Noëlle F Kümpel

BirdLife International

We identify policies that would provide a solid foundation in key international negotiations to ensure that primary forests persist into the 21st Century. A novel compilation of primary forest cover and other data revealed that protection of primary forests is a matter of global concern being equally distributed between developed and developing cou...

Alternative livelihood project is a widely used term for interventions that aim to reduce the prevalence of activities deemed to be environmentally damaging by substituting them with lower impact livelihood activities that provide at least equivalent benefits. Alternative livelihood projects are widely implemented in conservation, but in 2012, an I...

Unsustainable exploitation of wild animals is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and to millions of people depending on wild meat for food and income. The international conservation and development community has committed to implementing plans for sustainable use of natural resources and has requested development of monitoring systems of b...

The full reference for this paper is: Kümpel, N.F., Cunningham, A.A., Fa, J.E., Jones, J.P.G., Rowcliffe, J.M. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2015) Ebola and bushmeat: myth and reality. NWFP Update 5: Bushmeat. FAO, Rome. Available from: http://forestry.fao.msgfocus.com/q/1bqqKZHedDwdxkXJuzD/wv or https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276937390_Ebol...

Background: Alternative livelihood projects are used by a variety of organisations as a tool for achieving biodiversity conservation. However, despite characterising many conservation approaches, very little is known about what impacts (if any) alternative livelihood projects have had on biodiversity conservation, as well as what determines the rel...

The okapi Okapia johnstoni, a rainforest giraffid endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo, was recategorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2013. Historical records and anecdotal reports suggest that a disjunct population of okapi may have occurred south-west of the Congo River but the current distribution and status of the okapi in this...

Breeding programs for endangered species increasingly use molecular genetics to inform their management strategies. Molecular approaches can be useful for investigating relatedness, resolving pedigree uncertainties, and for estimating genetic diversity in captive and wild populations. Genetic data can also be used to evaluate the representation of...

Unsustainable exploitation of wild animals is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and to millions of people depending on wild meat for food and income. The international conservation and development community has committed to implementing plans for sustainable use of natural resources and has requested development of monitoring systems of b...

The okapi Okapia johnstoni is an endangered, even-toed ungulate in the family Giraffidae, and is endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Okapi are highly elusive and very little is known about their behaviour and ecology in the wild. We used non-invasive genetic methods to examine the social structure, mating system and dispersal for a p...

Unsustainable hunting threatens both biodiversity and local livelihoods. Despite high levels of research effort focused on understanding the dynamics of bushmeat trade and consumption, current research is largely site specific. Without synthesis and quantitative analysis of available case studies, the national and regional characteristics of bushme...

Unsustainable hunting threatens both biodiversity and local livelihoods. Despite high levels of research effort focused on understanding the dynamics of bushmeat trade and consumption, current research is largely site specific. Without synthesis and quantitative analysis of available case studies, the national and regional characteristics of bushme...

Conservationists are increasingly engaging with the concept of human well‐being to improve the design and evaluation of their interventions. Since the convening of the influential Sarkozy Commission in 2009, development researchers have been refining conceptualizations and frameworks to understand and measure human well‐being and are starting to co...

The okapi is an endangered, evolutionarily distinctive even-toed ungulate classified within the giraffidae family that is endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The okapi is currently under major anthropogenic threat, yet to date nothing is known about its genetic structure and evolutionary history, information important for conservation mana...

Background Alternative livelihood projects are used by a variety of organisations as a tool for achieving biodiversity conservation. However, despite characterising many conservation approaches, very little is known about what impacts (if any) alternative livelihood projects have had on biodiversity conservation, as well as what determines the rela...

To predict the distribution of suitable environmental conditions (SEC) for eight African great ape taxa for a first time period, the 1990s and then project it to a second time period, the 2000s; to assess the relative importance of factors influencing SEC distribution and to estimate rates of SEC loss, isolation and fragmentation over the last two...

Economic development in Africa is expected to increase levels of bushmeat hunting through rising demand for meat and improved transport infrastructure. However, few studies have tracked long‐term changes in hunter behavior as a means of testing this prediction. We evaluated changes in hunter behavior in a rural community in Equatorial Guinea over a...

This chapter describes the role of wildlife for food security in Central Africa, meat from wild terrestrial or semi-terrestrial animals termed bushmeat is significan source of animal protein in central africa can countries and crucial component of food security and livelihoods in rural areas. In additional civil conflict or insecurity poor governan...

A network of resource management areas (RMAs) exists across tropical Africa to protect natural resources. However, many are poorly managed and weakly protected. We evaluated how the lack of conservation effort influences the extinction risk of African great apes. We compiled information on presence/absence of primary (law enforcement guards) and se...

Finding an adequate measure of hunting sustainability for tropical forests has proved difficult. Many researchers have used urban bushmeat market surveys as indicators of hunting volumes and composition, but no analysis has been done of the reliability of market data in reflecting village offtake. We used data from urban markets and the villages th...

Bushmeat is an important component of the informal economy throughout West and Central Africa. In order to formulate effective policy to ensure the sustainability of bushmeat hunting for both development and conservation reasons, there is a need to understand its position within the wider rural economy. We conducted interviews with households and h...

Results of many studies show unsustainable levels of bushmeat hunting across West/Central Africa. Nevertheless, these results are usually derived from snapshot sustainability indices in which critical parameters are often taken from the literature. Simple, more informative tools for assessing sustainability are needed. We evaluated the impact of bu...

La pression croissante de la chasse a des effets tangibles sur la faune et est susceptible d'voir des incidences a long terme sur les ecosystemes forestiers. Comme on peut s'y attendre, l'abondance et la composition des rassemblements de mammiferes varient selon que l'on considere des zones de chasse ou des zones ou celle-ci n'est pas pratiquee. C...

Involvement of local land stewards and communities will be fundamental to the sustained success of any strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and increase forest carbon stocks (i.e., REDD+) *. Providing an economic incentive to local landholders to conserve forest carbon could prove to be a powerful t...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are designed to inspire efforts to improve people's lives by, among other priorities, halving extreme poverty by 2015 (1). Analogously, concern about global decline in biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services (2) gave rise in 1992 to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD target “to a...

Hunters are the critical link between demand and supply of bushmeat. An understanding of the incentives that drive hunter behaviour might thus help to predict the impacts of hunting and inform management of bushmeat hunting systems. However, hunter behaviour has been generally under-represented in studies of exploitation, in particular trapper beha...

Bushmeat hunting is threatening wildlife populations across west-central Africa, and now poses a greater threat to primates than habitat loss or degradation does in some areas. However, species vary in their abilities to withstand hunting, either because hunters target them differentially or they vary in their vulnerability to a given level of hunt...

IntroductionStudy areaMethods ResultsDiscussionAcknowledgements

IntroductionStudy SitesBotanical SurveysWildlife SurveysCrop PestsHousehold and Market SurveysDiscussionConclusions Acknowledgements

Book description: This book explores the links between bushmeat and livelihoods in Africa, with a focus on the human dimension of the debate. * Assembles biological, social and economic perspectives that illuminate the bushmeat debate * Features a series of case studies that explore what species survive different intensities of bushmeat hunting an...

Invasive alien species (IAS) are a major threat to global biodiversity and as a result ‘trends in IAS’ has been selected as one of 22 headline indicators to measure progress towards the Convention on Biological Diversity’s target of reducing the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. Whilst the CBD has suggested ‘numbers and cost’ of IAS as potentia...

Bushmeat hunting is thought to be becoming increasingly unsustainable in west and central Africa, but true assessment of sustainability, and consequently appropriate management, is constrained by poor understanding of cause and effect. This cross-disciplinary study considers the complex and dynamic interactions between market, hunter and prey along...

Understanding the factors driving demand for wild meat and its substitutes is crucial for predicting the effects of changing socio-economic conditions on consumption, and managing supplies sustainably. However urban demand for wild meat remains relatively understudied, particularly in West/Central Africa. We use interviews with consumers in househo...

There is increasing concern about the commercial trade in 'bushmeat' (the meat of wild animals) originating in West and Central Africa. Unsustainable levels of bushmeat hunting could threaten both wildlife populations and the people who depend on bushmeat for food or income. Of particular relevance to the UK are the implications of the trade for hu...