No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Global patterns and determinants of the economic importance of bushmeat
Abstract
Knowledge about the economic role of bushmeat in rural livelihoods mainly stems from small case studies in sites characterised by high hunting intensities, challenging the formation of national-level conservation and development policies. We use the global Poverty Environment Network data to analyse the economic importance of bushmeat to rural households in sites selected with no consideration of the level of bushmeat hunting. Data were gathered from 7978 households in 333 communities across 24 tropical and sub-tropical countries in Latin America, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We report prevalence of hunting; absolute bushmeat income (both cash and subsistence income); share of bushmeat income in total household income; and share of bushmeat income obtained in cash. We investigate patterns and determinants of these variables at the community mean level using generalized linear models, focusing on six general hypothesis identified from the literature. Hunting is more prevalent than generally assumed (39%) but contributes less to rural household income than expected (2%) and mainly through own consumption (87%). Bushmeat is more important in smaller and more remote communities, in communities in the middle of the cash income distribution, communities with few domestic animals, in countries characterised by poor governance, and with rising costs of living. We argue that bushmeat is likely to be most important to rural households as a source of protein and micronutrients unavailable through own domestic animal and staple crop production. Wildlife conservation therefore would benefit from policies simultaneously addressing household-level food and nutritional security.
... Unsustainable hunting of wildlife for human consumption and trade throughout the tropics is increasingly tied to the extinction of wildlife populations and human development challenges. This includes food insecurity, emergent disease risks and zoonotic spillover events, which are linked to outbreaks of Ebola, SARS, MERS and likely of the novel pneumonia COVID-19, which, even in its early stages has caused a significant global health, public and economic crisis (Andersen, Rambaut, Lipkin, Holmes, & Garry, 2020;Hutt, 2020;Nielsen, Meilby, Smith-Hall, Pouliot, & Treue, 2018;Nielsen, Pouliot, Meilby, Smith-Hall, & Angelsen, 2017;Olival et al., 2017). Attempts to curb the harmful effects of this 'bushmeat crisis' often conceptualize bushmeat as a generic resource exploited by a single homogeneous group of users (van Vliet, 2018). ...
... In fact, around 80% of the total bushmeat biomass in West and Central Africa consists of robust and fast-reproducing generalists including porcupine, pouched rat, small-bodied duikers and antelopes (Fa & Brown, 2009;Petrozzi et al., 2016). These species persist in overhunted landscapes and are a crucial component of food security and livelihoods throughout rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa (Friant et al., 2020;Nasi, Taber, & Van Vliet, 2011;Nielsen et al., 2017Nielsen et al., , 2018. ...
... If different user groups prefer the same taxa for varying reasons, they would likely respond differently to incentives, which could lead to dissimilar, or in the worst-case, opposing effects (Jones et al., 2018). For instance, economic development would presumably reduce overall hunting pressure where hunting is driven by poverty, as appears common in rural areas (Nielsen et al., 2017). However, the same economic development could increase demand, because increased disposable income permits consumers to purchase more bushmeat, and specifically coveted expensive delicacies (Cowlishaw, Mendelson, taboos inhibited the use of primates; environmental awareness was linked to lower utilization of most taxa within most user groups. ...
Efforts to curb the unsustainable wildlife trade in tropical forests conceptualize bushmeat as a generic resource, exploited by a homogeneous group. However, bushmeat is composed of miscellaneous species differing in risks of zoonotic disease transmissions, sensitivity to hunting and abundance. If people choose these species for varying reasons, mitigation approaches that neglect specific drivers would likely target abundant species, e.g. rodents. Meanwhile, rare species of greater conservation relevance, like many primates, would be overlooked. Additionally, if reasons vary between user groups, their responsiveness to interventions may differ too.
We assessed this possibility for three common strategies to mitigate bushmeat use, which are: development‐based—reducing reliance on bushmeat; educational—increasing environmental and school education; and cultural—promoting environmentally friendly habits.
We interviewed 348 hunters, 202 traders and 985 consumers of bushmeat around Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, and tested if factors related to the above strategies affected selection for primates, duikers and rodents.
Our analyses revealed that people chose taxa for very different reasons. Users with shared characteristics favoured similar taxa; hunters economically reliant on bushmeat income targeted primates and duikers, while hunters and consumers nutritionally reliant on wildlife protein preferred rodents. Different groups used the same taxa for varying reasons. For example, hunting of primates was associated with economic needs, while their consumption appeared a matter of status. Meanwhile, cultural habits, like religion, specifically affected consumption and taboos inhibited the use of primates; environmental awareness was linked to lower utilization of most taxa within most user groups.
Our results demonstrate that educational‐, cultural‐, and development‐based strategies may address different needs and taxa. Consumers may present a key target group, as they rejected rare species for multiple cultural and educational reasons. Notably, the widespread effect of environmental awareness could facilitate large‐scale demand‐reduction approaches. Nevertheless, there is no one‐size‐fits‐all solution and campaigns need to be tailored to specific taxa and user groups. Ultimately, clear target definitions, prior in‐depth research, community‐driven solutions and tools from marketing and psychology may help to design novel strategies that encompass the diversity of bushmeat species and its users.
A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
... Some programs have also led to adverse impacts on conservation. For example, the line between commercial logging and community forestry programs is blurred in some instances, resulting in the significant potential for further forest degradation [74,75]. 8 Although 45% of the total land mass in Cameroon is forested, about 75% of these forests have shown increasing biodiversity loss, deforestation, and degradation since 1990 [76,77]. ...
... Ongoing participatory engagement with forest conservation specialists can help resource-dependent populations, such as the Baka and Bantu, develop sustainable livelihoods that benefit and address their unique vulnerability to environmental, social, climate, and policy change. Forest conservation that focuses on balancing local population's priorities, well-being, and knowledge, will help to secure sustainable conservation goals [65,74,75] and improve forest ecosystem sustainability and functionality [76]. Conservation policies that focus on ongoing engagement and investments in programs and practices that promote sustainable local livelihoods are critical tools for promoting sustainable conservation. ...
... and a lack of inclusion in forest management decision-making. Other Baka communities in the region are reporting forest management conflicts, explicitly because of a lack of forest rights, have been documented in populations near the Western areas of the Dja Reserve[74] and the Eastern Area of the Reserve[75].Tchoumba and Nelson (2006) mapped the extensive, customary, and sustainable use of forest resources by Baka, in addition to describing discriminatory conflicts between forest guards and Baka. Samndong and Vatn (2012) documented forest resource conflicts with logging companies as a direct result of current forest policy preferentially granting rights to logging companies without consultation of local Baka indigenous populations. ...
Forest conservation is a global strategy for sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change, but the protection of forests can have unintended negative impacts on local populations, particularly on indigenous and other highly forest-dependent populations. Historically, a lack of inclusion of local populations in conservation planning and policy has impacted the cultural integrity and community well-being of local forest-dependent populations. To understand how forest conservation programs and policies have impacted local forest-dependent populations, we conducted first-person interviews with four communities living near the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon, a UN World Heritage Site. Study findings include insights into communities concern for lack of inclusion in forest management, decreased forest resources, desire for sustainable livelihood-based opportunities to promote conservation outcomes, and knowledge of and attitudes towards health challenges and assets. Interviews illustrated distinct concerns from indigenous populations for loss of traditional knowledge and culture, how forest management has affected their livelihood and identified health determinants related to migration, loss of traditional lands, and institutional marginalization. Interviews present local challenges within forest conservation projects and provide evidence for rights-based inclusion of local populations in forest management going forward. Dialogue with local forest-dependent communities helps to gain an understanding of culture, livelihood, the forest-human relationship, environmental health, and self-determinism which are essential to identify opportunities to improve the health and sustainability of these populations in forest management.
... Researchers point out the substantial role of bushmeat in the economy of several countries, with around 150 million households in the Global South acquiring meat through bushmeat hunting (Nielsen et al. 2017;Nielsen et al. 2018). Contrary to the assumption that most hunting activities are for commercial purposes, Nielsen et al. (2017Nielsen et al. ( , 2018 found that from their sample of 8000 randomly selected households in 24 tropical and sub-tropical countries, 39% hunted bushmeat and 89% of the resulting income is dedicated to household dietary needs. ...
... Researchers point out the substantial role of bushmeat in the economy of several countries, with around 150 million households in the Global South acquiring meat through bushmeat hunting (Nielsen et al. 2017;Nielsen et al. 2018). Contrary to the assumption that most hunting activities are for commercial purposes, Nielsen et al. (2017Nielsen et al. ( , 2018 found that from their sample of 8000 randomly selected households in 24 tropical and sub-tropical countries, 39% hunted bushmeat and 89% of the resulting income is dedicated to household dietary needs. Further, the researchers (Nielsen et al. 2017) found a higher than expected reliance on bushmeat, with Nasi et al. (2011) reportint the extraction of 6 million tonnes of bushmeat each year from the Congo and Amazon Basins alone. ...
... Contrary to the assumption that most hunting activities are for commercial purposes, Nielsen et al. (2017Nielsen et al. ( , 2018 found that from their sample of 8000 randomly selected households in 24 tropical and sub-tropical countries, 39% hunted bushmeat and 89% of the resulting income is dedicated to household dietary needs. Further, the researchers (Nielsen et al. 2017) found a higher than expected reliance on bushmeat, with Nasi et al. (2011) reportint the extraction of 6 million tonnes of bushmeat each year from the Congo and Amazon Basins alone. In many cases it is the absence of alternative sources of protein that motivates villagers to become illegal hunters (Loibooki et al. 2002;Holmern et al. 2007;Knapp 2012), although others deliberately hunt protected animals to sell their body parts for medicinal uses (Lemieux and Clarke 2009;Douglas and Alie 2014). ...
Humanity is undergoing an unprecedented demographic transformation in that global population is rising from 2 billion in the 1920s
to an expected 8 billion in the 2020s, an annual increase of roughly 80 million. The requirements of this expanding human population
are strongly linked to depletion of wildlife and increasing difficulties facing both wildlife and environmental conservation efforts. I
assess current and potential risks stemming from the environmental changes due to unchecked human population growth
... These functions increase rural households' resilience to shocks, preventing them from falling into poverty [43,44]. In a global comparative study, 39% of surveyed households hunted [45], which provides a rough estimate suggesting that at least 150 million households across the tropics harvest and to some extent rely on wild meat from forests [42]. The role of wild meat income in rural livelihoods varies considerably between locations depending on fauna resources and diversification of income strategies [41,46,47]. ...
... The role of wild meat income in rural livelihoods varies considerably between locations depending on fauna resources and diversification of income strategies [41,46,47]. However, despite a low contribution to cash income [45], wild meat may be an essential source of protein, fat, and important micronutrients in many locations [48,49]. Predictions suggest widespread protein deficiency in a range of countries [50] and case studies suggest increased risk of anemia in children [51] if wild meat was unavailable. ...
... Without seed dispersers, these trees are at risk of disappearing. Depletion of fauna through hunting, whether for subsistence or commercial purposes, will also directly affect numerous rural households that depend on forest fauna as a source of protein and revenue either for current consumption or as a security net in times of crisis [42,45]. ...
Over the past decade, countries have strived to develop a global governance structure to halt deforestation and forest degradation, by achieving the readiness requirements for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+). Nonetheless, deforestation continues, and seemingly intact forest areas are being degraded. Furthermore, REDD+ may fail to consider the crucial ecosystem functions of forest fauna including seed dispersal and pollination. Throughout the tropics, forest animal populations are depleted by unsustainable hunting to the extent that many forests are increasingly devoid of larger mammals—a condition referred to as empty forests. Large mammals and birds, who often disperse seeds of larger more carbon-rich tree species, are preferentially targeted by hunters and the first to be depleted. Such defaunation has cascading ecosystem effects, changing forest structure and composition with implications for carbon storage capacity. Failure to address defaunation would therefore be a major oversight in REDD+, compromising its long-term viability. We carried out a desktop study reviewing REDD+ documents and national implementation efforts in Colombia, Ecuador, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Indonesia to assess the extent to which they address hunting and acknowledged the ecosystem functions of fauna. We also assessed sub-national REDD+ projects to determine whether they recognized hunting and if and how they incorporated hunting management and wildlife monitoring at the project level. Moreover, we assessed to what extent sub-national REDD+ projects addressed the long-term impacts of the sustainability of hunting on forest ecosystem function including carbon storage. We found that hunting, the risk of defaunation, and its effects have been ignored in the REDD+ policy process at both the international and national levels. At the project level, we found some reference to hunting and the risks posed by the loss of forest fauna, albeit only addressed superficially. Our results underline the fact that forest ecosystems are being reduced to their carbon content and that, despite the rhetoric of biodiversity co-benefits, fauna is not treated as a functional component of forests. This neglect threatens to undermine forest ecosystem function and service delivery as well as long-term forest carbon assimilation capacity and hence, ultimately, to compromise REDD+ objectives.
... In the simplest terms, consuming bushmeat and selling it for cash are the two most direct benefits hunters derive (Muth and Bowe Jr., 1998;Nielsen et al., 2017). Most bushmeat hunting globally is for home consumption (Nielsen et al., 2017). ...
... In the simplest terms, consuming bushmeat and selling it for cash are the two most direct benefits hunters derive (Muth and Bowe Jr., 1998;Nielsen et al., 2017). Most bushmeat hunting globally is for home consumption (Nielsen et al., 2017). However, some hunters earn sub- stantial income from selling bushmeat ( Loibooki et al., 2002;Damania et al., 2005;Kümpel et al., 2010;Lindsey et al., 2011b;Rentsch and Damon, 2013;Nielsen and Meilby, 2015). ...
... Hunter households' combination of higher livestock wealth, higher rates of employment, and greater income than non-hunter households suggests that most hunter households are comparatively secure finan- cially relative to their communities (cf. Coad et al., 2010;Kümpel et al., 2010;Nielsen et al., 2017). Delta wildlife experts tend to have split perceptions of bushmeat hunting in the Delta as either predominantly for subsistence or for a commercial black market ( Rogan et al., 2015). ...
... The continued existence of a global market for trade in natural resources acquired through illegal means, as well as a lack of data and research for decision and policy makers to implement successful wildlife management and regulation, has been noticed [38]. Between 2005 and 2009, over 71% of households interviewed on their incomes (cash or subsistence) that were located around two protected areas and one unprotected area reported having participated in wild meat hunting [39]. Such practices were related to different reasons in different areas [28,40,41]. ...
... Our interview methods highlight that between 17.1% and 54.1% of our samples declared to eat wild meat in the Sebitoli area, but more on an occasional (a few times a year) than regular basis. These proportions are lower than the 71% respondents from the three Ugandan sites [39], and are close, on average, to the 31% of households wanting to access wild meat around Kibale NP [53]. Regarding our results, we reviewed common but non-exhaustive motives found in previous research that should be considered if trying to increase the sustainability of wild meat consumption at a study site: ...
The African tropical forests host an inestimable number of resources, including food, medicine, vegetal and animal species. Among them, chimpanzees are threatened with extinction by human activities affecting their habitats, such as forest product harvesting, and/or more directly, snaring and trafficking. We aimed to better understand the spatial distribution of these illegal activities, and the reasons for setting snares and consuming wild meat in an agricultural landscape (subsistence farming and cash crops) densely populated near a protected area (Sebitoli, Northern part of Kibale National Park, Uganda). To carry out this study, we combined GPS records of illegal activities collected with group counts (in total, n = 339 tea workers, 678 villagers, and 1885 children) and individual interviews (n = 74 tea workers, 42 villagers, and 35 children). A quarter of illegal activities collected (n = 1661) targeted animal resources and about 60% were recorded in specific areas (southwest and northeast) of the Sebitoli chimpanzee home range. Wild meat consumption, which is illegal in Uganda, is a relatively common practice among participants (17.1% to 54.1% of respondents depending on actor types and census methods). However, consumers declared that they eat wild meat unfrequently (0.6 to 2.8 times per year). Being a young man coming from districts contiguous to Kibale National Park particularly raises the odds of consuming wild meat. Such an analysis contributes to the understanding of wild meat hunting among traditional rural and agricultural societies from East Africa.
... Bushmeat consumption is an important source of food and protein for the diet of millions of people around the world, including Central and West African poor rural households, making up part of a multi-billion-dollar market (Bowen-Jones and Pendry 1999b; Robinson and Bennett 2000;Milner-Gulland and Bennett 2003;Rao and McGowan 2002;Brashares et al. 2011;Fa et al. 2015;Nielsen et al. 2017). Bushmeat plays a greater role in food intake than as a source of regular income in households worldwide (Nielsen et al. 2017), but the preference for this kind of meat can change depending on certain factors, such as the availability of other food sources or during disease outbreaks (Brashares et al. 2004;Rowcliffe et al. 2005;Ordaz-Németh et al. 2017;del Valle et al. 2020). ...
... Bushmeat consumption is an important source of food and protein for the diet of millions of people around the world, including Central and West African poor rural households, making up part of a multi-billion-dollar market (Bowen-Jones and Pendry 1999b; Robinson and Bennett 2000;Milner-Gulland and Bennett 2003;Rao and McGowan 2002;Brashares et al. 2011;Fa et al. 2015;Nielsen et al. 2017). Bushmeat plays a greater role in food intake than as a source of regular income in households worldwide (Nielsen et al. 2017), but the preference for this kind of meat can change depending on certain factors, such as the availability of other food sources or during disease outbreaks (Brashares et al. 2004;Rowcliffe et al. 2005;Ordaz-Németh et al. 2017;del Valle et al. 2020). However, little is known about how elevational shifts in animal diversity patterns can impact the global consumption of bushmeat (Mongyeh et al. 2018). ...
The growing dependence of villagers on local forests (food, wood, etc.) makes the comparative assessment of the perceptions they have of the forest and its wildlife increasingly important for setting conservation priorities. While hunting and habitat loss are important threats to primates' existence worldwide, more attention has been focused on diurnal species, while little is known about their nocturnal counterparts. Strepsirrhini is a group of nocturnal primates with galago and potto as the only representatives on mainland Africa. To assess the perception of locals and their impacts on the conservation of these primates , questionnaires were administered to 79 household heads in four villages located in community forests around Mount Cameroon National Park. Amongst the respondents, over 90% admitted that these animals are eaten in their communities. Nocturnal primates were not only hunted for food, but also used in medicine and rituals and to make drums. However, the habit of eating nocturnal primates seems to be uncommon, as most respondents had not consumed any primate bushmeat in the last 5 years. The knowledge and support of wildlife conservation manifested by the villagers did not reflect the reality on the ground, as forest clearing for agriculture takes place regularly across the villages. Our findings suggest that bushmeat is not the main threat to nocturnal primates in this area, with habitat loss potentially representing a bigger problem for their existence in the near future.
... 12 Roth and Merz Günter (1997); D. Brown and Davies (2007). 13 Nielsen, Pouliot, Meilby, Smith-Hall, and Angelsen (2017). 14 Cawthorn and Hoffman (2015). ...
... Whereas inbound immigrants to developing countries do affect their refuged vicinities. 15 Nielsen et al. (2017). 16 H. ...
The study focuses on ethical, ecological, and economical trade aspects of meat commodification of wildlife (bushmeat) linking sink and source regions. The term ‘Bushmeat’ itself is not clearly understandable in German culture and not even in authoritative datasets and records. The aim of the study is to determine the thematic knowledge level and the extent of seriousness of German entry-exit control authorities and to establish a comparison of bushmeat international trade measures with its neighbouring countries. The international trade of bushmeat has not yet been comprehensively quantified in Germany. The evaluation of bushmeat commodification is mainly based on its consumption rather than its production, compared for example to agriculture. Likewise, legal and illegal bushmeat practices are not specified. In some cases, the internal confiscation statistics and protocols are available at the national level, but without being publicised so far. Such statistics are under-utilised and hinder effective policymaking and scientific studies. German authorities claim that they have not been able to detect or experience large commercial bushmeat consignments, but it could be that they may get the full trade overview if they attempt to control all entry-exit points of the country, especially import exposure by road or sea. DNA sampling does not only play a part in disease and species identification, it also makes people aware about their consumer rights against frequently misclassifying bushmeat (spoofing).
... Bushmeat hunting and the bushmeat trade constitutes one such high-impact activity considered a significant threat to conservation efforts in tropical and subtropical countries (Ripple et al. 2016). Simultaneously, bushmeat is a source of protein and micronutrients to more than 150 million households in the Global South (Nielsen et al. 2018) and important to cash-income-constrained communities in remote locations with few domestic animals (Nielsen et al. 2017). Regulating the bushmeat trade is a significant challenge, and information about the psychological and behavioral determinants of individual decisions to engage in this trade is essential for making informed decisions about the design of management interventions. ...
... However, a study tracking the socio-ecological dynamics of the hunting system in two villages in Gabon over ten years showed that hunting tends to decline in periods of rapid economic growth when hunters migrate out of rural areas to take advantage of employment options (Coad et al. 2013). Furthermore, a survey of nearly 8000 households in 333 communities across 24 countries in the Global South showed an inverted U-shaped relationship between mean community annual cash income and the importance of bushmeat in the communities (Nielsen et al. 2017). Specifically, the prevalence of hunting, mean absolute bushmeat income, and mean reliance on bushmeat as the share in total household income declined from a maximum in the middle of the cash income distribution. ...
Providing insight on decisions to hunt and trade bushmeat can facilitate improved management interventions that typically include enforcement, alternative employment, and donation of livestock. Conservation interventions to regulate bushmeat hunting and trade have hitherto been based on assumptions of utility- (i.e., personal benefits) maximizing behavior, which influences the types of incentives designed. However, if individuals instead strive to minimize regret, interventions may be misguided. We tested support for 3 hypotheses regarding decision rules through a choice experiment in Tanzania. We estimated models based on the assumptions of random utility maximization (RUM) and pure random regret maximization (P-RRM) and combinations thereof. One of these models had an attribute-specific decision rule and another had a class-specific decision rule. The RUM model outperformed the P-RRM model, but the attribute-specific model performed better. Allowing respondents with different decision rules and preference heterogeneity within each decision rule in a class-specific model performed best, revealing that 55% of the sample used a P-RRM decision rule. Individuals using a P-RRM decision rule responded less to enforcement, salary, and livestock donation than did individuals using the RUM decision rule. Hence, 3 common strategies, enforcement, alternative income-generating activities, and providing livestock as a substitute protein, are likely less effective in changing the behavior of more than half of respondents. Only salary elicited a large (i.e. elastic) response, and only for one RUM class. Policies to regulate the bushmeat trade based solely on the assumption of individuals maximizing utility, may fail for a significant proportion of the sample. Despite the superior performance of models that allow both RUM and P-RRM decision rules there are drawbacks that must be considered before use in the Global South, where very little is known about the social-psychology of decision making.
... In recent studies, 39% of surveyed households in 24 countries reported hunting bushmeat. Of the households reporting having hunted bushmeat, they further reported that 89% of the bushmeat harvest was directly applied to dietary needs [1,2]. Additionally, bushmeat hunting tends to be most prevalent in areas with greater biodiversity indices, which frequently align with regions experiencing higher poverty and food insecurity [3][4][5]. ...
... Additionally, bushmeat hunting tends to be most prevalent in areas with greater biodiversity indices, which frequently align with regions experiencing higher poverty and food insecurity [3][4][5]. In Uganda alone, over 71% of households reported having participated at some point in bushmeat harvest and/or consumption [2]. The widespread dependence of populations on bushmeat for nutritional and financial security raises concern for the sustainability of hunting practices for wildlife populations where bushmeat harvest is prevalent and for the risk of exposure of hunters and consumers to emerging, reemerging, and endemic diseases during hunting, preparation, and consumption [6][7][8]. ...
The harvest of bushmeat is widespread in the tropics and sub-tropics. Often in these communities, there is a dependence on bushmeat for both food security and basic income. Despite the importance of bushmeat for households worldwide, the practice raises concern for transmission of zoonotic pathogens through hunting, food preparation, and consumption. In Uganda, harvest of wildlife is illegal, but bushmeat hunting, is commonplace. We interviewed 292 women who cook for their households and 180 self-identified hunters from 21 villages bordering Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda to gain insights into bushmeat preferences, opportunity for zoonotic pathogen transmission, and awareness of common wildlife-associated zoonoses. Both hunters and women who cook considered primates to be the most likely wildlife species to carry diseases humans can catch. Among common zoonotic pathogens, the greatest proportions of women who cook and hunters believed that pathogens causing stomach ache or diarrhea and monkeypox can be transmitted by wildlife. Neither women who cook nor hunters report being frequently injury during cooking, butchering, or hunting, and few report taking precautions while handling bushmeat. The majority of women who cook believe that hunters and dealers never or rarely disguise primate meat as another kind of meat in market, while the majority of hunters report that they usually disguise primate meat as another kind of meat. These data play a crucial role in our understanding of potential for exposure to and infection with zoonotic pathogens in the bushmeat trade. Expanding our knowledge of awareness, perceptions and risks enables us to identify opportunities to mitigate infections and injury risk and promote safe handling practices.
... Given that people's decisions are the root of these drivers, the choices people make about interactions with the environment influence both conservation outcomes and infectious disease risk (Murray and Daszak 2013). In many LMICs, human-environment interactions occur during activities that are integral to daily life and are a function of specific socio-economic and institutional settings (Albers and Robinson 2013;Nielsen et al. 2017). Establishing policy to increase conservation and reduce disease risk requires understanding both people's decisionsincluding land use, resource extraction, and market activities-within their context, and how environment-human interactions lead to disease risk. ...
... Gunatileke and Chakravorty 2003;Albers and Robinson 2013). In LMICs, many production and labor allocation decisions are influenced by natural environments, such as agricultural activities and non-timber forest product (NTFP) extraction, including hunting (Robinson 2016;Nielsen et al. 2017). Costly or limited market access influences decisions about how much to interact directly with natural environments for extraction and farming when facing a subsistence need or cash requirement (Robinson 1 3 et al. 2002;Sills and Abt 2003;Muller and Albers 2004;Ghate et al. 2009). ...
Emergence of COVID-19 joins a collection of evidence that local and global health are influenced by human interactions with the natural environment. Frameworks that simultaneously model decisions to interact with natural systems and environmental mechanisms of zoonotic disease spread allow for identification of policy levers to mitigate disease risk and promote conservation. Here, we highlight opportunities to broaden existing conservation economics frameworks that represent human behavior to include disease transmission in order to inform conservation-disease risk policy. Using examples from wildlife markets and forest extraction, we call for environment, resource, and development economists to develop and analyze empirically-grounded models of people’s decisions about interacting with the environment, with particular attention to LMIC settings and ecological-epidemiological risk factors. Integrating the decisions that drive human–environment interactions with ecological and epidemiological research in an interdisciplinary approach to understanding pathogen transmission will inform policy needed to improve both conservation and disease spread outcomes.
... Research to support the development of initiatives to mitigate the overexploitation of bushmeat often focuses on the hunters, their socioeconomic profiles, opportunity costs and their interaction with the environment (Coad et al., 2013;Nielsen et al., 2017). However, since hunting in the tropics is not limited to subsistence, decision making by hunters can also be driven by market demand for bushmeat. ...
... Our analyses revealed, that engaging in bushmeat-related activities was related to agricultural property and production. Similar relationships had been observed over the whole global south (Nielsen et al., 2017). Hunting was driven by a lack of farmland and 13% of the hunters mentioned that low land ownership or yields drove them into their profession (Fig. 3a). ...
Development of reduction policies for products risking the health or the environment usually begins with the question of whether the most promising entry point is reducing production, distribution or consumption. We aim to answer this crucial question for bushmeat, a wildlife product whose unsustainable harvest threatens biodiversity and food security. We collected one of the largest data sets available on bushmeat commodity chains by interviewing 348 hunters, 202 bushmeat traders, 190 restaurant owners, and 985 consumers in 47 urban and rural settlements around Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire. We examined 1) structural traits by network analyses and 2) disentangled the underlying economic, cultural, and nutritional motives for bushmeat utilization at the level of production (hunters), distribution (bushmeat traders), and consumption (households). We found that while economic drivers determined hunting, trading was associated with economic and cultural drivers and consumption was purely influenced by cultural habits. Bushmeat traders were promising candidates for effective regulation interventions, but held a small market share and the risk of displacement to other trading channels remains. Since cultural motives for consumption provide a key opportunity for large-scale behavioral changes, we propose consumers as the most effective point of entry for interventions. However, any such consumer level intervention should be supported by programs providing the remaining commodity chain actors with alternative livelihoods. Generally, interventions into the complex social-ecological system of wildlife commodity chains must consider interdependencies and require multi-actor approaches and monitoring to avoid displacement and diffusion effects and to guarantee a socially and ecologically sustainable change.
... Furthermore, rhino horn often is used to display economic wealth, acquire social status, and initiate business and political relationships in Vietnam (Truong et al., 2016). Similarly, bush meat is a source of protein and micronutrients important to rural households (Nielsen et al., 2017).This is also consistent with several American findings. Logically, the achievement of biodiversity conservation is often threatened by economically productive activities and market development (Strauss et al., 2017;Bidegain et al., 2019). ...
Wildlife product consumption (WPC) is a serious conservation challenge for biodiversity loss in Vietnam. A better understanding of socio-demographic factors, connection to nature (CTN) and perception of biodiversity (POB) behind WPC would improve wildlife protection. Using publicly available survey data, a preliminary investigation is conducted to explore the roles of socio-demographic factors, CTN, and POB in WPC. The computational outcomes of Bayesian logistic regressions indicate that POB and CTN are associated with consumption for bush meat, traditional medicine, and skin/leather/fur product, respectively. The structural equation models indicate that CTN mediates the association between POB and WPC. Based on the empirical results, financial penalties are advised to reduce WPC.
... Additionally, some studies have investigated effects on social organization, kinship, and genetic structure resulting from selective offtake of individuals from animal populations via poaching (Gobush et al., 2008;Archie and Chiyo, 2012). Other studies have examined the socioeconomic factors affecting why some people illegally hunt animals (Ceppi and Nielsen, 2014, Cawthorn & Hawthorn 2015, Nielsen et al., 2017, Nieman et al., 2019. In contrast, few studies have examined the mechanistic links between snare entrapment and the resultant behavioural changes that shape the fitness costs of captured animals. ...
... Rising international bush meat trade has been a concern among conservationists but newer alarms are now being raised on how urban demand is fuelling local trade in Nigeria due to the desire for alternative sources of protein in cities (Wild Aid 2021) with implications for current conservation efforts in the country. 9,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] The study confirms Bush meat as a continued alternative source of protein for urban dwellers in Ikorodu and highlights its local importance beyond cultural habits to personal preference and taste. Findings indicate the popularity of grasscutter as the most preferred wild meat for consumption outside domestic meat. ...
Wildmeat, a traditional source of protein for local rural homes in Africa has gained increased notoriety in respect to its implications for health when consumed by Man. consumption has in recent times become a source of concern for the global community particularly. As, a food resource often traded to urbanites, who can pay higher prices as a supplement to meals. Inspite of the extant studies on this activity, its urban dimensions remain poorly understood particularly in Nigeria. The paper assessed the local insights into why Ikorudu urbanites in Lagos, Nigeria continue to consume wild meat and their awareness of the implications of its consumption on their health. It was found using a questionnaire survey that more than 70% of residents had a low awareness of the negative implications of wildmeat consumption on their health. Furthermore, 45% of residents’ view wildmeat as healthier meat carrying less germs contrary to recent findings on its parasitic content. Results indicate that taste and cultural preferences are key reasons for sustained consumption (71%), and Grasscutter (Thryonomys swiderianus) continues to be the favoured edible wildmeat. This signals a pertinent need for increased local awareness of the zoonotic potentials of such meat through advocacy and educational campaigns. Continued blithe perspectives to Wildmeat issues may engender future disease outbreaks and eventually negatively impact on the ecological wellbeing of both Man and Bush animals.
... The illegal wildlife trade is a major issue for global conservation, with an estimated 100 million organisms traded annually, comprising around 6000 species (Harfoot et al., 2018;UNODC, 2020), and with a yearly global value of US$7-23 billion (Coad et al., 2019). The bushmeat tradei.e., the trade of wildlife species hunted for human consumption and use (Nielsen et al., 2017) is a significant contributor to such offtakes. As well as posing threats to public health , the bushmeat trade seriously threatens the conservation of tropical biodiversity , contributing to wildlife declines, with knockon effects on ecosystem functioning and services (Effiom et al., 2013;Ripple et al., 2016). ...
... 75 After all, access to meat from wild animals is deeply intertwined with livelihoods and culture in some regions around the world. 76,77 Hence, developing substitutes to wild meat use (eg, by promoting locally acceptable alternative livelihoods) will Personal View likely be necessary. 78 Risk reduction should not be approached as a single universal solution, but rather as an adaptive, context-dependent, evidence-informed systems approach with careful targeting, considering pandemics are not the result of cumulative effects but rather punctuated events. ...
Although ideas about preventive actions for pandemics have been advanced during the COVID-19 crisis, there has been little consideration for how they can be operationalised through governance structures within the context of the wildlife trade for human consumption. To date, pandemic governance has mostly focused on outbreak surveillance, containment, and response rather than on avoiding zoonotic spillovers in the first place. However, given the acceleration of globalisation, a paradigm shift towards prevention of zoonotic spillovers is warranted as containment of outbreaks becomes unfeasible. Here, we consider the current institutional landscape for pandemic prevention in light of ongoing negotiations of a so-called pandemic treaty and how prevention of zoonotic spillovers from the wildlife trade for human consumption could be incorporated. We argue that such an institutional arrangement should be explicit about zoonotic spillover prevention and focus on improving coordination across four policy domains, namely public health, biodiversity conservation, food security, and trade. We posit that this pandemic treaty should include four interacting goals in relation to prevention of zoonotic spillovers from the wildlife trade for human consumption: risk understanding, risk assessment, risk reduction, and enabling funding. Despite the need to keep political attention on addressing the current pandemic, society cannot afford to miss the opportunity of the current crisis to encourage institution building for preventing future pandemics.
... This is the case in rainforest communities from PNG (Mack and West, 2005) or the Yanomamo from the Amazon who spend as much time hunting as growing food in their gardens, although the gardens provide 80-90% of their food (Chagnon, 2012). However, the extent of hunting and its benefits may vary across countries (Nielsen et al., 2017(Nielsen et al., , 2018. ...
Hunting, as a component of traditional indigenous livelihoods, can play either positive or negative role in biodiversity conservation by maintaining traditional lifestyles that are conducive to conservation or by endangering vulnerable hunted species. Quantitative data on changes in hunting skills in indigenous communities driven by education, employment, and other lifestyle changes are lacking. Here we assess hunting skills of young people in Papua New Guinea (PNG). We use a sample of 7818 secondary school students, representing 15% of the most educated individuals in their age cohort. Students self-assessed their hunting skills as none (34% of respondents), poor (46%), and good (20%). Male students reported significantly higher hunting skills than female students. Hunting skills were positively correlated with knowledge of local bird species and with other traditional skills (growing food, using medicinal plants, building houses). They were negatively correlated with math and English skills, as well as with the transportation accessibility of the village/town where the students grew up. Students who grow up in town reported significantly lower hunting skills than those who grew up in village. These results show that students' hunting skills are already low, and the trends in their socio-cultural drivers predict a further decline in the future. The increasing disconnection from the natural environment and the declining attractiveness of hunting as prestigious activity for the young and educated people are part of a broader trend of loss of ethnobiological knowledge in PNG's indigenous communities. While it may reduce hunting pressure on some endangered species, it may also remove traditional incentives for conservation in rainforest-dwelling communities.
... Thus, well-established market channels prompt farmers to grow and commercialise MPs (Guleria et al. 2014). Elsewhere therapeutic plant collection has been identified not only as the employment of last resort but also as an environmentally friendly source of income that can serve as a pathway out of poverty (Angelsen et al. 2014;Hickey et al. 2016;Nielsen et al. 2017;Wunder et al. 2014). Based on these observations, it can be safely argued that MPs such as A. vera, A. ferox and A. spicata for controlling chicken diseases and parasites of VC are associated with several opportunities that can be capitalised on for the socioeconomic development of the custodians of these products. ...
Background: Medicinal plants (MPs) are widely accepted and used in most rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond to treat and control village chicken (VC) diseases and parasites. They are readily available, accessible and cheap. Moreover, they are nature friendly and have adapted to the local environment, making them easy to produce. Over and above, their use has health benefits for consumers. Little is known about the opportunities and challenges faced when commercialising these MPs.
Aim: It is imperative to unpack the opportunities and challenges that are encountered while commercialising MPs used for treating VC diseases and controlling parasites. Despite these multiple benefits, the commercialisation of these plants seems to be under researched. In South Africa, different rural communities use various MPs in their locality. For instance, most rural families in South Africa are using Aloe ferox, Helichrysum petiolare, Tagetes minuta, Lippia javanica, Agave sisalana, Gunnera perpensa and Millettia grandis. Conspicuously, not much is known about the efforts made to commercialise these products.
Method: Through a systematic review of the literature, this paper unpacks the trends, opportunities and challenges faced in commercialising MPs used to treat VC disease and control parasites.
Results: Results have revealed that globally MPs for VC management are not widely recognised, despite their wide usage by local communities. If properly harnessed, they have the potential to strengthen local economic development through income generation. However, currently, little is derived from the sale of these products because of the presence of middlemen. Their commercialisation efforts are hampered by the lack of organised support systems and networks, lack of regularisation strategies and clear criteria for supporting quality, protection and presumed efficiency.
Conclusion: By commercialising MPs, local farmers can exploit MPs beyond the village chickens to broiler and layer chickens, thus offering farmers alternative chicken health and affordable medicinal options.
Contribution: The study contributes to understanding the available opportunities and challenges in commercialising MPs used for village chicken health management. It further demonstrates that MPs for village health can be used to transform the livelihoods of the custodians of these plants.
... Thus, well-established market channels prompt farmers to grow and commercialise MPs (Guleria et al. 2014). Elsewhere therapeutic plant collection has been identified not only as the employment of last resort but also as an environmentally friendly source of income that can serve as a pathway out of poverty (Angelsen et al. 2014;Hickey et al. 2016;Nielsen et al. 2017;Wunder et al. 2014). Based on these observations, it can be safely argued that MPs such as A. vera, A. ferox and A. spicata for controlling chicken diseases and parasites of VC are associated with several opportunities that can be capitalised on for the socioeconomic development of the custodians of these products. ...
Medicinal plants (MPs) are widely accepted and used in most rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond to treat and control village chicken (VC) diseases and parasites. They are readily available, accessible and cheap. Moreover, they are nature friendly and have adapted to the local environment, making them easy to produce. Over and above, their use has health benefits for consumers. Little is known about the opportunities and challenges faced when commercialising these MPs.Aim: It is imperative to unpack the opportunities and challenges that are encountered while commercialising MPs used for treating VC diseases and controlling parasites. Despite these multiple benefits, the commercialisation of these plants seems to be under-researched. In South Africa, different rural communities use various MPs in their locality. For instance, most rural families in South Africa are using Aloe ferox, Helichrysum petiolare, Tagetes minuta, Lippia javanica, Agave sisalana, Gunnera perpensa and Millettia grandis. Conspicuously, not much is known about the efforts made to commercialise these products. Through a systematic review of the literature, this paper unpacks the trends, opportunities and challenges faced in commercialising MPs used to treat VC disease and control parasites. Results have revealed that globally MPs for VC management are not widely recognised, despite their wide usage by local communities. If properly harnessed, they have the potential to strengthen local economic development through income generation. However, currently, little is derived from the sale of these products because of the presence of middlemen. Their commercialisation efforts are hampered by the lack of organised support systems and networks, lack of regularisation strategies and clear criteria for supporting quality, protection and presumed efficiency. By commercialising MPs, local farmers can exploit MPs beyond the village chickens to broiler and layer chickens, thus offering alternative chicken health and affordable medicinal options for the farmers. The study contributes to understanding the available opportunities and challenges in commercialising MPs used for village chicken health management. It further demonstrates that MPs for village health can be used to transform the livelihoods of the custodians of these plants.
Keywords: commercialisation; indigenous knowledge systems; medicinal plants; parasites; smallholder farmers; village chicken diseases; village chicken production.
... Other uses like keeping animals as pets, the trade of animals and their products for different intentions, and recreational or sport hunting have also motivated this practice [1]. Throughout the tropics and subtropics, bushmeat is an important component of rural livelihoods primarily for subsistence (own consumption), while contributes to households' income (generated through trade) less than previously thought [10][11][12][13][14]. In Brazil, the Environmental Criminal Law (N° 9605/1998, article 37) legalizes hunting for subsistence purposes. ...
Background
Hunting has been an important cultural and subsistence activity for the survival of the human population. In the Brazilian semiarid region (Caatinga), the extreme seasonal changes and socioeconomic conditions have made local people dependent on the natural resources available, including wildlife. Although hunting with dogs can result in higher efficiency for hunters, it can also have implications for game species conservation.
Methods
Using an ethnozoological approach (semi-structured questionnaires, free interviews, informal conversations, and free listing technique), this study aimed to analyze the patterns of hunting with dogs activities in a semiarid region of northeastern Brazil by characterizing hunters’ and hunting dogs’ profiles, investigating target and nontarget prey species, hunters’ practices, motivations, and perceptions regarding the efficiency of hunting with dogs.
Results
We found that hunters that use dog assistance were mostly men, of different ages, with an occupation in agriculture, receiving less than a minimum wage, and with a low level of formal education. Hunters use two or more mixed-breed dogs with no clear preference regarding dogs’ sex. The motivations for hunting with dogs included mainly food, sport, and trade. Hunters cited twenty species captured by dogs without distinction between prey’s sex and age (14 mammals, 4 birds, and 2 reptiles). Only six of these were mentioned as being target prey when hunting with dogs. From nontarget species, eight carnivores are usually left at the site of kill, as they have no use to the hunters. Hunters perceived that hunting with dogs could be three times more efficient than hunting without dogs.
Conclusion
Overall, hunting with dogs represents a complex set of local variables, including characteristics of dogs and prey species, hunters’ motivations, and practices that should be considered according to each particular situation. Considering the human dependence on natural resources in the semiarid region, hunters should be included in wildlife management debates to mitigate the threat to game species while allowing sustainable hunting practices.
... Bushmeat is a crucial source of animal protein (Sillitoe 2001) and cash income for local communities and rural households (Robinson and Bennett 2000;Milner-Gulland and Bennett 2003;de Merode et al. 2004). Nielsen et al. (2017) estimated that across the tropics, the mean income per adult from households involved in bushmeat hunting reached c. US$140 (± 83) per year. Tropical Africa, where access to animal proteins is a concern for a large proportion of the population (Wilkie et al. 2005), shows the highest bushmeat extraction rates compared to South America and South-East Asia (Fa et al. 2002;Brown 2007), affecting a total of c. 500 species (Redmond et al. 2006). ...
Surveying and quantifying the bushmeat crisis in Africa requires up-front, reliable species-level identification. We conducted a comprehensive survey of 31 trading places where bushmeat are sold in Côte d’Ivoire (West Africa) and two seizures from Europe, using a multi-gene DNA-typing approach and a dedicated species-assignment pipeline (DNAbushmeat). We identified 47 wild and five domestic species-level taxa from 348 collected carcasses, including mammals (15 Cetartiodactyla, 10 Rodentia, seven Carnivora, seven Primates, two Pholidota, two Lagomorpha, one Hyracoidea, one Chiroptera), reptiles (two Squamata), birds (one Bucerotiformes, one Galliformes, one Otidiformes) and fish (one Perciformes). Our DNA-based approach allowed the detection of two separate lineages of red-flanked duikers (Cephalophus rufilatus), a yet unreferenced cane rat (but possibly Thryonomys gregorianus) and two cryptic species of Gambian rat (Cricetomys). We also observed important levels of intraspecific diversity in several mammals and squamates, suggesting additional cryptic diversity within bushmeat species from Côte d’Ivoire. More than half of the bushmeat carcasses were inaccurately identified, with European customs peaking at 100% inaccuracy. Our study also explored the use of diversity indices among bushmeat markets to identify ‘hotspot’ market places where biodiversity would be the most impacted. Overall, 12 protected species (including pangolins, crocodiles, primates and antelopes) were impacted by the bushmeat trade in Côte d’Ivoire, indicating weak law enforcement related to game protection. We suggest that the recognition of the bushmeat sector by the state and its DNA-based surveillance is necessary to reach a sustainable management of the bushmeat trade in Côte d’Ivoire.
... available to them. One comparative review article (Nielsen et al. 2017) studies the overall comparison between South America and other regions through a survey of several thousand households globally. The paper suggests that in Latin America, hunting is twice as common as it is in Asia (comparable to Africa), and there is a higher reliance on wildlife for food consumption. ...
The global wildlife trade dates to antiquity. Recently, its harms to endangered species, animal welfare, and public health have become critical to address. The complexities of the wildlife trade are numerous, including the fact that much of the economic activity is illegal and unobserved. We find that wildlife products are used for sustenance, signaling status, medicine, and entertainment. There is vast heterogeneity in products and species traded. Supply chains extend from biodiverse, low-income regions to richer countries or urban centers. Empirically, we use data findings from the literature to rank countries in terms of intensity of the wildlife trade and identify factors that contribute to wildlife trade. We also identify supply-side and demand-side interventions that can control abuse in wildlife trade. Innovative techniques for observation, econometric analysis, and enforcement are sorely needed to support effective policies to preserve the world's wildlife.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Resource Economics, Volume 14 is October 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... Bushmeat is defined as the wild game hunted for human consumption (Nielsen et al., 2017). It represents a crucial source of animal proteins and cash income for local communities and rural households (Brown and Williams, 2003). ...
Although the bushmeat trade is a significant component of the Anthropocene crisis in the tropics, the reliability of species-level identification is generally lacking from bushmeat surveys. We conducted a comprehensive study of 23 bushmeat markets in Cameroon and one seizure from a French airport using a multi-gene DNA-typing approach and a dedicated species-assignment pipeline (DNABUSHMEAT). We identified 39 species-level taxa from 318 collected bushmeat items, including nine Cetartiodactyla, six Carnivora, three Pholidota, seven Rodentia, 12 Primates, one Squamata and one Crocodilia. DNA-typing allowed detecting three species previously unreported from the Cameroonian trade and clarifying the status of taxa subject to cryptic diversity (rodents) and shallow diagnostic characters (small carnivores, antelopes and guenons). Only 7% of the samples could not be assigned to the species-level, including two guenons and one snake, because of fluctuant taxonomy and weak representation in nucleotide databases. Almost half (43%) of the morphological identifications were corrected or refined by our DNA-typing approach. Generalized linear models showed that smoked specimens and primates were significantly suffering from inaccurate species identification. We also observed that customs (Paris) and market-recruited assistants (Cameroon) peaked at very high rates of inaccurate species identifications (87 and 100%, respectively), calling for cautiousness when third parties are involved in bushmeat surveys. Overall, >50% of the bushmeat species traded in Cameroon were nationally protected. Because accurate species identification is a central component of conservation strategies, we posit that our DNA-typing approach is a valuable asset for improving the traceability of the domestic and international bushmeat trade.
... Wild meat provides a source of protein for 150 million rural households across the Global South (Nielsen et al., 2017). Estimates of the wild meat harvest can vary around the world: 23,500 tonnes/year of wild meat are consumed in Sarawak (Bennett, 2002), 67,000-164,000 tonnes/year in the Brazilian Amazon (Peres, 2000), 1 million-3.4 million tonnes/year in Central Africa (Fa et al., 2002). ...
The trade in a wildlife species is driven by a unique combination of economic, cultural, and societal motivations, which fluctuate over time and space. Although the wildlife trade is vital for the livelihood of millions of people worldwide, it can bring serious consequences for the environment, economy, and human health when it is not well managed or regulated. In addition, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, spread of invasive alien species, and zoonoses and other diseases can be connected to the wildlife trade in its illegal or unsustainable form. Here, we present some purposes and drivers of the trade, the actors and legislation involved, and some trends and patterns of one of the most relevant challenges in conservation.
... Costanza and colleagues (1997) estimated that ecosystem services (including abstract concepts such as the value of carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles) saved humanity bills of US$33 trillion per year. Less abstract commodities also generate sizeable markets; wildlife tourist attractions, for example, are viewed by upward of 6 million paying customers annually (Moorhouse et al. 2015), and wild meat provides a source of protein for 150 million rural households across the global south (Nielsen et al. 2017). In the United Kingdom alone, 40 million pheasants are released into the countryside annually to supply game for shooting (Feber et al. 2020), and this is just one tiny element of the global hunting market (e.g., Loveridge et al. 2007). ...
Wildlife commodification can generate benefits for biodiversity conservation, but it also has negative impacts; overexploitation of wildlife is currently one of the biggest drivers of vertebrate extinction risk. In the present article, we highlight 10 issues that in our experience impede sustainable and humane wildlife trade. Given humanity's increasing demands on the natural world we question whether many aspects of wildlife trade can be compatible with appropriate standards for biodiversity conservation and animal welfare, and suggest that too many elements of wildlife trade as it currently stands are not sustainable for wildlife or for the livelihoods that it supports. We suggest that the onus should be on traders to demonstrate that wildlife use is sustainable, humane, and safe (with respect to disease and invasion risk), rather than on conservationists to demonstrate it is not, that there is a need for a broad acceptance of responsibility and, ultimately, widespread behavior change. We urge conservationists, practitioners, and others to take bold, progressive steps to reach consensus and action.
... In the Abun region of West Papua, Indonesia, for example, hunting has proved to be an important factor in fighting food insecurity, as wild meat accounted for 49% of the diets of respondents (Pattiselanno and Lubis, 2014). While bushmeat is often consumed locally by hunters and their households (Wilkie et al., 2005;Agustino et al., 2011), the surplus is sold to both other community members and traders, with the latter often re-selling in cities (Nasi et al., 2011;Nielsen et al., 2017). In addition, the harvest of bushmeat may have ancillary benefits for agriculture, by reducing predation on crops, livestock and people working in remote fields (Wilkie et al., 2011;Rentsch and Damon, 2013;Lindsey et al., 2015). ...
This chapter reports on evidence about the role of forests and trees in alleviating poverty and supporting wider human well-being. It considers how, whether, where, when and for whom forests and trees are important in forest-poverty dynamics. We organise the evidence according to four possible relationships between forest products and ecosystem services and poverty: 1) helping households move out of poverty; 2) supporting well-being through subsistence, food security and cultural and spiritual values; 3) mitigating risks; and 4) decreasing well-being by generating negative externalities that could significantly contribute to trapping or moving households into poverty. The evidence shows that these relationships are strongly context-dependent, varying with geography and social, economic and political contexts. However, across contexts, we most commonly observe that forest and tree products and services help the poor to secure and stabilise their livelihoods, rather than either helping them exit poverty or driving them into poverty.
... There has been extensive research on bushmeat trade looking at the consequences on biodiversity loss (Fa, Peres, & Meeuwig, 2002;Milner-Gulland & Bennett, 2003;Robinson & Bennett, 2004), their economic value (Kümpel, Milner-Gulland, Cowlishaw, & Rowcliffe, 2010;Lescuyer & Nasi, 2016;Nielsen, Pouliot, Meilby, Smith-Hall, & Angelsen, 2017), food security (Cawthorn & Hoffman, 2015;Golden, Fernald, Brashares, Rasolofoniaina, & Kremen, 2011) and disease risk (Karesh & Noble, 2009;Kilonzo, Stopka, & Chomel, 2013;Kurpiers, Schulte-Herbrüggen, Ejotre, & Reeder, 2016;Pruvot et al., 2019;Saengthongpinit et al., 2019;Wolfe, Daszak, Kilpatrick, & Burke, 2005), with some controversy on the relative importance of these different components (Bonwitt et al., 2018;Pooley, Fa, & Nasi, 2015;Weber et al., 2015;Wilkie, 2006). However, evidence is still missing to allow objective weighing of the conservation, food security, livelihood and public health risks (Pruvot et al., 2019). ...
Wet markets are a critical part of SouthEast Asian culture and economy. However, their role in circulation and transmission of both endemic and emerging disease is a source of concern in a region considered a hotspot of disease emergence. In the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR, Laos), live and dead wild animals are frequently found in wet markets, despite legislation against the bushmeat trade. This is generally considered to increase the risk of disease transmission and emergence, although whether or not wildlife vendors themselves have indeed increased incidence of zoonotic disease has rarely been assessed. In preparation for a future longitudinal study of market vendors investigating vendors' exposure to zoonotic pathogens, we conducted a pilot survey of Lao market vendors of wildlife meat, livestock meat and vegetables, to identify demographic characteristics and potential control groups within markets. We also investigated baseline risk perception for infectious diseases among market vendors and assessed the association between risk perception and risk mitigation behaviours. The surveys conducted with 177 vendors revealed similar age, sex, ethnic background and geographical origin between vendor types, but
... Averting megafaunal collapse because of these expected global population changes remains one of the biggest conservation challenges this century (Ceballos et al., 2017(Ceballos et al., , 2020Ripple et al., 2017). Because human pressures differ across continents (i.e., differential bushmeat consumption or landscape transformation patterns across continents), identification of how anthropogenic pressures impacts megafauna species richness diversity across large scale spatial gradients, and under different spatial contexts, might yield additional insights into how to better plan for regional, continental and global conservation policies (Brashares et al., 2004;Nielsen et al., 2017). ...
The world's large terrestrial mammalian carnivores and herbivores (henceforth, megafauna) has been severely impacted by humans worldwide. Although this impact across the globe is variable, there has been little information quantifying this impact on biodiversity. Here, we use a macroecological modeling approach to evaluate the impact of different human activities on megafauna species richness at global and biogeographical scales with respect to seven human-altered landscapes variables. At both global and biogeographical scales, we found that human accessibility, human footprint, and small livestock density, had the most negative effects on megafauna species richness, whereas large livestock density, wilderness, and natural protected areas, were more positively associated with megafauna species richness. Our results indicate that megafauna can indeed persist in human-modified landscapes, but different types of human activity can differentially influence species richness. Thus, although continued human impact such as urban, livestock and agricultural development continues to represent a threat to most megafauna, their future viability is potentially compatible with several global change factors we examined. Moreover, our findings are still consistent with the emphasis on conservation strategies that focus on habitat protection to maximize the conservation of megafaunal richness. We urge stronger national and international policy commitments inclusive of multi-use landscapes, greater anti-poaching enforcement, and the development of wildlife-friendly policy incentives for the managers of private and communal land. We also advise caution in interpreting our results, and believe local and regional scale population monitoring programs are still necessary to better facilitate coexistence with humans.
... The nutritional role that meat can play in countries facing malnutrition and food insecurity should not be neglected (see Fig. 1). For instance, Nielsen et al. (2017) estimates that more than one-third of the population of Latin America, Asia, and Africa harvests bushmeat. While this meat contributes little to rural household income (about 2%) and mainly through own consumption (87%), reliance on bushmeat appears more important in smaller and more remote communities [but not in China where more educated and richer people consume more bushmeat; Zhang and Yin (2014)]. ...
Most infectious diseases in humans originate from animals. In this paper, we explore the role of animal farming and meat consumption in the emergence and amplification of infectious diseases. First, we discuss how meat production increases epidemic risks, either directly through increased contact with wild and farmed animals or indirectly through its impact on the environment (e.g., biodiversity loss, water use, climate change). Traditional food systems such as bushmeat and backyard farming increase the risks of disease transmission from wild animals, while intensive farming amplifies the impact of the disease due to the high density, genetic proximity, increased immunodeficiency, and live transport of farmed animals. Second, we describe the various direct and indirect costs of animal-based infectious diseases, and in particular, how these diseases can negatively impact the economy and the environment. Last, we discuss policies to reduce the social costs of infectious diseases. While existing regulatory frameworks such as the “One Health” approach focus on increasing farms’ biosecurity and emergency preparedness, we emphasize the need to better align stakeholders’ incentives and to reduce meat consumption. We discuss in particular the implementation of a “zoonotic” Pigouvian tax, and innovations such as insect-based food or cultured meat.
... Hunting is more prevalent than generally assumed (39%) but contributes less to rural household income than expected (2%) and mainly through own consumption (87%). Also, bushmeat is the most important to rural households as a source of protein and micronutrients unavailable through their existing domestic animal and staple crop production (44). Only poverty alleviation plans can deter illegal consumption for poor city dwellers without affordable alternatives to eating wildlife (45). ...
Bushmeat is not only an important source of fat, micronutrients, and macronutrients, but it also has medicinal uses. Extensive human–wildlife interactions may lead to pathogen exchange and trigger zoonotic infectious disease outbreaks such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, Ebola, and coronavirus disease 2019. In the tropics, bushmeat has become one of the most threatened resources due to widespread habitat loss and overexploitation, largely driven by increased global demand, weak governance, and lack of enforcement. Unsustainable harvesting, consumption, and production practices are common, although drivers are complex and intertwined and vary regionally, pointing to a looming rural nutrition security and wildlife conservation issue. Growing demand in fast urbanizing markets coupled with easy access fuels the illegal trade of bushmeat, medicinal products, and wildlife-based luxury goods. Although bushmeat contributes significantly to rural people's income and poverty alleviation, overharvesting impacts those who are most dependent on the forest. To balance the rural and cultural importance of bushmeat with conservation and public health priorities, strategies to safeguard tropical biodiversity, sustainable harvest of wildlife with reduced health risk for nutrition and medicine are urgently needed.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 45 is October 19, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... Liv Timmermann and Carsten Smith-Hall* Introduction Environmental products are economically important for rural livelihoods throughout the global South: their average annual contribution has been estimated at 28% of total household income (Angelsen et al 2014). While there is general agreement that such products are important in preventing poverty, supporting current consumption (eg Hickey et al 2016;Nielsen et al 2017) and acting to some degree as safety nets and gap fillers (Wunder, B€ orner, et al 2014), their role in reducing poverty is less well understood. Some authors argue that environmental products do not play a substantial role in asset accumulation and lifting households out of poverty (Wunder, Angelsen, et al 2014;Walelign et al 2017), while others note that this may be important in certain locations. ...
Environmental products can contribute to livelihoods through support of current consumption and provision of an economic safety net. But what is their role in lifting households out of poverty? Here we investigate the absolute and relative economic importance of commercial medicinal plants, including the high-value Chinese caterpillar fungus (Ophiocordyceps sinensis), to rural livelihoods in the high mountains of Nepal. We assess their role in providing a household-level pathway out of poverty. Data are derived from a structured household survey (n = 72) conducted in Jumla District and covering a 9-year period (2006–2015), supplemented with key informant interviews. We found that income from selling wild-collected medicinal plant products constituted an average of 58% of the total annual household income and 78% of cash income. Medicinal plant income increased in the observation period—even though medicinal plant income per collection day decreased, income at the community level doubled. We argue that medicinal plant commercialization is a rare opportunity to increase locally derived and controlled incomes with a range of positive outcomes, such as supporting livelihood strategies and mitigating the negative effects of outmigration.
... Bushmeat contributes significantly to household income and food security in many locations across Sub-Saharan Africa (Lindsey et al., 2013;Nielsen et al., 2017;Ahmadi et al., 2018). However, bushmeat hunting can deplete wildlife populations compromising conservation objectives (Wilkie et al., 2011;Ripple et al., 2016). ...
Bushmeat hunting is widespread in villages adjacent to protected areas in Western Serengeti. However, little information is available about the role of bushmeat income in the household economy as a function of distance from the protected area boundary, preventing the formulation of informed policy for regulating this illegal trade. This study was conducted in three villages in Western Serengeti at distances of 3 (closest), 27 (intermediate) and 58km (furthest) from the boundary of Serengeti National Park to assess the contribution of bushmeat to household income. The sample consists of 246 households of which 96 hunted or traded bushmeat, identified using snowball sampling through the aid of local informers. The average income earned from bushmeat was significantly higher for bushmeat traders than hunters. The contribution of bushmeat to household income was significantly higher in Robanda the village closest to the protected area boundary compared to Rwamkoma and Kowak, the more distant villages. A Heckman sample-selection model reveals that household participation in hunting and trading bushmeat was negatively associated with distance to the protected area boundary and with the household head being female. Household reliance on bushmeat income was negatively associated with age and gender of the household head and distance to the protected area boundary. Hence, efforts to reduce involvement in hunting, and trading bushmeat should target male-headed households close to the protected area boundary.
... Rural households across the tropics and sub-tropics rely on bushmeat hunting for subsistence and to generate cash income (Nielsen et al., 2017. However, bushmeat hunting is in many locations unsustainable (Dirzo et al., 2014;Ripple et al., 2016a;Benítez-López et al., 2017). ...
Rural households across the tropics rely on bushmeat hunting to fulfill their subsistence and cash income needs. As human populations grow, and urban market demand drives commercial trade, hunting is often unsustainable, compromising community long-term food security and wildlife conservation objectives. Scarce information about the effectiveness of different intervention options hampers design of informed management strategies to reduce bushmeat hunting while simultaneously safeguarding community's food security. Here we examine the potential of interventions aimed at reducing bushmeat demand by evaluating the own- and cross-price elasticities, i.e., how consumers respond to changes in the price of bushmeat and the price of five substitutes—beef, chicken, lamb, goat, and fish. We conducted stated preference surveys, complemented by a socio-economic survey using the Poverty Environment Network protocol in 452 households in 21 villages in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem in Tanzania. Using random intercept Poisson regression models, we find significant and elastic negative own-price elasticities of bushmeat demand and significant positive cross-price elasticities except for goat and fish. The significant (all at the 0.01 level) own-price elasticities ranges from −1.099 when bushmeat is paired with beef to −0.718 when bushmeat is paired with fish while the significant cross-price elasticities ranges from 0.128 when bushmeat is paired with beef to 0.590 when bushmeat is paired with lamb suggesting that most cross-price relations were inelastic. Variation between districts was considerable and depended on substitutes included in the model. Estimated elasticities were modified by socio-economic covariates including ethnicity, household size, household income, household Tropical Livestock Units ownership, household land ownership and distance to nearest protected area boundary, Lake Victoria and nearest road. Overall, we find mixed support for the hypothesis that interventions increasing the price of bushmeat and decreasing that of its substitutes will reduce bushmeat demand. The effectiveness of demand reducing interventions should increase if complemented by other policy interventions, e.g., interventions that increase the opportunity cost of hunting, by providing alternative income generation opportunities for hunters.
... Growing human populations, expected to quadruple this century [4], and their livestock in communities adjacent to protected areas increase the pressure on environmental resources, negatively affecting conservation objectives [5][6][7][8][9][10]. The poor tend to rely more on ecosystem services [1,11] and may thus suffer disproportionate deprivation from depletion of environmental resources. Infrastructural development extending roads into remote rural areas is proposed to reduce poverty by facilitating market integration and growth of non-farm Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) [12]. ...
Road development is occurring at an unprecedented rate in important conservation areas in tropical countries with limited understanding of how local people will adjust their livelihood activities in response. We use a discrete choice experiment to explore the effect of road development on respondents ex-ante preferences for changes in livelihood activities—crop and livestock production, hunting and trading bushmeat, and business and wage employment—under different incentives—provision of loans, livestock and crop extension services–in scenarios with reduced travel time to nearest district town in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem in Tanzania. We test four hypotheses about the effects of roads with opposing implication for conservation. Hypothesis 1 predicts that increased market access will lead to intensification of crop and livestock production activities (achieved through extension services and loans), and Hypothesis 2 that market access will facilitate the development of non-farm Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) providing new livelihood opportunities (e.g. business income and wage employment)–both reducing environmental pressure. Hypotheis 3 on the other hand predicts that improved market access will lead to extensification and expansion of crop and livestock production activities, while Hypotheis 4 suggests that it will encourage exploitation of environmental goods (here in the form of hunting and trading bushmeat and illegal grazing inside protected areas)–both increasing environmental pressure. We find increasing preferences for more cropland and more cattle as travel time to market is reduced but no preference for increased allocation of household members to hunting and trading bushmeat supporting hypothesis 3 while contradicting hypothesis 4. However, second-order effects might support hypothesis 4 as we find aversion towards decreasing effort invested in hunting and trading bushmeat. Preferences for increased cropland and livestock may furthermore interact to increase land use change and illegal grazing inside protected areas. Crop extension services had a negative modifying effect on preferences for more cropland (supporting hypothesis 1) while livestock extension services had a positive modifying effect on preferences for more cattle (contradicting hypothesis 1). Providing loans had a negative modifying effect on preferences for increasing cropland and number of cattle. Marginal rates of substitution suggest that 950,000 TSH borrowed at a 10% interest rate will reduce preferences for more cropland and cattle by 11.8 and 38.4% respectively. Crop extension services reduce preferences for more cropland by 27% whereas livestock extension services increase preferences for more cattle by 104%. Contradicting Hypothesis 2, we found no preference for increasing the number of households members engaged in business and wage employment in response to reduced travel time. Targeted efforts to increase the educational level as well as entrepreneurship skills in the GSE could promote engagement in the labour market and development of business enterprises diverting focus from traditional activities such as farming and livestock production and hence reducing pressure on the ecosystem.
... Ongoing participatory engagement with forest conservation specialists can help resourcedependent populations, such as the Baka and Bantu, develop sustainable livelihoods that benefit and address their unique vulnerability to environmental, social, climate, and policy change. Forest conservation that focuses on balancing local population's priorities, well-being, and knowledge, will help to secure sustainable conservation goals Bennett et al. 2017b;Nielsen et al. 2017) and improve forest ecosystem sustainability and functionality (Vimal 2017). Conservation policies that focus on ongoing engagement and investments in programs and practices that promote sustainable local livelihoods are critical tools for promoting sustainable conservation. ...
Forest management practices that aim to mitigate the threats of deforestation and forest degradation can inadvertently threaten the ability of forest-dependent local populations to meet basic daily sustenance needs. Stakeholder engagement can help find common ground between environmental goals and the livelihood needs of local populations. A starting point for local stakeholder engagement is to gather insights into how forest management differentially impacts the livelihoods and well-being of these populations, which may be quite heterogeneous in their perspectives and livelihood needs. Towards this end, we conducted semi-structured first-person interviews in forest-dependent communities in Cameroon about perspectives on and suggestions about forest resources and management. This study provides insights into commonalities and differences of perspectives within and among local populations and supports the use of stakeholder engagement strategies that facilitate bidirectional communication and take into consideration diverse perspectives and priorities.
The futures of human and nonhuman primates are closely tied in protected areas. Understanding this interconnectedness is especially urgent in Madagascar, one of the world’s most impoverished biodiversity hotspots. Yet, no study has evaluated the relationship between poverty and lemur hunting and consumption using a composite poverty metric that includes health, education, and living standards. To address this gap, and to inform primate conservation practice and policy, we administered annual surveys to 81 households over six consecutive months (September 2018 to March 2019) in a village on the border of Kirindy Mitea National Park, Madagascar. We observed extreme deprivation scores across multiple dimensions of poverty and identified ninety-five percent of households as ‘impoverished’. Of these, three-quarters (77%) of households were identified as being in ‘severe poverty’. One-fifth (19%) of all households hunted lemurs and half (49%) of households consumed lemurs. While poverty eradication is an urgent need in communities around Kirindy Mitea National Park, our findings show no relationship between poverty and lemur hunting and consumption, perhaps due to the lack of variance in poverty. Our results highlight the need to investigate other contributory factors to lemur hunting and consumption locally. Because food insecurity is a known driver of lemur hunting and consumption among the study community, and because domestic meats can be preferred over protected species, we recommend testing the efficacy of livestock interventions near Kirindy Mitea National Park.
The bushmeat trade provides an income to hunters, transporters, and vendors living in the vicinity of protected areas but remains a challenge to wildlife conservation objectives. The key factors driving the source, choice and use of bushmeat vary among actors in the commercial bushmeat value chain, and insights into these determinants are required to facilitate the development of conservation strategies. Therefore, we aimed to identify the socioeconomic factors that explain the source of supply and quantities of bushmeat available in households and local restaurants. We carried out a survey with 144 rural household heads and 24 restaurant owners in 20 villages in the Western part of Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire. We found that bushmeat quantity and species diversity were low in households, originating mainly from subsistence hunting. However, both the amount of bushmeat and the variety of species were high in restaurants and primarily supplied by commercial hunters. Furthermore, the quantity of bushmeat was lower in households with other protein sources and in restaurants in villages that had been the target of more conservation awareness campaigns. We highlight the importance of understanding the determinants of bushmeat supply to regulate the bushmeat trade by applying relevant conservation interventions.
Institutional arrangements are key for problem-solving; therefore, pandemics require a strong governance response. While a plethora of ideas about prevention actions for pandemics have been advanced, there has been relatively limited consideration for how those can be operationalized through governance macro structures, particularly within the context of the wildlife trade as a zoonotic driver. Pandemic prevention governance has mostly focused on outbreak surveillance, containment, and response, rather than on avoiding zoonotic spillovers. However, given acceleration of globalization, a paradigm shift towards zoonotic spillover prevention is warranted as outbreak containment becomes unfeasible. Here, we consider the current institutional landscape for pandemic prevention in light of potential negotiations of a ‘Pandemic Treaty’, and how zoonotic spillover prevention from the wildlife trade could be incorporated. We argue that such an institutional arrangement should focus on improving coordination across four policy domains, namely public health, biodiversity conservation, food security, and trade. A Pandemic Treaty should be negotiated initially as a Framework Convention, with subsequent protocols, including a Pandemic Prevention Protocol with specific provisions for the wildlife trade. This Protocol should include four clear interacting goals: risk understanding, risk assessment, risk reduction, and enabling funding. Despite the need to keep political attention on solving the current pandemic, we cannot afford missing the opportunity of the current crisis to catalyse institution building for preventing future pandemics.
This paper assessed the economic contribution of wildlife to bushmeat market in Ikire, Osun State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using semi-structured questionnaire and in-depth interview of targeted respondents. Bush meat sellers in Irewole local government area, Ikire were sampled. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, budgetary analysis and likert scale analysis. The result showed that majority of the bushmeat sellers were females (55.9%) with a mean age of 41 years. Most of the bushmeat sellers strongly agreed (4.91±0.09) that they generate more income from bushmeat trade, 4.71±0.17 equally noted that customers prefer to purchase bushmeat than convectional meat type while 1.56±0.19 disagreed that seasonal change affects customer’s preferences for bushmeat in the markets. Also, 5.00±0.0, 4.82±0.13, 4.74±0.17 respectively believes that bushmeat are more delicious, better source of protein, more of medicinal value when compared with conventional meat type. Furthermore, an average of 3.70±0.2 had cultural sentiments for the consumption of bush meat. An average net profit per respondent yielded ₦3,565.53, while BCR and profitability index are 1.95 and 0.95 respectively. Conclusively, bushmeat trading is a profitable and very lucrative enterprise.
Iguana iguana, also called the green iguana, is a common bushmeat in Central and northern South America that is under pressure from exploitation and development across its native range. The Colombian Llanos is mesic savanna region lined with gallery forests where the Iguana iguana is currently being over-exploited by largely illegal commercial hunting and harvesting of eggs. Complete bans on iguana consumption would represent a hardship for the rural and indigenous poor of the region, but without intervention, the iguana populations and their associated ecologies could suffer. After considering the known impacts to Iguana iguana populations in the Colombian Llanos, a management proposal is outlined that utilizes public engagement, participatory inventorying and monitoring, and a discussion on the need for landscape-scale land-use planning which would account for environmental protections while providing for food security and sustainable economic development. A land-use plan represents a critical gap in research, and beyond the scope of this paper to propose. However using tools such as nexus-analysis and derivatives of Institutional Analysis and Development Frameworks, decisions on land-use could support more comprehensive solutions. Polycentric governance could support greater integration of community into conservation management strategies.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The global Living Planet Index continues to decline. It shows an average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish between 1970 and 2016. A 94% decline in the LPI for the tropical subregions of the Americas is the largest fall observed in any part of the world. Why does this matter? It matters because biodiversity is fundamental to human life on Earth, and the evidence is unequivocal – it is being destroyed by us at a rate unprecedented in history. Since the industrial revolution, human activities have increasingly destroyed and degraded forests, grasslands, wetlands and other important ecosystems, threatening human well-being. Seventy-five per cent of the Earth’s ice-free land surface has already been significantly altered, most of the oceans are polluted, and more than 85% of the area of wetlands has been lost. Species population trends are important because they are a measure of overall ecosystem health. Measuring biodiversity, the variety of all living things, is complex, and there is no single measure that can capture all of the changes in this web of life. Nevertheless, the vast majority of indicators show net declines over recent decades. That’s because in the last 50 years our world has been transformed by an explosion in global trade, consumption and human population growth, as well as an enormous move towards urbanisation. Until 1970, humanity’s Ecological Footprint was smaller than the Earth’s rate of regeneration. To feed and fuel our 21st century lifestyles, we are overusing the Earth’s biocapacity by at least 56%. These underlying trends are driving the unrelenting destruction of nature, with only a handful of countries retaining most of the last remaining wilderness areas. Our natural world is transforming more rapidly than ever before, and climate change is further accelerating the change. Tigers, pandas and polar bears are well-known species in the story of biodiversity decline, but what of the millions of tiny, or as-yet-undiscovered, species that are also under threat? What is happening to the life in our soils, or in plant and insect diversity? All of these provide fundamental support for life on Earth and are showing signs of stress. Biodiversity loss threatens food security and urgent action is needed to address the loss of the biodiversity that feeds the world. Where and how we produce food is one of the biggest human-caused threats to nature and our ecosystems, making the transformation of our global food system more important than ever. The transformation of our economic systems is also critical. Our economies are embedded within nature, and it is only by recognising and acting on this reality that we can protect and enhance biodiversity and improve our economic prosperity. We can estimate the value of ‘natural capital’ – the planet’s stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources, like plants, soils and minerals – alongside values of produced and human capital – for example, roads and skills – which together form a measure of a country’s true wealth. Data from the United Nations Environment Programme shows that, per person, our global stock of natural capital has declined by nearly 40% since the early 1990s, while produced capital has doubled and human capital has increased by 13%. But too few of our economic and financial decision-makers know how to interpret what we are hearing, or, even worse, they choose not to tune in at all. A key problem is the mismatch between the artificial ‘economic grammar’ which drives public and private policy and ‘nature’s syntax’ which determines how the real world operates. Together this evidence shows that biodiversity conservation is more than an ethical commitment for humanity: it is a non-negotiable and strategic investment to preserve our health, wealth and security. WWF LIVING PLANET REPORT 2020 8 9 Can we reverse these trends of decline? WWF co-founded a new research initiative – the Bending the Curve Initiative – that has developed pioneering modelling, providing a ‘proof of concept’ that we can halt, and reverse, terrestrial biodiversity loss from land-use change. And the models are all telling us the same thing: that we still have an opportunity to flatten, and reverse, the loss of nature if we take urgent and unprecedented conservation action and make transformational changes in the way we produce and consume food. 2020 was billed as a ‘super year’ of climate, biodiversity and sustainable development meetings in which the international community had great plans to take the reins of the Anthropocene. The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that most of these conferences are now scheduled for 2021, and has provided a stark reminder of how nature and humans are intertwined. Until now, decades of words and warnings have not changed modern human society’s business-as-usual trajectory. Yet in times of rapid upheaval and disruption new ideas, creativity, processes and opportunities for transformation can arise. The future is always uncertain but perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic will spur us on to embrace this unexpected opportunity and revolutionise how we take care of our home.
Hunting is an important subsistence activity in the Amazon. Wild meat is a source of food and income
for extended population sectors, being part of the local economies. Non sustainable extraction of wild
meat affects diverse species, even towards extinction. Supply and demand play a key role on the
extraction levels of wild meat, having prices a significant influence over hunting levels. Both the market
and law enforcement must operate together to guarantee sustainable extraction and wildlife
protection. It is urgent to design realistic and applicable wildlife management policies taking into
consideration social and economic aspects, monitoring and resource conservation promotion. The
objective of this review is to show the problems surrounding wild meat consumption in regions with
tropical forests, to highlight the market influence on extraction levels and to systematize information
for proper dissemination.
Wildlife populations in tropical forests are difficult to monitor. Hunter self-monitoring schemes hold promise, but their accuracy in estimating populations has not been verified and obtaining useful wildlife estimates from generally low-quality data remains a challenge. We tested whether wildlife indicators could be useful for wildlife monitoring in such schemes, because they might eliminate the need to estimate effort in hunter surveys, and reduce records of many species into a single informative indicator. We implemented a hunter self-monitoring scheme in eight villages in the northern Republic of Congo, collecting shotgun, snare, and camera trap records in “zones” within each village’s hunting territory (shotguns = 83 zones, snares = 50 zones, cameras = 21 zones). Using each of these three survey methods, we calculated for each zone three different indicators used in wildlife studies: mean body mass, the mean intrinsic rate of increase (rmax), and a duiker index (small duikers as a percentage of small and medium sized duikers). Survey effort could be estimated for both snares and cameras and was used to estimate species relative abundances (Catch Per Unit Effort, CPUE). Mean body mass was the most effective indicator, followed by the duiker index. Both were correlated between survey methods and changed with increasing hunting pressure regardless of survey method used. They also predicted the total CPUE of animals >15 kg for zones, and often the CPUE of individual species. They also gave the most precise estimates of the three indicators, and snare estimates were more precise than shotgun. In contrast, mean rmax generally performed poorly, and was often not correlated with the other indicators, or with hunting pressure. Our findings suggest that some indicators can produce useful wildlife estimates from hunter self-monitoring schemes, that are also easy to implement and comprehend for hunters and wildlife managers.
Bushmeat harvesting, fuelled by wire-snare poaching, is recognized as a severe threat to biodiversity throughout East and Central Africa, and has been directly linked to severe reductions or extirpations of target species, high rates of non-target off-take of threatened species, and the loss of functional ecosystem processes. Studies dedicated to assessing the extent and underlying dynamics of wire-snare poaching in South Africa are lacking, and no formal research has been conducted in the Boland Region, despite growing evidence of wire-snare incidence. Through structured interviews with farm owners, managers and labourers on private agricultural properties bordering protected areas (PAs), this study quantified the influence of several socioeconomic and biophysical determinants on the incidence of wire-snare poaching across the study area. Wire-snare poaching incidence and behaviour was strongly influenced by economic factors relating to poverty, a perceived lack of governing regulations and punitive measures, interpersonal development, and abiotic factors such as proximity to major residential areas, roadways and PAs. Respondents reported that small antelope and porcupine were most affected by wire-snare poaching. Several activity hotspots across the region were identified. This study provided the first demonstration of the multifaceted and complex nature of wire-snare poaching in the Boland Region. In doing so, a dialogue was opened between rural communities and conservation agencies to broaden our understanding of the heterogeneity in local-scale socioecological dynamics, to apply policies for effective management and eradication, and to provide grounds for future research in the area and elsewhere.
We studied links between human malnutrition and wild meat availability within the Rainforest Biotic Zone in central Africa. We distinguished two distinct hunted mammalian diversity distributions, one in the rainforest areas (Deep Rainforest Diversity, DRD) containing taxa of lower hunting sustainability, the other in the northern rainforest-savanna mosaic, with species of greater hunting potential (Marginal Rainforest Diversity, MRD). Wild meat availability, assessed by standing crop mammalian biomass, was greater in MRD than in DRD areas. Predicted bushmeat extraction was also higher in MRD areas. Despite this, stunting of children, a measure of human malnutrition, was greater in MRD areas. Structural equation modeling identified that, in MRD areas, mammal diversity fell away from urban areas, but proximity to these positively influenced higher stunting incidence. In DRD areas, remoteness and distance from dense human settlements and infrastructures explained lower stunting levels. Moreover, stunting was higher away from protected areas. Our results suggest that in MRD areas, forest wildlife rational use for better human nutrition is possible. By contrast, the relatively low human populations in DRD areas currently offer abundant opportunities for the continued protection of more vulnerable mammals and allow dietary needs of local populations to be met.
Terrestrial mammals are experiencing a massive collapse in their population sizes and geographical ranges around the world, but many of the drivers, patterns and consequences of this decline remain poorly understood. Here we provide an analysis showing that bushmeat hunting for mostly food and medicinal products is driving a global crisis whereby 301 terrestrial mammal species are threatened with extinction. Nearly all of these threatened species occur in developing countries where major coexisting threats include deforestation, agricultural expansion, human encroachment and competition with livestock. The unrelenting decline of mammals suggests many vital ecological and socioeconomic services that these species provide will be lost, potentially changing ecosystems irrevocably. We discuss options and current obstacles to achieving effective conservation, alongside consequences of failure to stem such anthropogenic mammalian extirpation. We propose a multi-pronged conservation strategy to help save threatened mammals from immediate extinction and avoid a collapse of food security for hundreds of millions of people.
We use data on game harvest from 60 Pygmy and non-Pygmy settlements in the Congo Basin forests to examine whether hunting patterns and prey profiles differ between the two hunter groups. For each group, we calculate hunted animal numbers and biomass available per inhabitant, P, per year (harvest rates) and killed per hunter, H, per year (extraction rates). We assess the impact of hunting of both hunter groups from estimates of numbers and biomass of prey species killed per square kilometre, and by examining the proportion of hunted taxa of low, medium and high population growth rates as a measure of their vulnerability to overhunting. We then map harvested biomass (kg-1P-1Yr-1) of bushmeat by Pygmies and non-Pygmies throughout the Congo Basin. Hunting patterns differ between Pygmies and non-Pygmies; Pygmies take larger and different prey and non-Pygmies sell more for profit. We show that non-Pygmies have a potentially more severe impact on prey populations than Pygmies. This is because non-Pygmies hunt a wider range of species, and twice as many animals are taken per square kilometre. Moreover, in non-Pygmy settlements there was a larger proportion of game taken of low population growth rate. Our harvest map shows that the non-Pygmy population may be responsible for 27 times more animals harvested than the Pygmy population. Such differences indicate that the intense competition that may arise from the more widespread commercial hunting by non-Pygmies is a far more important constraint and source of conflict than are protected areas.
Conservation biologists often mention human needs for dietary protein as being a main driving force behind unsustainable hunting and fishing that deplete resource bases and threaten biodiversity in tropical forest regions around the world. However, the empirical basis for assuming that the nutritional importance of wild meat and fish in the diets of tropical forest peoples is limited to that of being a protein source is weak. The nutrient content of foodstuffs procured by households in an indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon was calculated and the nutritional status of the people based on anthropometric measurements was assessed. The results suggest that fat is in more scarce supply than protein. Accordingly, it is suggested that the most important role of wildlife and fish in the nutrition of the people in the area is that of being sources of fat, although their role as protein sources also is important.
Thousands of surveys on rural livelihoods in developing countries are being done every year. Unfortunately, many suffer from weaknesses in methods and problems in implementation. Quantifying households' dependence on multiple environmental resources (forests, bush, grasslands and rivers) is particularly difficult and often simply ignored in the surveys. The results therefore do not reflect rural realities. In particular, 'the hidden harvest' from natural resources is generally too important to livelihoods for development research, policies and practice to ignore. Fieldwork using state-of-the-art methods, and in particular well-designed household questionnaires, thus becomes an imperative to adequately capture key dimensions of rural welfare.
This book describes how to do a better job when designing and implementing household and village surveys for quantitative assessment of rural livelihoods in developing countries. It covers the entire research process from planning to sharing research results. It draws on the experiences from a large global-comparative project, the Poverty Environment Network (PEN), to develop more robust and validated methods, enriched by numerous practical examples from the field. The book will provide an invaluable guide to methods and a practical handbook for students and professionals.
This study combines research tools from many disciplines and gives us a broader picture of the situation of bushmeat consumption and its role on the contemporary society, as well as its potential for sustainable development.
Illegal hunting of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) for ivory is causing rapid declines in their populations. Since 2007, illegal ivory trade has more than doubled. African elephants are facing the most serious conservation crisis since 1989, when international trade was banned. One solution proposed is establishment of a controlled legal trade in ivory. High prices for ivory mean that the incentives to obtain large quantities are high, but the quantity of tusks available for trade are biologically constrained. Within that context, effective management of a legal ivory trade would require robust systems to be in place to ensure that ivory from illegally killed elephants cannot be laundered into a legal market. At present, that is not feasible due to corruption among government officials charged with implementing wildlife-related legislation. With organized criminal enterprises involved along the whole commodity chain, corruption enables the laundering of illegal ivory into legal or potentially legal markets. Poachers and traffickers can rapidly pay their way out of trouble, so the financial incentives to break the law heavily outweigh those of abiding by it. Maintaining reliable permitting systems and leak-proof chains of custody in this context is challenging, and effective management breaks down. Once illegal ivory has entered the legal trade, it is difficult or impossible for enforcement officers to know what is legal and illegal. Addressing corruption throughout a trade network that permeates countries across the globe will take decades, if it can ever be achieved. That will be too late for wild African elephants at current rates of loss. If we are to conserve remaining wild populations, we must close all markets because, under current levels of corruption, they cannot be controlled in a way that does not provide opportunities for illegal ivory being laundered into legal markets.
Policies aimed at reducing wildlife-related conflict must address the underlying causes.
This paper presents results from a comparative analysis of environmental income from approximately 8000 households in 24 developing countries collected by research partners in CIFOR’s Poverty Environment Network (PEN). Environmental income accounts for 28% of total household income, 77% of which comes from natural forests. Environmental income shares are higher for low-income households, but differences across income quintiles are less pronounced than previously thought. The poor rely more heavily on subsistence products such as wood fuels and wild foods, and on products harvested from natural areas other than forests. In absolute terms environmental income is approximately five times higher in the highest income quintile, compared to the two lowest quintiles.
In the forest–livelihoods literature, forests are widely perceived to provide both common safety nets to shocks and resources for seasonal gap-filling. We use a large global-comparative dataset to test these responses. We find households rank forest-extraction responses to shocks lower than most common alternatives. For seasonal gap-filling, forest extraction also has limited importance. The minority of households using forests for coping is asset-poor and lives in villages specialized on forests, in particular timber extraction. Overall, forest resources may be less important as a buffer between agricultural harvests and in times of unforeseen hardship than has been found in many case studies.
Hunted wild animals (i.e., bushmeat) are a main source of protein for many rural populations in the tropics, and the unsustainable harvest of these animals puts both human food security and ecosystem functioning at risk. To understand the correlates of bushmeat consumption, we surveyed 1219 households in 121 rural villages near three newly established national parks in Gabon. Through the surveys we gathered information on bushmeat consumption, income, and material assests. In addition, we quantified land cover in a 5-km radius around the village center and distance of the village center to the nearest park boundary. Bushmeat was not a source of income for most households, but it was the primary animal protein consumed. Ninety-seven percent of households consumed bushmeat at least once during a survey period of 12 days. Income or wealth, land cover, distance of village to the nearest park boundary, and level of education of the head of the household were among the factors that significantly related to the likelihood of consuming any of the 10 most commonly consumed species of bushmeat. Household size was the predictor most strongly associated with quantities of bushmeat consumed and was negatively related to consumption. Total bushmeat consumption per adult male equivalent increased as household wealth increased and decreased as distance of villages to park boundaries increased. Bushmeat consumption at the household level was not related to unit values (i.e., price estimates for a good that typically does not have a market value; estimates derived from willingness to sell or trade the good for items of known price) of bushmeat or the price of chicken and fish as potential substitutes. The median consumption of bushmeat at the village level, however, was negatively related to village mean unit values of bushmeat across all species. Our results suggest that a lack of alternative protein sources motivated even the wealthiest among surveyed households to consume bushmeat. Providing affordable, alternative protein sources to all households would likely reduce unsustainable levels of bushmeat consumption in rural Gabon.
Resumen: Los animales silvestres (i.e., carne de monte) son una fuente importante de proteína para muchas poblaciones rurales en los trópicos, y la cosecha no sustentable de esos animales colocan en riesgo tanto a la seguridad alimentaria humana como el funcionamiento del ecosistema. Para comprender las correlaciones del consumo de carne de monte, encuestamos a 1219 grupos familiares en 121 poblados rurales cerca de tres parques nacionales recién establecidos en Gabón. Mediante las encuestas recopilamos información sobre el consumo de carne de monte, ingresos y bienes materiales. Adicionalmente, cuantificamos la cobertura de suelo en un radio de 5 km alrededor del poblado y la distancia del centro del poblado al límite del parque más cercano. La carne de monte no fue una fuente de ingreso para la mayoría de los grupos, pero fue la principal proteína animal consumida. Noventa y siete porciento de los grupos familiares consumieron carne de monte por lo menos una vez durante un período de muestreo de 12 días. El ingreso o riqueza, la cobertura de suelo, la distancia del poblado al límite del parque más cercano y el nivel educativo del jefe de familia fueron algunos de los factores que se relacionaron significativamente con la probabilidad de consumir cualquiera de las 10 especies de carne de monte consumidas más comúnmente. El tamaño de la familia fue el predictor asociado más estrechamente con las cantidades consumidas de carne de monte y se relacionó negativamente con el consumo. El consumo total de carne de monte por macho adulto aumentó con el incremento de la riqueza de la familia y decreció con el incremento de la distancia hasta los límites del parque. El consumo de carne de monte a nivel de familia no se relacionó con las unidades de valor (i.e., estimaciones de precio para un bien que típicamente no tiene un valor de mercado; estimaciones derivadas de la disponibilidad para vender o canjear el bien por productos de precio conocido) de la carne de monte o del valor del pollo o pescado como sustitutos potenciales. Sin embargo, el consumo medio de carne de monte a nivel de poblado se relacionó negativamente con las unidades de valor promedio de carne de monte de todas las especies. Nuestros resultados sugieren que la carencia de fuentes alternativas de proteína motivaron el consumo de carne de monte, aun en las familias más ricas. Proporcionar fuentes alternativas y accesibles de proteína podría reducir los niveles de consumo no sustentable de carne de monte en áreas rurales de Gabón.
Tropical moist forests in Africa are concentrated in the Congo Basin. A variety of animals in these forests, in particular mammals, are hunted for their meat, termed bushmeat. This paper investigates current and future trends of bushmeat protein, and non-bushmeat protein supply, for inhabitants of the main Congo Basin countries. Since most bushmeat is derived from forest mammals, published extraction (E) and production (P) estimates of mammal populations were used to calculate the per person protein supplied by these. Current bushmeat protein supply may range from 30 g person1 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to 180 g person1 in Gabon. Future bushmeat protein supplies were predicted for the next 50 years by employing current E:P ratios, and controlling for known deforestation and population growth rates. At current exploitation rates, bushmeat protein supply would drop 81% in all countries in less than 50 years; only three countries would be able to maintain a protein supply above the recommended daily requirement of 52 g person1. However, if bushmeat harvests were reduced to a sustainable level, all countries except Gabon would be dramatically affected by the loss of wild protein supply. The dependence on bushmeat protein is emphasized by the fact that four out of the five countries studied do not produce sufficient amounts of non-bushmeat protein to feed their populations. These findings imply that a significant number of forest mammals could become extinct relatively soon, and that protein malnutrition is likely to increase dramatically if food security in the region is not promptly resolved.
The bushmeat trade, or the illegal acquisition and exchange of wild meat, has long been recognised as a severe problem in forest biomes, but receives little attention in savannas, perhaps due to a misconception that bushmeat hunting is a low-impact subsistence activity. Though data on impacts are scarce, indications are that bushmeat hunting is a widespread problem in savannas, with severe impacts on wildlife populations and wildlife-based land uses. The impacts of the bushmeat trade in savannas vary from edge-effects around protected areas, to disproportionate declines of some species, to severe wildlife declines in areas with inadequate anti-poaching. In some areas, bushmeat contributes significantly to food security, but these benefits are unsustainable, and hunting is wasteful, utilising a fraction of the wildlife killed or of its financial value obtainable through tourism, trophy hunting and/or legal game meat production. The bushmeat trade appears to be becoming increasingly commercialised due to elevated demand in rural areas, urban centres and even overseas cities. Other drivers for the trade include human encroachment of wildlife areas; poverty and food insecurity; and inadequate legal frameworks to enable communities to benefit legally from wildlife, and to create incentives for people to desist from illegal bushmeat hunting. These drivers are exacerbated by inadequate wildlife laws and enforcement and in some areas, political instability. Urgent efforts are needed to address these drivers and raise awareness among local and international governments of the seriousness of the threat. Failure to address this will result in severe wildlife declines widely in African savannas, with significant ecological, economic and social impacts.
Bushmeat is an important resource in the livelihoods of many rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and may be a crucial safety-net for the most vulnerable households, especially during times of economic hardship. However, little is known about the impacts of wildlife depletion on these functions. This study quantifies the role of bushmeat in diversified rural household economies in a wildlife depleted forest-farm landscape in Ghana, assessing its importance overall, as well as differentiated by the relative vulnerability of households. Using repeat socioeconomic questionnaires (N=787) among 63 households over a one-year period, the following hypotheses were tested: (a) vulnerable households harvest more bushmeat; (b) bushmeat contributes a greater proportion of household production in vulnerable households; (c) bushmeat is more important for cash income than consumption in vulnerable households; and (d) bushmeat sales are more important for vulnerable households. The bushmeat harvest value averaged less than US$1.0 per day for 89% of households and comprised less than 7% of household production value. Household wealth and gender of the household head had little effect on the importance of bushmeat. However, bushmeat harvest and sales were highest during the agricultural lean season. Overall, most harvested bushmeat (64%) was consumed, enabling households to spend 30% less on meat/fish purchases. These findings suggest that, despite heavily depleted wildlife and diversified livelihoods, bushmeat continues to have an important role in rural livelihoods by acting as a safety net for income smoothing and reducing household expenditure during times of economic hardship.
We suggest an ethno-biological approach to analyze the cultural and social drivers of hunting activities and assess sustainability in villages near Makokou, northeast Gabon, based on interviews with hunters, participatory mapping of hunting territories, and daily records of offtakes for 1 yr. Hunting in villages of northeast Gabon is practiced for both local consumption and cash income to cover basic family expenses. There appears to be no clear tendency to abandon subsistence hunting for commercial hunting as in other regions of Africa. Cultural and socioeconomic factors explain the temporal and spatial variation in hunting activities. Hunting increases in the dry season during circumcision ceremonies, when it is practiced mainly at > 10 km from villages, and decreases during the rainy season because most hunters are occupied by other economic activities. Degraded forest such as secondary regrowth supplies 20% of the animals killed and the greatest diversity of species at short distances from villages. Mature forest supplies the species with the greatest commercial value, e.g., red river hog (Potamochoerus porcus), and is the preferred source of meat for traditional ceremonies. In the last 15 yr, hunting patterns have changed rapidly, mainly because of the spread of gun hunting, which had serious implications for the nature of offtakes. Our results suggest that there is potential to allow hunting for resistant species such as blue duiker (Cephalophus monticola) and African brush-tailed porcupine (Atherurus africanus). Other species such as red river hog and small diurnal monkeys require more attention. Specific management systems could be discussed in participatory hunting management plans to identify possible solutions to maintain the population levels of the more critical species
In the Ugalla ecosystem, wildlife conservation is constantly and pervasively challenged by the local communities looking for ways to improve their livelihoods. The need to curb poaching of wildlife continues to spark debate amongst conservation stakeholders in the area. Assessing the livelihood contributions of different sources of income in light of wildlife poaching is vital to conservation effort. The heads of households in villages bordering Ugalla Game Reserve (an integral component of Ugalla ecosystem) were interviewed to obtain data on poaching and income sources. Income from crops (especially tobacco, maize and groundnut) and livestock (cattle), had a remarkable positive effect on not only improving household income, but also decreasing poaching frequency. Other economically important crops were rice, sesame and sunflower, although these did not significantly influence wildlife poaching. Household income from other sources, namely, wildlife, forests, small businesses, formal employment and remittances, were not significantly associated with wildlife poaching. Although generally, the study villages with relatively low mean income had high poaching frequency, the ones close to Ugalla Game Reserve tended to have higher poaching frequency than the ones far from it. However, improving agricultural production would help to lessen pressure on wildlife resources in Ugalla.
Unsustainable hunting of wildlife for food is often a more immediate and significant threat to the conservation of biological diversity in tropical forests than deforestation. Why people eat wildlife is debated. Some may eat bushmeat because they can afford it; others may eat it because it is familiar, traditional, confers prestige, tastes good, or adds variety. We completed a survey of 1208 rural and urban households in Gabon, Africa, in 2002–2003 to estimate the effect of wealth and prices on the consumption of wildlife and other sources of animal protein. Consumption of bushmeat, fish, chicken, and livestock increased with increasing household wealth, and as the price of these commodities rose, consumption declined. Although the prices of substitutes for bushmeat did not significantly, in statistical terms, influence bushmeat consumption, as the price of wildlife increased and its consumption fell, the consumption of fish rose, indicating that fish and bushmeat were dietary substitutes. Our results suggest that policy makers can use economic levers such as taxation or supply reduction through better law enforcement to change demand for wildlife. These measures will help to regulate unsustainable exploitation and reduce the risk of irreversible loss of large-bodied and slow-reproducing wildlife species. If policy makers focus solely on reducing the unsustainable consumption of wildlife, they may see adverse impacts on the exploitation of fish. Furthermore, policy makers must ensure that raising household wealth through development assistance does not result in undesirable impacts on the conservation status of wildlife and fish.
Bushmeat consumption is affected by household wealth. However, how household wealth impacts bushmeat eaten in different environmental and social settings (i.e. whether urban, rural, coastal or forest) is poorly understood. In this study, we sampled households in six contrasting localities in Rio Muni, Equatorial Guinea, in coastal (Bata, Cogo), central (Niefang, Evinayong) and eastern parts of the territory (Ebebiyin, Nsork). On average, 32.3 g of bushmeat per adult male equivalent per day were consumed, though this varied widely between sites and most households ate no bushmeat on the survey day. Fish was the most frequently recorded source of protein and in a coastal site, Cogo, significantly more fish was consumed than in the other localities. Overall, average protein consumption was correlated with household wealth, but the strength of this effect varied among sites. At the site where average wealth was highest (Bata, the most urban site), bushmeat was more expensive, and wealthier households ate more of it. Elsewhere bushmeat consumption was not associated with wealth, and the cost of bushmeat was a higher proportion of household wealth. In Bata, wealthier households reported consumption of more than one meat type (most frequently bushmeat and either domestic meat or fish), and diversity of dietary items also increased with wealth. In all sites, wealthier households ate less fish. We demonstrate distinct differences in relationships between urban versus rural areas, and between coastal versus inland sites. We therefore caution that general patterns of wealth–wild meat consumption must be evaluated taking account the circumstances of wild meat consumers.
Unsustainable hunting of wildlife or bushmeat for human consumption across the tropics threatens both wildlife populations and the livelihoods of people who depend on these resources. The probability that hunting can be sustainable depends in part on ecological conditions that affect the ‘supply’ of and ‘demand’ for wildlife resources. In this study, supply is estimated across a number of tropical ecosystem types by calculating the theoretical ‘maximum sustainable offtake’ in kg/km2 for harvestable wildlife. Demand is estimated from observed harvests in kg/km2. We examine how supply and demand vary across relatively undisturbed ecosystems, indexed by annual rainfall. Supply is potentially highest in dry forests and wetter savannah grasslands and decreases in moist forests and more xeric grasslands. Demand tends to exceed supply in moist forests and xeric grasslands. Analogous to this ecological variation along the rainfall gradient is the gradient created by the conversion of tropical forests by humans. We hypothesise that the wild meat supply is greater in secondary forests and forest–farm–fallow mosaics than in undisturbed forests and test this with available data. We conclude that the probability that hunting will be sustainable varies with ecosystem type and degree of human disturbance and should influence where land is zoned for protected areas and where for wildlife harvests.
ABSTRACT • Available information on the consumption of wild meat in West and Central Africa is reviewed. We show that mammals are the prime source of bushmeat, and that ungulates and rodents make up the highest proportion of biomass extracted. • We present data on current knowledge of extraction patterns of wild mammals in West and Central Africa, and evidence that at current off-take levels, within the range states, mammals as bushmeat are being depleted on an unprecedented scale. Extraction rates are orders of magnitude higher there than in comparable ecosystems like the Amazon, and much less likely to be sustainable. • However, basic knowledge of the biology of harvestable tropical moist forest mammals, and the consequences of hunting on mammalian communities, which permits accurate estimation of maximal production rate (the excess of growth over replacement rate), is largely unavailable, and this hinders estimation of hunting quotas and sustainability. Comparisons are made with the existing information available on Amazon basin mammals and hunting patterns reported there.
