ABSTRACT
In traditional societies, individuals are still more likely to cooperate with their kin and long-term reciprocators than with others. Traditional peoples often do express concerns about the long-term "health" of the ecosystems on which they depend. The analytic issues of individual versus group benefits and long- versus short-term context are crucial for understanding resource problems, from traditional societies to industrial nations. Many definitions of conservation imply cooperation, and loss of individual gain for the good of some larger entity. Conservative resource use is likely to be favored when there is rapid and clear feedback regarding the impact on family and individual welfare. Coalitions of several sorts surround resource and land utilization, and their impact can differ. Bleak forecasts of overexploitation due to individually rational, group-destructive behaviors are common, and this is part of the appeal of the Noble Ecological Savage paradigm.
