Models of subsistence and ethnobiological knowledge: Between extraction and cultivation in Southeast Asia

The successful adaptation of human populations to rainforest environments depends largely on their capacity to organise and apply knowledge of its structure and composition. This paper examines our current understanding of this knowledge in a Southeast Asian context and how this relates to reliance on different models of subsistence. Particular emphasis will be placed on the differences between those populations which focus predominantly on direct extraction and those which focus on plant cultivation, and on populations which appear to be in various respects transitional. (author)