People within the Forest, People outside the Forest : A View from Ecological Anthropology

숲속에 사는 사람, 숲밖에 사는 사람 : 생태인류학적(生態人類學的) 관점(觀點)

One might have a retrospect on the relationship between the forest and human being from the viewpoint of ecological perspective. It is no doubt that most of the fossil humans should have lived on the forest and the latter provided foods and shelters for humans from their beginning stages, Since the so-called agricultural revolution, humans have extensively started to exploit the forest which had beer, their cradle. The industrial revolution has created another situation against the forest in terms of the quality of ecosystem. These two revolutions have set up the so-called civilization which seems to have been based on the sacrificial oblation of the forest. The cradle for human being has been kept exterminating for the shake of "economic development and miracle." This might be a synoptic history of relationships between the forest and human beings in a sense. designates the behavioral aspects of human being against the forest and people consider the forest only as exploitable resource in this context, and the latter means that people live on the forest and strive to adapt the order of forest ecosystem. The resourcism has developed a strategy of colonialism to exploit the forest and provided a winner's position for the human beings against the forest, This idea and behavioral perspective seems to have started the backfire against the exploiter who is the owner of the civilization. However, there are different philosophies and ideas to view the relationship between the forest and human beings. People within the forest who are mostly considered as "primitives" still keep their idea of the ontology of the forest. There is a theoretical assumption of the "socionatural system" to look into the ecosystem. The forest could be viewed in the above frame of analysis. There are five variables : environment, resource, technology, organization, and ideology. Ideological aspect of the forest can be explained in the context of belief systems. Forest has a meaning of religion and rituals and people within the forest should admire it in anyway of religious reasons. This aspect of the forest cannot be separated from the environmental aspect of the forest. People within the forest acknowledge and practice the above idea. People outside the forest have lost the idea, however, at the cost of acquiring the civilization. They have expelled themselves from the forest and divided the socionatural system of the forest by way of colonialism. The efforts like agroforestry and social forestry would be strategies for recovering the idea of ontology of the forest as well as the sense of community including the forest and human being. People within the forest will be a prospective model for the future socionatural system of the forest for the people outside the forest. At this point, an ecological anthropologist can work with the forest specialists.