Search

This mixed-methods study examines an informal place- and community-based environmental education program implemented for rural, underserved high school students in Costa Rica’s bio-culturally diver...

Galápagos stands out for its vast collection of extreme life: the world’s only tropical albatross, its only flightless cormorants, and its marine iguanas; three colorful species of boobies; and 15 species of giant tortoises, one on each major volcano, except for one especially large volcano that has two. Each of these organisms has evolved adaptations to the unique rigors of life in an isolated archipelago on the equator. As Galápagos has recently grown ever more connected to the world system, many species’ adaptations have become vulnerabilities in the face of human-induced change. Fortunately, long before people arrived, evolution also endowed native species with forms of resilience to local perturbations like El Niño events and periodic droughts. The eight case studies in this book highlight these vulnerabilities and resiliences and argue that the mismatch between them, stemming from human impact, is the core conservation challenge today.

Galápagos is no longer the “little world within itself” that Darwin visited: it is now one big social‒ecological system (SES): the evolutionary fitnesses of all, or nearly all, Galápagos organisms are today a joint product of natural conditions and human activity. But this also makes Galápagos an effective microcosm. At first glance, the place seems totally unique: it is small and isolated, its habitats are extreme, its wildlife is peculiar, and its initially tiny human population is diverse and growing rapidly. But on a larger scale, are those not all true about Earth itself? The small size and isolation of Galápagos may exacerbate some threats and challenges, its position in the heartland of El Niño may exaggerate the swings and changes of contemporary climate, and its land area for human use is close to a record low (3%, although human impact reaches to every corner of the archipelago), but these conditions make both problems and solutions show up faster in Galápagos than elsewhere. Galápagos is now a valuable test bed for the sustainability challenges facing the whole of planet Earth.

While visiting Galápagos, the young Charles Darwin was confused by the similarity of various finches he observed. We now understand that what we see as different finch species are “species before speciation is complete.” The confusion is inherent: many of them remain similar enough to form fertile hybrids. But a robust difference exists between the groups of ground finches and tree finches, raising the question, what prompted the evolution of that clear distinction? The primary habitats for tree finches are tree species of the wonderful Galápagos daisy genus, Scalesia, that dominate the forests of the humid areas of various islands. Did the evolution of daisies into trees influence the evolution of differences between ground and tree finches? For that matter, how did highland trees evolve from lowland shrubby daisies, thus forming the highland habitat for tree finches? Several lines of evidence, including a contemporary interaction analysis of various birds and trees, suggest that the giant daisies of Galápagos and the tree species of Darwin’s finches coevolved.

Galápagos tortoises demonstrate the special “creative force” of evolution in the archipelago, having radiated into 15 species—each with a characteristic shell shape—within the last 3.2 million years. Formed over an active mid-ocean volcanic hotspot, Galápagos islands have also changed dramatically in the same period, providing new and diverse “petri dishes” for tortoise evolution. In these new homes, which are low, dry islands, where the tortoise’s main food is prickly pear cactus (which has concurrently evolved a protective treelike stature), tortoises evolved impressive new features, including saddlebacked shells and extra-long limbs. On all the islands where they occur, tortoises serve as “ecological engineers,” building suitable niches for themselves (and incidentally for other species). In the case of domed-shell tortoises, those niches include tortoise-maintained wallows, meadows, and migration trails. Heavily hunted in Galápagos history, most tortoise species are rebounding today, some from tortoises rediscovered in the novel places they had been carried by early mariners in their quest for food.

The waved albatross of Galápagos, the world’s only tropical albatross, has survived millennia of flying in low-velocity winds by foraging relatively short distances to the Peruvian upwelling. The advent of longline fishing along the coast of Peru and recent changes in El Niño have caught the albatross in a demographic pinch, rendering it critically endangered since 2007. Because reproductive pairs lay only a single egg per year under the best of circumstances, the conservation challenges are noteworthy and all the more serious because recurrent El Niño events shut down the albatrosses’ food supply. Effective conservation measures include human intervention to save “marooned” and abandoned eggs, to change longlining practices in the Peruvian coastal fishery, and to provide safe refugia on a small island off the coast of Ecuador where hungry albatrosses can raise chicks even closer to the upwelling. But until our efforts suffice to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the growing severity of El Niño events, we shall all have an albatross hanging around our necks: the beautiful waved albatross of Galápagos.

The same species of Galápagos rail, a 6-inch insectivorous ground bird, has been reported on all eight islands with a highland humid zone. Evidence suggests that the rail colonized Galápagos at roughly the same time as giant tortoises, which evolved into 15 species with life spans of 150 years. So why is there just one species of rail? The question is especially germane given reports of the rail’s “reduced flight ability” (as is true of many island-dwelling rails), which would effectively isolate different island populations. And why has the species survived when so many similar rails have succumbed to human influence on other Pacific islands? The human history of Galápagos helps to answer these questions. Two things have saved the Galápagos rail from extinction: (1) It remains capable of flying between islands, which explains why it failed to differentiate like tortoises. (2) There have been massive efforts to eradicate or control invasive species, restoring habitat for rails to repopulate.

This chapter explores two delightfully unique, flightless seabirds: the Galápagos cormorant, one of the world’s most unusual organisms, and the Galápagos penguin, the only penguin to swim in the Northern Hemisphere. Three themes stand out: first, in pre-settlement Galápagos, neither species suffered great disadvantage because of flightlessness. Having no terrestrial predators allowed both species to nest on land near water’s edge, to specialize in diving for prey in the rich, cool Cromwell upwelling, and to prosper during over a million years of flightless life in Galápagos. Second, from very different evolutionary origins, the two seabirds evolved a fascinating evolutionary convergence in the archipelago—not their flightlessness per se, because penguins were already flightless when they arrived. Instead, there are striking similarities in their uniquely opportunistic mating practices, including the cormorant’s very unusual facultative polyandry. Third, does the older flightless specialist, the penguin, have the advantage when El Niño causes food supply to falter, or does the advantage go to the cormorant, the seabird specifically retooled by evolution for conditions in Galápagos? Forty years of census data show that penguins react slightly more quickly to ENSO and with more population flux, but that both species show impressive reproductive resilience.

How did the blue-footed booby evolve those lovely blue feet? Genetic analysis shows that the blue-footed booby shared a recent common ancestor with the grey-footed Peruvian booby of coastal South America. Unlike the latter, whose diet includes anchovies and sardines, the blue-footed booby is a sardine specialist that feeds by plunge diving exclusively into cold-water upwellings, like those of the Cromwell current. Sardines normally abound in Galápagos, but not anchovies—the strong currents quickly carry away their young. But sardines are also rich in blue-green coloring agents (carotenes) that show up in the feet of successful booby divers. Hence it’s an uncanny “fit” of the blue-footed booby to island conditions is uncanny: did it evolve in Galápagos from continental ancestors who followed trade winds west? The species also regulates brood sizes in relation to sardine supply via flexible siblicide, which surely helps in coping with ENSO. It shares siblicide with its close Galápagos relative, the Nazca booby, as well as aggressive NAV behavior in which nonparental adult visitors peck at innocent, unrelated chicks until they bleed or drown. New evidence from brown boobies—another close relative—suggests that this behavior evolved as a result of benefits from survival cannibalism during extreme El Niños.

Why is Galápagos so endlessly fascinating, whether to read about, to visit, or both? Reasons include its menagerie of truly unusual organisms (like tree daisies, marine iguanas, and flightless cormorants), its relatively low human impact (most of its endemic biodiversity is still extant), and its unrivalled role in the history of science ever since Charles Darwin. Exuberant Life offers a contemporary synthesis of what is known about the evolution of the curiously wonderful organisms of Galápagos, of how they are faring in the tumultuous world of human-induced change, and how evolution can guide efforts today for their conservation. In eight case-study chapters, the book looks at each organism’s ancestry, at how and when it came to Galápagos, and how and why it changed since its arrival, all with an eye to its conservation today. Such analysis often provides surprises and suggestions not previously considered, like the potential benefits to joint conservation efforts with tree daisies and tree finches, for example, or ways that a new explanation for peculiar behaviors in Nazca and blue-footed boobies can benefit both species today. In each chapter, a social-ecological systems framework is used, because human influence is always present, and because it allows an explicit link to evolution. We see how the evolutionary fitnesses of Galápagos organisms are now a product of both ecological conditions and human impact, including climate change. Historically, Galápagos has played a central role in the understanding of evolution; what it now offers to teach us about conservation may well prove indispensable for the future of the planet.

The starting point for a populational theory of culture is to recognize that cultural systems, for all else that they may or may not be, consist of information that is socially conveyed through space and time within a social group. Cultural change shows up as change in the relative frequencies of socially transmitted variants within the pool—in other words, as change by differential social replication, or cultural evolution. A personal favorite, just to give a single example, is the concept of cultural homology, since in a system of “descent with modification” one expects to find many, many similarities among separate, even distant, cultural systems that trace to shared historical origins and are thus features “sprung from a common source.” The one that comes immediately to mind is to restrict the “cultural” to the subset of socially conveyed information that is also symbolically encoded.

This chapter proposes the hypotheses that the cultural characteristics of human social groups result to a large extent from internal, individual-level selective retention, and more importantly, that this process generally selects for cultural attributes that enhance the ability of their carriers to survive and reproduce. A wide variety of theories are explicit and implicit in the anthropological literature and a number of them have been successful at explaining some within-group and between-group variations in human culture. As with organic evolution, where an individual-versus group-selection debate has been argued for over a decade, the important question concerns not the possibility of cultural selection at group and higher levels, but rather the relative effectiveness and direction of selection at those levels. A coevolutionary perspective implies that for both biological and cultural reasons the interdependence of individual fitnesses among members of a social group can be viewed as the social glue that holds human groups together.

This study is the first to compare the economic value of bear viewing and trophy hunting of both grizzly (Ursus arctos) and black bears (Ursus americanus) in the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) in British Columbia (BC), Canada. We assess trends in these two sectors of wildlife recreation over several decades and analyse their economic impacts based on 2012 data. We examine both non-resident bear hunting with guide outfitters and independent local (resident) hunters, as well as bear viewing offered by tourism companies in the GBR. We provide strong evidence that bear viewing in the GBR is generating far more economic value: bear-viewing companies generated over 12 times more in visitor spending than guided non-resident and independent resident hunters combined ($15.1 million versus $1.2 million) and 11 times more in government revenues ($7.3 million versus $660,5001). Such findings should be useful to policy-makers in determining allocations of public resources and priorities for conservation efforts. ...

Researchers and practitioners often highlight the potential for nature-based tourism and environmental conservation to function symbiotically, with favourable outcomes for visitors and the environment alike. This paper draws on data from two sets of passengers on weeklong cruises in the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador to explore philanthropic intentions resulting from such nature-based tourism experiences. Our findings suggest that the Galapagos experience fosters enjoyment of the environment, new knowledge about that environment, an affective connection with the environment and the local wildlife, and an interest in sharing those connections with others – trip characteristics that are related with intentions to philanthropically support environmental conservation in the Galapagos. Visitors in this study also exhibited values that related to the amounts they were willing to donate in support of a philanthropic fund for the islands’ conservation needs. This study contributes to the emerging scholarship on tra...

Nature-based tourism provides an ideal context for motivating pro-environmental action, as it draws travellers interested in the natural world and showcases unique, and often threatened, environments. This study examines efforts to motivate environmentally related behaviour in tourists' everyday lives using a technology-based intervention following an elephant seal viewing tour at California's Ano Nuevo State Park. A total of 362 visitors completed pre-tour and post-tour surveys, with 94 visitors completing a final survey three months after the tour. We found that, although the intervention had little influence on conservation action overall, it was effective for a social media-related action. Post-tour conservation actions were significantly affected by emotional connection to wildlife during the tour and repeat visitation to either the same or another state park. We found that visitors' connectedness to nature increased during the three-hour tour, but returned to pre-visit levels three months later. Pra...

Limited social capital poses a critical bottleneck for sustainable rural development. Despite vast investment, development interventions focused on preserving the biodiversity of the Osa and Golfito region of Costa Rica have done little to address poverty or improve the well-being of local residents. The authors of the current study draw upon field research and data gathered from semi-structured interviews with 310 community leaders and rural residents to investigate the bottlenecks to development and how they are related to forms of social capital in the Osa and Golfito cantons in Costa Rica. Specifically, we draw upon the distinction of bonding, bridging, and linking forms of social capital to characterize the nature of benefits from collective action in communities in Osa and Golfito. The data suggest that the lack of bridging and linking forms of social capital may explain the region's persistent development challenges and may thus indicate where development-related investments are most likely to bear fruit.

Although nature-based tourism is often promoted as benefiting local destinations through income generation, employment, and direct conservation support, it is also believed to influence tourists’ environmentally friendly attitudes, knowledge, and ultimately their behavior. Yet, few studies have empirically documented these outcomes, and those that do are inconsistent in the variables measured and the time frame analyzed. This paper examines the empirical research on nature-based tourism's ability to foster long-term stewardship behavior among travelers by conducting a systematic review of peer-reviewed tourism research published between 1995 and 2013. This search, focused on literature addressing changes in tourists’ environmentally related knowledge, attitudes, intentions, and actual behaviors, yielded just 30 empirical studies. Outcomes related to new environmental knowledge were commonly reported in these studies, but findings related to environmental attitudes and behaviors were inconsistent. Few stud...

Doubt persists about ecotourism's ability to make tangible contributions to conservation and deliver benefits for host communities. This work in Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula tests the hypothesis that ecotourism in this region is more effective at improving well-being for local residents, at enhancing their access to key resources and information, and at supporting biodiversity conservation than other locally available economic sectors. Data from 128 semi-structured interviews with local workers, both in ecotourism and in other occupations, together with associated research, indicate that ecotourism offers the best currently available employment opportunities, double the earnings of other livelihoods, and other linked benefits. Locally, ecotourism is viewed as the activity contributing most to improvements in residents’ quality of life in the Osa Peninsula and to increased levels of financial and attitudinal support for parks and environmental conservation. Ecolodge ownership by local people is substantial, ...

Species that are strong interactors play disproportionately important roles in the dynamics of natural ecosystems. It has been proposed that their presence is necessary for positively shaping the structure and functioning of ecosystems. We evaluated this hypothesis using the case of the world's largest parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum), a globally imperiled species. We used direct observation, animal tracking, and computer simulations to examine the diverse routes through which B. muricatum affects the diversity, dis- persal, relative abundance, and survival of the corals that comprise the foundation of reef ecosystems. Our results suggest that this species can influence reef building corals in both positive and negative ways. Field observation and simulation outputs indicated that B. muricatum reduced the abundance of macroalgae that can outcompete corals, but they also feed directly on corals, decreasing coral abundance, diversity, and colony size. B. muricatum appeared to facilitate coral advancement by mechanically dispersing coral fragments and opening up bare space for coral settlement, but they also damaged adult corals and remobilized a large volume of potentially stressful carbonate sediment. The impacts this species has on reefs appears to be regulated in part by its abundance—the effects of B. muricatum were more intense in simulation scenarios populated with high densities of these fish. Observations conducted in regions with high and low predator (e.g., sharks) abundance generated results that are consistent with the hypothesis that these predators of B. muricatum may play a role in governing their abundance; thus, predation may modulate the intensity of the effects they have on reef dynamics. Overall our results illustrate that functionally unique and threatened species may not have universally positive impacts on ecosystems and that it may be necessary for environmental managers to consider the diverse effects of such species and the forces that mediate the strength of their influence.

Remote areas harbor some of the world's most undisturbed ecosystems. Major conservation gains can be made by effectively protecting nature in these remote zones. Conducting conservation work in remote settings presents both unique challenges and promising opportunities. We discuss how five commonly used approaches for conservation (buy and protect conservation; conservation motivated by the intrinsic values of nature; ecosystem service based conservation; ecotourism driven conservation; and conserva- tion enabled by community planning) can be optimally applied to protect ecosystems in these special set- tings. In this discussion we draw examples from two model remote sites: Palmyra and Tabuaeran Atolls. Spatial analyses conducted using population density as a proxy for remoteness indicate that many exist- ing recognized protected areas already include remote regions, but that the vast majority of the overall remote zones on the planet are not yet formally protected. Initiating discussions that directly consider both the roadblocks and opportunities for conservation in remote areas will help increase our odds of successfully protecting biodiversity in these unique and strategically important contexts.

The wine industry is increasingly recognized as especially vulnerable to climate change due to the climate sensitivity of both winegrape yields and quality, making it an important model system for the agricultural impacts of global changes. However, agricultural production is strongly influenced by the management decisions of growers, including their practices to modify the microclimate experienced by the growing crop; these adaptations have not been studied at the vineyard level, where managers on the ground are on the front lines of responding to global change. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with winegrowers to examine farm-scale adaptive responses to environmental stresses, to understand the views and motivations of agricultural managers, and to explore adaptive capacity in practice. We found that growers tend to respond to stresses individually rather than collectively, except when facing severe, unfamiliar pests and diseases. Responses may be reactive or anticipatory; most anticipatory strategies have been short-term, in response to imminent threats. Growers tend to rely on their own experience to guide their management decisions, which may offer poor guidance under novel climate regimes. From using a Vulnerability Scoping Diagram, we find that changing exposure (vineyard location) and sensitivity (planting choices such as vine variety) have the biggest impact on reducing vulnerability, but that adaptations in growing or processing the crop in the vineyard and winery are easier to implement, much more commonly undertaken, and may also offer substantial adaptive capacity. Understanding the context of adaptations, as well as the decision-making processes motivating them, is important for understanding responses to global change. These findings highlight some innovations in adapting to global change, as well as some of the barriers, and point to the need for strategic investments to enhance agricultural resilience to climate change. In particular, strategies to enhance both effective and easy to implement farming adaptations, as well as broader-scale anticipatory, collective responses, could reduce vulnerability in the context of climate change.

Development in biodiversity rich areas is of global concern. While development may lead to socioeconomic benefits, this often comes concomitant with biodiversity loss and deforestation. Biodiversity rich areas present the opportunity for both improvements in socioeconomic conditions and conservation; however numerous challenges exist. Costa Rica’s Manuel Antonio National Park presents an ideal case study to investigate the balance between alternative forms of development which have contrasting environmental impacts. The Manuel Antonio region is a highly dynamic landscape experiencing deforestation, from agriculture, cattle ranching and oil palm plantations; and also reforestation from abandonment of land holdings and nature oriented tourism. Landscape dynamics are closely intertwined with the livelihoods and perspectives on biodiversity conservation of local communities, determining ecological sustainability. We use an analysis combining multi-temporal remote sensing of land cover dynamics from 1985 to 2008 with questionnaire data from local families on their socioeconomic status, perspectives on conservation, and perceived changes in local wildlife populations. Our results show that, while regeneration occurred and forest fragmentation in the area decreased from 1985 to 2008, Manuel Antonio National Park is rapidly becoming isolated. Decreasing ecological connectivity is related to the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations adjacent to the park and throughout the lowland areas. Perceived decreases in wildlife abundance and compositional change are evident throughout the area, with local communities attributing this primarily to illegal hunting activities. Nature based tourism in the area presents an effective strategy for conservation, including reductions in hunting, through increased valuation of biodiversity and protected areas, and socioeconomic advantages. However, without urgent efforts to limit deforestation and preserve the remaining forested corridor connecting the park to core primary forest, the ability to maintain biodiversity in the park will be reduced.

Ecotourism promotes responsible travel to natural areas, environmental conservation and the well-being of local communities. Eco-lodges are an important component of ecotourism ventures but an infrequently researched component of this field. Considering their influence on the natural environment (design and operation) and local communities (employment practices and purchases), the success of ecotourism depends, in part, on the performance of eco-lodges. This project studies the effects of the Punta Islita (PI) eco-lodge on the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. An interdisciplinary nested-scale analysis, combining guest and household interviews with multi-temporal remote sensing analysis of forest cover change of the lodge and surrounding areas, is used to evaluate the environmental, economic and social impacts of ecotourism in the region. Our results show significant positive contributions of the PI eco-lodge on forest cover, environmental conservation, and local economic incomes within the surrounding communities. For local livelihoods, the PI eco-lodge was seen as having positive social, cultural and economic impacts for nearly all societal variables for both employees and their neighbours. The PI eco-lodge was also perceived as reducing alcoholism, drug addiction and prostitution, where conventional tourism on the Peninsula was shown to increase these ‘societal ills’. Land value and product pricing were the few variables believed to have increased as a result of tourism on the Peninsula. For conservation, the PI eco-lodge property had the highest rates of reforestation within the Nicoya Peninsula and remains the scale most reforested in both forest cover change and total forest cover. In fact, at the landscape scale, we find that the Pacific coast of the Nicoya, where the bulk of ecotourism occurs, has undergone reforestation, whereas forest interiors have been deforested. Historically, reforestation occurred as cattle ranching credit programs were halted by the government and households in the area left to find better job opportunities. The PI eco-lodge, as a source of good employment, resulted in worker migration back to the surrounding area, resulting, in some cases, in increased deforestation. Overall, we feel that the PI eco-lodge serves as an example of successful ecotourism. However, increasing development in the region, in particular by standard hotel operations and large condo developments, seeks to capitalise on the region's natural beauty and may reverse land cover trends if they are not accompanied by adequate forest conservation strategies and stresses the importance of monitoring and assessing the impacts of accommodations tied to nature-based tourism operations. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this article, we call for enhanced quantitative and environmental analysis in the work of environmental anthropologists who wish to influence policy. Using a database of 77 leading monographs published between 1967 and 2006, 147 articles by the same authors, and a separate sample of 137 articles from the journal Human Organization, we document a sharp decline over the last ten years in the collection and use of quantitative and environmental data within environmental anthropology. These declines come at the same time that environmental anthropologists are aiming at greater policy relevance. We use the case of the Polonoroeste Project in the Brazilian Amazon and its impact on World Bank policy as a concrete example of the advantages of fortifying the quantitative and environmental side of our work. We conclude by discussing ways to strengthen environmental anthropology to further enhance its policy relevance and impact.

Ecotourism comes with a definitional promise to promote responsible travel to natural areas, to make a positive contribution to environmental conservation, and to enhance the well-being of local communities. This article summarises a study designed to test whether the Lapa Rios Eco-lodge of the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica, a widely acclaimed example of the species, delivers on these promises and to what degree. The study uses an interdisciplinary nested-scale analysis, combining careful on-the-ground interview methods with remote sensing analysis of forest and land-use impact of the Lapa Rios (LR) lodge. This combination of methods allows us to reject the null hypothesis, confirming that LR lodge has made substantial contributions to both local livelihoods and environmental conservation, including the highest rates of reforestation of all areas studied in the Osa Peninsula. We conclude that LR fulfils the definitional promise of ecotourism and delivers social, economic, and environmental benefits in the r...

Author(s): McCauley, DJ; Young, HS; Power, EA; Bird, DW; Durham, WH; McInturff, A; Dunbar, RB; Micheli, F; Young, HS

Species that are strong interactors play disproportionately important roles in the dynamics of natural ecosystems. It has been proposed that their presence is necessary for positively shaping the structure and functioning of ecosystems. We evaluated this hypothesis using the case of the world's largest parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum), a globally imperiled species. We used direct observation, animal tracking, and computer simulations to examine the diverse routes through which B. muricatum affects the diversity, dispersal, relative abundance, and survival of the corals that comprise the foundation of reef ecosystems. Our results suggest that this species can influence reef building corals in both positive and negative ways. Field observation and simulation outputs indicated that B. muricatum reduced the abundance of macroalgae that can outcompete corals, but they also feed directly on corals, decreasing coral abundance, diversity, and colony size. B. muricatum appeared to facilitate coral advancement by mechanically dispersing coral fragments and opening up bare space for coral settlement, but they also damaged adult corals and remobilized a large volume of potentially stressful carbonate sediment. The impacts this species has on reefs appears to be regulated in part by its abundance-the effects of B. muricatum were more intense in simulation scenarios populated with high densities of these fish. Observations conducted in regions with high and low predator (e.g., sharks) abundance generated results that are consistent with the hypothesis that these predators of B. muricatum may play a role in governing their abundance; thus, predation may modulate the intensity of the effects they have on reef dynamics. Overall our results illustrate that functionally unique and threatened species may not have universally positive impacts on ecosystems and that it may be necessary for environmental managers to consider the diverse effects of such species and the forces that mediate the strength of their influence.

Evolutionary culture theory (ECT) is a growing corpus of principles and arguments that attempt to explain the "descent with modification" of human cultural systems. Although it encompasses diverse viewpoints (see compari­ sons in 24:158-66; 52; 53:Ch. 4), ECT is united by three underlying proposi­ tions: (a) that the socially transmitted information systems we call "cultures" provide human populations with an important second source of heritable vari­ ation; (b) that these cultural systems are historically interrelated by a branch­ ing, hierarchical pattern of descent; and (c) that this "cultural phylogeny" is itself a product of two basic kinds of processes-transformation (that is, se­ quential change within any given culture) and diversification (the branching of one culture into two or more descendants). It bears emphasizing that evolu­ tionary culture theory differs substantially from earlier views of cultural evolu­ tion (such as those of classical evolutionary anthropology, neoevolutionism, and sociobiology; see 52) and that it refers not to any one position or line of argument today, but rather to the diverse collection of efforts to elucidate the patterns and processes of descent with modification in cultures. 331

Ecotourism has been credited with conserving biological and cultural diversity, alleviating rural poverty, increasing public awareness of environmental concerns and strengthening ties between tourism operators and local populations. For these reasons, ecotourism has grown in popularity with tourists as well as governmental development agencies and conservation organizations. Over twenty years after its inception, it now needs to be asked: Does ecotourism measure up to its environmental, social and economic ideals?Using detailed case studies, regional overviews and thematic analyses, "Ecotourism and Conservation in the Americas" evaluates the pros and cons of ecotourism for communities and ecosystems. Focusing particularly on the Americas, perspectives are drawn from private tour operators, non-governmental conservation and development organizations, local and indigenous communities and tourism researchers. Chapters discuss local benefits and conservation value through discussions of social impacts, the assessment of conservation potential, environmental education and the setting and maintaining of standards.

From the moment the term was coined (Ceballos-Lascurain, 1987), ecotourism was deemed to be an integration of conservation and local development. It is widely recognized as well that, in order to provide a memorable and authentic experience, ecotourism requires relatively intact natural areas, many of which are found in the poorest and most remote regions of the world (Christ et al., 2003). None the less, ecotourism has demonstrated the capacity to bring together demand with the offer in such a way that win–win situations sometimes occur between the stakeholders involved: the environment, communities, entrepreneurs/ operators and visitors. One example is Posada Amazonas, a 30 double-bedroom lodge located along the Tambopata River in south-eastern Peru, in the biodiversity ‘hotspot’ of the Tropical Andes (Myers et al., 2000). The lodge brings together the native community of Infierno and a private company, Rainforest Expeditions, to achieve a common goal: to prove that local communities can generate enough income through ecotourism to promote natural resource stewardship and conservation. By pursuing sustainable local development through the marketing of wildlife and nature, the longterm goals of both the community and the private company can be met.