. This un-certainty undermines the sense of land security and ownership required fora property regime.

According to Richard Chase Smith (1996), for indigenous and non-indigenous Amazonians, a secure property regime is a crucial condition bothfor ecologically viable long-term development and for biodiversity conserva-tion. The previous Huaorani common property regime functioned throughmutual agreement about boundaries and property, and was an elegant andsufficient arrangement that organized resource users without incurring highcosts from organizational effort or enforcement. That regime was devel-oped in a specific context, and it has eroded as a result of contact with out-siders and concomitant changes in demography, economics, and culture. Thedegradation of the resource base caused by new procurement technologies,demographic growth, and incursions by other groups and oil companies willnecessitate a new property regime that strictly defines members and regu-lates their resource use. Such a change, however, needs to be preceded bya perception of resource scarcity and worth, the establishment of a socialorganization conducive to decision making and conflict resolution, as wellas secure land tenure that assures the Huaorani that any investments theymake in the resource base will not be undermined by petroleum activitiesor colonist incursions. Only then will the institutional environment be con-ducive to the conservation of the natural environment. The Huaorani couldhold on to their resources if they had a greater readiness to make rules amongthemselves, to create punishments and sanctions among themselves, to applythese punishments and sanctions to invaders, and to make additional rules tocover the situation of intermarriage with Quichua. The former regime couldserve as a framework, modified to reflect the current situation—it could bechanged instead of being tossed aside. The danger, as Ostrom (2001) putsit, is “that exogenous shocks leading to a change in relative abundance ofthe resource units occur rapidly and appropriators may not adapt quicklyenough to the new circumstances” (2001, p. 25). The time has come for




the debate in academia to move away from “ecologically noble savages”(Redford, 1990) and toward a discussion of how we can foster conservationistbehavior in hand with cultural survival. The Huaorani need the opportunityto add resilience to their social arrangements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Patricia Kelley, Bruce Winterhalder, Meg McKean,Lore Ruttan, and two anonymous reviewers for their contributions and cri-tiques of drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented atthe Latin American Studies Association meetings in Miami, March 16–18,2000. Funding for this research was generously provided by the NationalScience Foundation (SBR-9603008), the Inter-American Foundation, andSigma Xi. Funding was also received from various sources at the Univer-sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: the Graduate School, the Institutefor Latin American Studies, the University Center for International Studies,and the Royster Society of Fellows. My deep gratitude also to Chris Holt,Julie Lu, Luigina Fossati, and of course the Huaorani and Quichua residentswho generously assisted me in dissertation fieldwork.

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