Wild Pigs in Southeast Asia
It is only recently that wild pigs have become a matter of concern to conservationists in Southeast Asia. The various species of wild pigs (there are at least eight in the area) are an often neglected animal in biodiversity debates. Attitudes towards wild pigs differ widely in Southeast Asia.
By GERARD A. PERSOON
In most areas wild pigs are considered an agricultural pest, but at the same time their meat can sometimes be considered a delicacy. In other areas they have no positive value at all. They are an unadulterated nuisance because they destroy crops and they are harmful to all kinds of agricultural activities. Their meat, which may have been a saving grace, cannot be consumed because of religious objections. Because pigs reproduce very quickly, it is a difficult animal to eradicate. Paradoxically, however, the animal stands a better chance of surviving in an area where it is hated than where it is loved.Wild pigs were common in lowland forest throughout Southeast Asia and to some extent they still are, but in particular regions they have almost disappeared. They are teetering on the verge of extinction because of hunting either for subsistence or for commercial purposes.
In most of the areas, wild pig meat is consumed by forest-dwelling people, hunters and gatherers, or shifting agriculturalists. Examples are the Agta in the Philippines, the Kubu and the Sakai in Sumatra, and the Punan and the Dayak in Kalimantan. They hunt wild pigs, of which the meat subsequently is distributed among members of family groups. This exchange is characterized by its non-commercial nature and the demand is naturally limited because of small population numbers. In all of these cases, the wild pig usually features at the top of the list of the most desired bush meats.
When neighbouring farmers are Christians like in the Philippines, most of the forest-dwelling hunters and gatherers are engaged in a growing trade with outsiders and bush meat is a very important item in exchange relations. Hunters barter bush meat for all kinds of other products like rice, cigarettes, coffee, and sugar. In many cases these kinds of exchange have existed for long periods of time and the relations are described in terms of a kind of symbiosis between the two ethnic groups. Very often, however, new waves of encroaching farmers may also turn to the forest for the collection of forest products to supplement their income. Collection of rattan, resins, and honey is often combined with hunting activities. These migrant farmers also bring in new hunting technologies. In addition to hunting with dogs, bows and arrows, and snares, guns are now regularly used. Recently so-called pig bombs have become popular. These bombs are made of baits, filled with gunpowder. The 'hunter' just has to wait for the explosion and check the spot where the bomb was placed. If the animal was not killed on the spot, tracking down the wounded animal is usually an easy job. In these areas the meat is either consumed by the family members of the hunter or it is sold to nearby towns. In many cases an appetite for bush meat is being developed by wealthy urban people because it is considered an exotic food, different from the mass produced meat from domesticated pigs. This local demand and the growing demand from the urban centres put a great pressure on the pig populations. Based on the general assumptions that wild pigs are an agricultural pest anyway, hunting is intensified to the point of extinction at the local level.
In addition to coming off second best to commercial logging in many areas, forest-dwelling peoples have also lost large tracts of forest land to encroaching farmers. In the case of Muslim migrants, as in parts of Sumatra, Malaysia, or Mindanao, the farmers have quite a struggle in their confrontations with these fierce animals because the pigs prosper relatively well in somewhat degraded forest. They uproot crops, destroy seedlings, and harvest crops prematurely. These Muslim farmers have only a negative motivation for killing the animal: they are not interested in the animal for nutritional or trade purposes. They only want to protect their crops from being damaged. The pigs, for their part, benefit from the increased agricultural activities and the availability of food in the fields. In some cases people even have to give up their fields because it is practically impossible to protect them effectively.
This is the case in some 'pig-infected areas' in transmigration sites in Sumatra. Sometimes, non-Muslim local hunters and gatherers assist the farmers by settling down in these fields to pursue 'garden hunting'. There might also be a commercial demand for wild pig meat from the Chinese communities in urban centres like Jambi, Padang, and Palembang. In these cases the pigs are collected simultaneously with other non-timber forest products. Because of its relatively low value, trade only takes place at the local or regional level. Trade in this kind of bush meat has very limited international dimensions.
Finally it is important to mention the trade in the animal in 'pig cultures' in which pigs occupy a prominent position, like in Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, or on the island of Siberut in Western Indonesia. In these societies pigs are a prime source of wealth and pride and the welfare of the herds is of great concern to the owner and his kin. Here agricultural practices are also adjusted to the behaviour of the animals, or fields are properly fenced. Pig herds consist of freely roaming, half-domesticated wild pigs with some interbreeding with various kinds of imported pigs. In these societies pigs, either dead or alive, are an important item in the internal economy, in the ritual cycles and in the exchange relations for bride price, payment of fines or other kinds of transactions. Trade with outsiders or for purely commercial purposes is usually absent. Efforts to commercialize this kind of pig raising have proved unsuccessful: the ritual and other functions of the animal cannot easily be transformed into a purely economic one. *
Dr Gerard A. Persoon is head of the Programme for Environment and Development, Centre of Environmental Science, Leiden University. E-mail: persoon@cml.leidenuniv.nl.