Native peoples have often been portrayed as natural conservationists, living a “balanced” existence with nature. It is argued that this perspective is a result of an imprecise operational definition of conservation. Conservation is defined here in contrast to the predictions of foraging theory, which assumes that foragers will behave to maximize their short-term harvesting rate. A behavior is deemed conservation when a short-term cost is paid by the resource harvester in exchange for long-term benefits in the form of sustainable harvests. (...) An example of the usefulness of such an operational definition is presented using data on patch and prey choice decisions of a group of subsistence hunters, the Piro of Amazonian Peru. Results indicate that the area around the Piro village is depleted of prey, and that hunters allocate more time to patches where return rates are highest. This response is consistent with both a conservation strategy and foraging theory. Contrary to the expectation of the conservation strategy, however, hunters do not restrain from pursing opportunistically encountered prey in the depleted areas. The implications for conservation policy are briefly discussed. (shrink)

Three points are discussed: first, that limits of technological fixes are revealed by current economic, social, and environmental problems; second, that these problems cannot be solved by a technological fix but require alternative forms of activity and being; third, that realizing these limits makes possible the re‐emergence of the sacred. Two attitudes toward technology, nature, and the sacred are described: Technocrats desacralize nature and strive to shape it technologically for human ends alone; pernetarians resacralize nature and develop a perennial philosophy (...) (synthesized from elements of different spiritual disciplines) allied with an enlarged, artful science, so as to design activities compatible with nature. (shrink)

This thesis is one step in defining the parameters of archaeology in an aboriginal context. It is designed to be a practical guide for imagining the past from an internalist perspective because archaeological methods offer the opportunity to represent antiquity that is simultaneously rational and familiar. However, an ancillary objective is to utilize symbols from antiquity as markers of modern Indian identity.

Abstract.The Judeo-Christian, Enlightenment, and postmodernist paradigms have become intellectually and ethically exhausted. They are obviously failing to provide a conceptual framework conducive to eliminating some of humanity's worst scourges, including war and environmental destruction. This raises the issue of a successor, which necessitates a reexamination of first principles, starting with our concept of God. Pantheism, which is differentiated from panentheism, denies the existence of a transcendent, supernatural creator and instead asserts that God and the universe are one and the same. (...) Understood via intuition, modern cosmology, and other natural sciences, it offers an alternative worldview that posits the divine and sacred nature of the universe/creation. By asserting the fallacy of the creator/creation dichotomy and any attempts to anthropomorphize or personalize God, pantheism precludes hubris stemming from erroneous notions of divine favoritism. The links between Judeo-Christianity and the Enlightenment are traced and a case made that the latter has resulted in the equally erroneous and hubristic notion of human ascendancy to a Godlike status, with the concept of progress providing a secular version of the Christian belief in salvation. By reestablishing the natural sciences’metanarrative, even as it asserts the divinity of the material universe, pantheism simultaneously demotes postmodernism and reconciles science with religion. Pantheism provides a theological foundation for deep ecology and also stakes out a viable third position in relation to the ongoing dispute between advocates of intelligent design and the scientific establishment. (shrink)