ONLY SLAVES CLIMB TREES - REVISITING THE MYTH OF THE ECOLOGICALLY NOBLE SAVAGE IN AMAZONIA

Professional and popular publications have increasingly depicted nativ e peoples of Amazonia as ''natural'' conservationists or as people wit h an innate ''conservation ethic.'' A few classic examples are cited r epeatedly to advance this argument with the result that these cases te nd to be generalized to all indigenous peoples. This paper explores th e premise that many of these systems of resource conservation come fro m areas of Amazonia where human survival depends on careful management of the subsistence base and not from a culturally imbedded ''conserva tion ethic.'' Where resource constraints do not pertain, as in the cas e of the Yuqui of lowland Bolivia, such patterns are unknown. Finally, the negative consequences of portraying all native peoples as natural conservationists is having some negative consequences in terms of cur rent struggles to obtain indigenous land rights.