The Agta of the Northern Sierra Madre. Livelihood strategies and resilience among Philippine hunter-gatherers

Abstract

The Agta are a hunter-gatherer people inhabiting the last remaining tropical rain forest on the island of Luzon, in the north-eastern Philippines. Due to commercial logging operations, immigration and conversion of forest into agricultural land, the Agta's resource base has come under increasing pressure over the past century. This ethnography analyses the way the Agta respond to these social and environmental changes. It shows that they face great problems with respect to health, nutrition, control over resources and participation in decisionmaking processes. It also shows, however, that by maintaining economic and residential flexibility and diversification, they succeed in continuing a hunter-gatherer way of life.LEI Universiteit LeidenGlobal Challenges (FSW