Perhaps the best-known example comes from Jean Peterson’s work (1978a,
1978b, 1981), also discussed in Benjamin (this issue). She suggested that Agta negritos
might have exploited the “ecotones” on the edges of farmers’ fields, where game
populations were more abundant. As farmers cleared more forest for their fields,
they expanded the hunting areas of the Agta. There is no doubt that agriculture can
increase the food supply for animals, particularly in highly stressed environments. In
my survey of Penan communities in Sarawak, for example, I found one community
that preferred to hunt in oil palm plantations, for that is where the pigs converged.
However, the majority of the Penan, including those who hunted near plantations,
reported a sharp decline in game populations as a result of forest clearance. Similarly,
the Batek report both increased density of wildlife near oil palm plantations and
habitat disruption (changing territorial patterns) as a result of plantation expansion.
Whatever the reasons (related to habitat fragmentation, animal feeding strategies
and migratory patterns, and the presence of outside hunters), there is a great deal
of local ecological variation, and Peterson’s findings have not been confirmed as
a general pattern (Griffin 1984: 111–112). I have doubts on other grounds, such as
why farmers—who are often skilled trappers and hunters themselves—would not
simply pick off the animals that are feeding at the ecotones of their fields rather than
engage in elaborate exchanges with oft-unreliable peripatetic hunters (Griffin 1984:
111).10 In other words, the carbohydrates-for-proteins model does not explain why
symbiosis should have developed between negritos and their farming neighbors.