The degree to which a group is involved in its national monetary and commercial economy is, obviously, what provokes changes in traditional subsistence techniques, some of which can still be seen today. There are several levels of involvement and examples of each can be found on all three continents :
- isolated groups, economically self-sufficient ; no contact with the economy of the outside world ;
They are very rare nowadays and to be found mainly in the Amazon Basin and Papua New Guinea.
- limited contacts : groups that produce a surplus within their traditional activities and thus integrate regional networks and respond to the requirements of nearby populations ; exchanges do not usually involve cash ;
Examples of products exchanged : manioc flour, game, dried fish, wild nuts, basketwork, medicinal plants,etc.
- limited contacts : groups produce a surplus that is passed on to neighbouring populations who in turn integrate these products in a regional commercial network involving cash ; these commercial networks are usually very ancient (and as such can be said to be 'traditional') ;
Examples of products involved : game, fish, but also raw materials for craftwork, such as resin from copal, rattan, etc.
- groups responding partly to external demand maintain a strong cultural autonomy, but alter traditional food-producing activities.
This category includes many groups of swidden cultivators who have small-scale cash crops of coffee or pepper for example, or groups in the Amazon Basin who collect and trade wild products such as hevea or Brazil-nuts.
Hunter-gatherers : Some tropical forests still shelter some of the few remaining hunter-gatherer populations in the world ; they rely on wild resources for food and do not engage in agriculture or livestock breeding.
- Congo Basin : several different groups of Pygmies (the Aka, Baka and Mbuti among others), approximately 120 000 people.
- The Philippines : Agta and Batak Negritos, approximately 70 000 people.
- Peninsular Malaysia : the Semang (collective name for several groups including the Batek, the Kensiu, etc), approximately 20 000 people.
- Borneo : the Penan, approximately 20 000 people.
- Sumatra : small groups of Kubu, approximately 46 000 people.
- Halmahera (Celebes) : mountain populations which we know little about, approximately 30 000 people.
- The Amazon Basin : we know of some groups, said to be 'regressive', such as the Yuqui in Bolivia ; they have had to abandon agriculture and become nomads to survive and now live off hunting and gathering.
In all, there are approximately 300 000 people belonging to mobile populations and whose economy is based on hunting and gathering.
However, all these groups without exceptions have some kind of regular and close relationship with farming populations living in the same area, and two types of exchanges take place between them :
- exchanges of forest foodstuffs (meat, honey) for tools and foodstuffs produced by agricultural activities (in Africa, in the Philippines, but only rarely in the Amazon Basin) ;
- involvement in long distance trade by contributing wild products that are exchanged for goods or even cash (Borneo, Malaysia, ivory in Africa).
Nowadays, these small-scale populations are extremely sensitive to the process of acculturation and are everywhere undergoing important changes in their economy, alterations that usually go together with the process of settling down and sometimes (but not always) with adopting agriculture.
In any case, one can find examples of all the different stages of this process of change, from groups of traditional mobile hunter-gatherers to sedentary groups who have adopted agriculture.
Swidden cultivators : It is not only 'hunter-gatherers' that are engaged in hunting, fishing and gathering activities. In fact, most swidden cultivators supplement their diet with many wild products.
Agriculture provides quantity and the forest provides quality to daily diet.
In other words, agriculture provides mainly the basic carbohydrates, whereas the forest provides the protein (through hunting or fishing), fats and some vitamins.
Fresh water fishing is predominant in Borneo ; in Central Africa, the most common technique involves using traps while other groups only rely on river fishing and yet others combine both techniques ; elsewhere (Philippines, Amazon Basin, Malaysia, etc) most of the groups rely on both hunting and fishing.
Gathering is not as important everywhere, but all engage in it in some way or other, whether to collect animal products (batrachians, reptiles, molluscs, insects) or plant products (tubers, small shoots, fruits, seeds, almonds, etc).
Traditional livestock breeding does exist, but it only ever supplies marginal foodstuffs ; however, it always has important social and religious functions.
Several points need to be made regarding swidden cultivators and their hunting activities :
- it is a mistake to think that swidden cultivators might be poaching when hunting : they only hunt for food ;
- the use of traps, attacked by ecologists, does not only aim at obtaining food but also at protecting the crops from being destroyed by animals ;
- traditional hunting and fishing are carried out over vast areas ; the amount and variety of species caught vary with the seasons which alleviates possible pressure on any single species or area ;
- while they are growing back, secondary forests are not useless areas : the various plants serve as bait and lure many different animal species, pig and ungulate populations in particular.
Specialists : The populations that specialize in one single activity ought to be mentioned separately : they specialize in fishing and live along the big rivers of the Congo Basin and usually only have limited agricultural activities ;
Examples : the Lokele and Songola on the Congo River ; the Monzombo on the Ubangi River.
In some cases, such as in the swamplands of New Guinea, or the delta of the Orinoco (Venezuela), sedentary populations exploit and develop natural plantations of palm trees that provide a starchy food, sago, and they do not engage in agriculture, except temporarily in times of shortages ;
Examples : delta of the Orinoco (Mauritia flexuosa palm) : Warao group ; Papua New Guinea (Metroxylon spp. palm) : the Elema and Kerewo in the delta of the Purari, the Orokolo in the delta of the Kikori ; the Asmat, Mimika groups in Irian Jaya.
Some wild plants play a major role in the economy of many societies :
- in Africa : Baillonella (oil), Irvingia spp. (almonds), Entandrophragma spp. (for caterpillars), rattans such as Eremospatha and Calamus, Raphia ;
- in Asia : rattans such as Calamus and Daemonorops, Agathis copal and Shorea damar for their resin, Styrax incense, bamboos, food plants such as the sago palms Metroxylon and Caryota spp., fruit trees such as Pandanus, Artocarpus, Durio, etc ;
- in America : palms such as Mauritia flexuosa (fruits and sago), Orbignya speciosa and Euterpe oleracea (fruits), trees such as Bertholletia excelsa (almonds) and fruit trees such as Erisma japura, Matisia cordata, various Sapotaceae, etc.
These non-timber forest products are of course exploited for the requirements of the local ethnic group, but usually they are to some extent also integrated in the trade networks. These are the products which development specialists are increasingly interested in, because they seem to offer new solutions for a more rational and diversified use of the forest ecosystem.
It is important to stress the fact that different economic strategies co-exist within one area ; this even often leads to long-lasting and instituted partnerships between complementary groups.
An example of this is the fact that all hunter-gatherers, and their ancestors before them, have been partners with groups of swidden cultivators (e.g. the Pygmies in Africa or Penan in Borneo).
Other examples can be found among populations specializing in fresh water fishing : there are complementary partnerships between fishing populations and swidden cultivators all along the Congo Basin.
The same can be said of the major societies organized into hierarchies that lived in the flood plains of the Amazon Basin until they were destroyed by the Conquest. They had developed trade links with the forest populations of the hinterland that provided them with wild forest products.
Throughout the centuries, these associations between different populations have enabled people to set up vast networks of long distance trade that linked them with the developed countries beyond the equatorial zone.
This was the case in the Congo Basin before European colonial times (exports to Europe of ivory and red wood for dyeing, among many other minor products) ; another example is Asia and the highly developed trade networks between the islands and mainland China, established at least since the 5th century and that are still used today (rattan, copal and damar, ivory, rhinoceros horn). The wild roots of sarsaparilla from the Amazon Basin were used to cure syphilis in Europe in the 18th and 19th century.