Bushmeat research in the past 3 decades: What has it changed for sustainable hunting?

ATBC, Cairns 20-24 July 2014

van Vliet N., Cornelis D. and Nasi R.

Bushmeat research in the past 3 decades: What has it changed for sustainable

hunting?

www.cifor.org/bushmeat2

Introduction

Mammals&

Amphibians&

Rep/les&

Birds&

Bushmeat&is&defined&by&the&CBD&(2008)&as&any&non?domes/cated&terrestrial&mammals,&birds,&rep/les&and&amphibians&harvested&for&food.&Insects,&crustaceans,&grubs,&molluscs&and&fish&are&excluded&from&this&

defini/on.&

Introduction !  4 million tons / year in the Congo Basin

!  1 million tons/ year in the Amazon

Beef&Bushmeat&

•  Europe produces 7,5 million tons /year of beef

•  Brazil (second world producer) produces 8,5 million tons /year of beef&

Bushmeat as an evolving topic

• Ecological&issues&• Socio?economic&&issues&

• Health&issues&• Cultural&issues&

Transi/ons&in&disciplines,*theore/cal*frameworks*and**management*op/ons*tested*in*the*field&

Future&trends&in&bushmeat&research&

Transitions in disciplines and theoretical frameworks related to Bushmeat

Ecological&issues&(1990?onwards)&

2 Conservation Biology In Practice • Winter 2002/Vol.3 No.1

Why is Eating BushmeatA Biodiversity Crisis?

By Elizabeth Bennett1

Heather Eves2

John Robinson1

& David Wilkie1

D

For more informationvisit the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force

web site at www.bushmeat.org

!

1Wildlife Conservation Society & 2Bushmeat Crisis Task Force

Percent of wildlifespecies hunted un-sustainably at sitesin the world’s tropicalforests (1)

Bolivia 50%Ecuador 30%Ecuatorial Guinea 31%Central African Rep. 100%Kenya 43%Sulawesi 70%

Eating meat. People eat as much meat in Central

Africa as in the U.S. or U.K. In Central Africa,

most of this meat comes from wildlife. (2, 3, 4)

58 kg61kg

70 kg73 kg

Democratic U.S. U.K. CameroonRep. Congo

!

Meat eaten percapita per year

eforestation still threatens habitat in tropical forests. But when the equivalent of 4 million cattle inwildlife—many of which are endangered species—are hunted and eaten each year in Central Africaalone, tropical forests throughout the world face a more immediate threat, known as the “empty

forest syndrome.” It turns out we can “defauna” a forest quicker than we can “deforest” it.Tropical forests, in contrast to tropical savannas, are particularly susceptible to over-hunting because

they support less wildlife—by at least an order of magnitude. Hunting intensity is increasing as demand formeat increases with human population, as new, more lethal hunting technologies such as wire snares andfirearms are widely adopted, and as logging roads and vehicles open once isolated forests and significantlyreduce hunters’ and traders’ transportation costs. The commercial trade in bushmeat has become a multimil-lion dollar business.

Hunters consider all wildlife fair game; and they prefer large animals such as apes, elephants and largeantelope because they generate the highest returns oninvestment. When large animals become scarce, huntingpressure on the system may not relinquish if smaller animalsare sufficiently abundant to keep hunting economicallyviable. And whenever they can, hunters will still take themore profitable large animals, regardless of their scarcity.

This is unsustainable. As hunting pressure increases in agiven area, hunters will hunt smaller and smaller animals aslarge animals become depleted and in many cases extirpated.In marine systems, conservationists have warned that we arefishing down the food chain. In tropical forests, we face ananalgous threat—hunting down the body size. Conservationinitiatives range from working with logging companies toclose unused roads and to restrict access, to working withnational governments and interna-tional agencies to make commer-cial hunting illegal while allowingless vulnerable species to behunted for local consumption.

The Empty Forest

Many large animals are already ecologically extinct in vast areas of neotropical forest where the vegetation still appears intact

Kent H. Redford

he world conservation community has focused much of its attention on the plight of

tropical forests. Many authors have lamented the loss of forest cover and the destruction of the forest and spec- ulated on the extent of the tropical forest left intact. Throughout the dis- cussion, tall, majestic, tropical trees are used as a symbol for the complete set of animal and plant species found in tropical forests. Trees are also being used by some conservation biologists, park planners, and others to represent the entire tropical forest biota and as a measure of conservation worth.

The presence of soaring, buttressed tropical trees, however, does not guarantee the presence of resident fauna. Often trees remain in a forest that human activities have emptied of many of its large animals. The ab- sence of these animals has profound implications, one of which is that a forest can be destroyed by humans from within as well as from without.

Until recently, human influence on tropical forests through such activities as burning, swidden agriculture, and hunting was regarded by ecologists as of such low impact that it was negligible, as important but confined to areas of human settlement, or as confined to rapacious colonizers de-

Kent H. Redford is the director of the Program for Studies in Tropical Conser- vation and an associate professor in the Center for Latin American Studies and Department of Wildlife and Range Sci- ence, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. ? 1992 American Institute of Biological Sciences.

We must not let a forest full of trees fool

us into believing all is well

stroying the forest from the outside. In any case, ecologists looked for study sites that would allow for ex- amination of "natural" processes un- contaminated by anthropogenic effects. Data from botany, archaeology, and anthropology collected in many parts of the world are showing, however, that anthropogenic effects are ubiquitous and that the sought-after virgin habitat may not exist. Flenley (1979), for example, has documented widespread human effects on tropical forests throughout the equatorial re- gions.

The relatively recent arrival of humans in the western hemisphere has not lessened the overall impact our species has had on neotropical forests. From the forests of Mexico through Panama, and the montane forests of Colombia to Ecuador, sci- entists have documented the ways in which pre-Columbian humans altered the presence, extent, and structure of forests. The forests of the Amazon basin were also extensively altered by human activities. In fact, Balee (1989) has recently suggested that at least 11.8% of the terra firme forests of the Brazilian Amazon, almost 400,000 km2, show continuing effects of past human interference.

With few exceptions, researchers have concentrated on direct alteration of vegetation, not discussing the ways in which human activities have af- fected the animals of tropical forest ecosystems. In this article, I expand the focus to include defaunation of tropical forests, concentrating on the forests of the Amazon basin, and I show that the long-term preservation of tropical forest vegetation will not be possible if the forest fauna is not also preserved.

Indirect defaunation Humans can devastate a fauna by indirect or direct means. Indirect defaunation is the destruction of a fauna through human activity not aimed specifically at animals. In tropical forests, habitat destruction is the most common of these practices-not sur- prisingly, many forest animals cannot survive without forest. A less-often- considered type of habitat destruction occurs when animals are absent from an area of otherwise excellent habitat because some critical area elsewhere, such as a nesting beach, was destroyed. This problem affects animals including migratory birds, beach- nesting turtles, and white-lipped pec- cary (Tayassu pecari) herds.

There are many other types of indirect defaunation. One of the most important is probably the effect of forest-extraction activities by humans. For example, logging can re- move fruit-bearing trees and destroy nesting and other critical areas.

Less obvious are the effects that stem from the much-publicized ex-

BioScience Vol. 42 No. 6 412

7KH�(PSW\�)RUHVW$XWKRU�V��.HQW�+��5HGIRUG6RXUFH��%LR6FLHQFH��9RO��1R��-XQ��SS��3XEOLVKHG�E\��$PHULFDQ�,QVWLWXWH�RI�%LRORJLFDO�6FLHQFHV6WDEOH�85/��http://www.jstor.org/stable/1311860$FFHVVHG��

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aibs.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

American Institute of Biological Sciences is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto BioScience.

http://www.jstor.org

Empty forest syndrom

Ecological&issues&(1990s?onwards)&

Simple&biological&models&

van Vliet (2008), Variabilité spatiale et temporelle au sein du système « chasseur-animal-territoire de chasse villageois » 7

rendement maximum durable ou « Maximum Sustainable Yield » (MSY) et capacité de

charge (K). La plupart des mammifères chassés de la zone tropicale suivent une courbe

de population densité-dépendante. Un prélèvement durable dans une population

animale dépend donc de la relation entre le taux d’accroissement et la taille de

population. Le modèle « Stock-Recrutement » prédit le risque des prélèvements à

différents niveaux de population (MCCULLOUGH, 1987 sité dans BODMER & ROBINSON,

2005). Le plus haut niveau de population se situe à la capacité de charge (K) et le plus

bas se situe à l’extinction de la population (0). Dans ce modèle, le MSY se situe à 50%

de K pour les espèces à très courte longévité, à 60% de K pour des espèces à courte

longévité et à 80% de K pour des espèces à longue durée de vie.

Un prélèvement durable peut avoir lieu à différents niveaux de population, mais il

existe un seul point auquel le prélèvement est maximum, c’est le Maximum

Sustainable Yield (CAUGHLEY, 1977). La densité d’une population chassée (N) peut être

positionnée par rapport à MSY et à K dans la courbe du modèle (voir figure 1). Une

surexploitation au niveau de population A peut conduire à l’extinction de la

population alors qu’une surexploitation au niveau de population B peut réduire le

niveau de population sans risque d’extirpation. Le modèle « Stock-Recrutement » ne

sert pas à évaluer la durabilité de la chasse à l’instant t. Par contre, c’est un outil

puissant pour prévoir le potentiel de durabilité de la chasse à long terme.

Figure 1: Représentation du modèle « Stock-Recrutement » avec K et MSY

A B

MSY

0 K

Maximum

Sustainable

Yield

Densité de la population kg/km2

Niveau de prelevement durable

kg/km2/an

van Vliet (2008), Variabilité spatiale et temporelle au sein du système « chasseur-animal-territoire de chasse villageois » 9

0.2 pour des espèces qui ont une longévité de moins de 5 ans, entre 5 et 10 ans et

supérieure à 10 ans, respectivement. Ce facteur hypothétique a été estimé pour les

espèces Néo tropicales et a été appliqué sans réajustement pour les espèces africaines.

Pmax est calculé comme suit:

Pmax = (e rmax –1)*D

Avec D : la densité de l’espèce et rmax : le taux maximum d’accroissement de la population.

Etant donné que les densités sont difficiles à mesurer sur le terrain, ROBINSON &

REDFORD (1991) ont proposé d’utiliser une valeur prédictive de D, fonction de la

capacité de charge des milieux (K). La valeur de D mesurée dans une zone non chassée

est supposée représenter la valeur de K. La loi logistique de croissance d’une

population montre que la production maximum (Pmax) est atteinte pour une densité

égale à 0,5K. Sur la base de courbes de croissance de population établies pour des

espèces Néo tropicales, ROBINSON & REDFORD (1991) montrent que, pour les espèces

qui ne mettent bas que tard dans leur vie, la production maximum est atteinte lorsque

D est égal à 0,6K et Pmax est égale à:

Pmax = (e rmax –1)*D= (ermax –1)*0,6 K

La valeur du Prélèvement Maximum Durable (PDM) (ou Maximum Sustainable

Harvest (MSH) dans la suite de ce document), est ensuite comparée au prélèvement

observé. Si les prélèvements sont supérieurs au MSH, alors la chasse n’est pas durable

et peut rendre les espèces exploitées vulnérables au risque d’extinction ou

déséquilibrer le fonctionnement de l’écosystème (ROBINSON & REDFORD, 1991).

Robinson&&&Redford,&1991&



Law&enforcement&and&sensi/za/on&

&(Hyp:&Hun/ng&is&criminal,&unsafe&and&unsustainable)&

Department of Geography & Geology

&"According&to&BIOLOGICAL&MODELS,&

HUNTING&IS&UNSUSTAINABLE&AND&DUIKERS&ARE&BOUND&TO&BECOME&

EXTINCT,&but&DUIKERs&don't&know&anything&about&&BIOLOGICAL&

MODELS,&so&they&ahead&and&SURVIVE&

anyway.”&&

Nathalie van Vliet &&

Transitions in terms of the theoretical frameworks used for the analysis


“Long7term*popula/on*monitoring*programmes&will&be&the&most&informa/ve&approach&to&provide&baseline&informa/on&against&which&any&hun/ng&

effects&and/or&conserva/on&interven/ons&can&be&monitored”&

REV IEW AND

SYNTHES IS Searching for sustainability: are assessments of wildlifeharvests behind the times?

Karen Z. Weinbaum,1* Justin S.

Brashares,1 Christopher D.

Golden1,3 and Wayne M. Getz1,2

AbstractThe unsustainable harvest of wildlife is a major threat to global biodiversity and to the millions of peoplewho depend on wildlife for food and income. Past research has called attention to the fact that commonlyused methods to evaluate the sustainability of wildlife hunting perform poorly, yet these methods remain inpopular use today. Here, we conduct a systematic review of empirical sustainability assessments to quantifythe use of sustainability indicators in the scientific literature and highlight associations between analyticalmethods and their outcomes. We find that indicator type, continent of study, species body mass, taxonomicgroup and socio-economic status of study site are important predictors of the probability of reported sus-tainability. The most common measures of sustainability include population growth models, the Robinson& Redford (1991) model and population trends through time. Indicators relying on population-specific bio-logical data are most often used in North America and Europe, while cruder estimates are more often usedin Africa, Latin America and Oceania. Our results highlight both the uncertainty and lack of uniformity insustainability science. Given our urgent need to conserve both wildlife and the food security of ruralpeoples around the world, improvements in sustainability indicators are of utmost importance.

KeywordsBushmeat, harvest, hunt, indicators, indices, sustainability, wildlife.

Ecology Letters (2013) 16: 99–111

INTRODUCTION

The harvest of wildlife for human consumption and use is a majorthreat to global biodiversity and paradoxically, to the very peoplewho depend on it. Millions of people around the world rely onwildlife as a major source of protein, calories, micronutrients and inmany cases, livelihoods (Fa et al. 2002; Corlett 2007; Brashares et al.2011; Golden et al. 2011). Although humans have been huntingwildlife for millennia, increasing human populations, improvedhunting technologies, expanded market access and logging roadsthat bring people deeper into tropical forests all contribute toincreased pressure on wildlife populations.Overexploitation is now one of the major threats to mammals,

reptiles and birds, second only to habitat destruction (Vie et al.2009). The hunting of wildlife is considered the ‘single most geo-graphically widespread form of resource extraction’ in the tropics(Fa et al. 2002); published accounts of the scale and magnitude ofwildlife hunting in the tropics conclude that wildlife hunting forhuman consumption is largely unsustainable (Milner-Gulland et al.2003; Fa et al. 2005). This situation has come to be known as the‘bushmeat crisis’; bushmeat, a colloquial African term meaning‘meat from the bush’, and ‘crisis’, the unsustainable levels at whichwildlife is being harvested.Similar to fisheries and forests, wildlife can be viewed as a renew-

able resource whose regenerative capacity allows some level of har-vest, while sustaining stock populations at ecologically viable levels.A given level of harvest is considered sustainable if it is at or below

the level that permits the resource to regenerate itself in perpetuity.Sustainable use of biological resources has been promoted as aworkable solution to averting species extinctions and maintainingacceptable levels of ecosystem health and structure, while at thesame time taking into account human needs (Ginsberg & Milner-Gulland 1994; Bodmer & Lozano 2001).How, then, do we determine if a given hunting level is sustainable

or not (and by extension, heading towards a crisis)? Upon closerexamination, there is much ambiguity in the scientific literature abouthow best to measure whether wildlife harvest in a given system is sus-tainable. In a landmark review, Milner-Gulland & Akcakaya (2001)called attention to the fact that indicators used most commonly toevaluate the sustainability of wildlife hunting ‘do not perform wellunder realistic conditions’. However, these authors only evaluated asmall subset of the most commonly used indicators. Although a sub-stantial amount of research has aimed to assess the sustainability ofwildlife hunting regimes, particularly across the tropics (e.g. Cowli-shaw et al. 2005; Fa et al. 2005), the methods and results of theseefforts remain fragmented. Here, we review and synthesise empiricalwork to date on wildlife harvest sustainability, and construct a data setfrom the results of these studies to examine the following questions:

(1) What methods are used most frequently in the scientific litera-ture to assess the sustainability of wildlife harvesting?(2) Does the choice of the sustainability indicator used in a studypredict the likelihood that the study will conclude harvests areunsustainable?

1Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, University of

California, Berkeley, 130 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720-3112, USA2School of Mathematical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag

X54001, Durban, 4000, South Africa

3Present address: Harvard University Center for the Environment, 24 Oxford

Street 3rd floor, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

*Correspondance: E-mail: [email protected]

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/CNRS

Ecology Letters, (2013) 16: 99–111 doi: 10.1111/ele.12008

REV IEW AND

SYNTHES IS Searching for sustainability: are assessments of wildlifeharvests behind the times?

Karen Z. Weinbaum,1* Justin S.

Brashares,1 Christopher D.

Golden1,3 and Wayne M. Getz1,2

AbstractThe unsustainable harvest of wildlife is a major threat to global biodiversity and to the millions of peoplewho depend on wildlife for food and income. Past research has called attention to the fact that commonlyused methods to evaluate the sustainability of wildlife hunting perform poorly, yet these methods remain inpopular use today. Here, we conduct a systematic review of empirical sustainability assessments to quantifythe use of sustainability indicators in the scientific literature and highlight associations between analyticalmethods and their outcomes. We find that indicator type, continent of study, species body mass, taxonomicgroup and socio-economic status of study site are important predictors of the probability of reported sus-tainability. The most common measures of sustainability include population growth models, the Robinson& Redford (1991) model and population trends through time. Indicators relying on population-specific bio-logical data are most often used in North America and Europe, while cruder estimates are more often usedin Africa, Latin America and Oceania. Our results highlight both the uncertainty and lack of uniformity insustainability science. Given our urgent need to conserve both wildlife and the food security of ruralpeoples around the world, improvements in sustainability indicators are of utmost importance.

KeywordsBushmeat, harvest, hunt, indicators, indices, sustainability, wildlife.

Ecology Letters (2013) 16: 99–111

INTRODUCTION

The harvest of wildlife for human consumption and use is a majorthreat to global biodiversity and paradoxically, to the very peoplewho depend on it. Millions of people around the world rely onwildlife as a major source of protein, calories, micronutrients and inmany cases, livelihoods (Fa et al. 2002; Corlett 2007; Brashares et al.2011; Golden et al. 2011). Although humans have been huntingwildlife for millennia, increasing human populations, improvedhunting technologies, expanded market access and logging roadsthat bring people deeper into tropical forests all contribute toincreased pressure on wildlife populations.Overexploitation is now one of the major threats to mammals,

reptiles and birds, second only to habitat destruction (Vie et al.2009). The hunting of wildlife is considered the ‘single most geo-graphically widespread form of resource extraction’ in the tropics(Fa et al. 2002); published accounts of the scale and magnitude ofwildlife hunting in the tropics conclude that wildlife hunting forhuman consumption is largely unsustainable (Milner-Gulland et al.2003; Fa et al. 2005). This situation has come to be known as the‘bushmeat crisis’; bushmeat, a colloquial African term meaning‘meat from the bush’, and ‘crisis’, the unsustainable levels at whichwildlife is being harvested.Similar to fisheries and forests, wildlife can be viewed as a renew-

able resource whose regenerative capacity allows some level of har-vest, while sustaining stock populations at ecologically viable levels.A given level of harvest is considered sustainable if it is at or below

the level that permits the resource to regenerate itself in perpetuity.Sustainable use of biological resources has been promoted as aworkable solution to averting species extinctions and maintainingacceptable levels of ecosystem health and structure, while at thesame time taking into account human needs (Ginsberg & Milner-Gulland 1994; Bodmer & Lozano 2001).How, then, do we determine if a given hunting level is sustainable

or not (and by extension, heading towards a crisis)? Upon closerexamination, there is much ambiguity in the scientific literature abouthow best to measure whether wildlife harvest in a given system is sus-tainable. In a landmark review, Milner-Gulland & Akcakaya (2001)called attention to the fact that indicators used most commonly toevaluate the sustainability of wildlife hunting ‘do not perform wellunder realistic conditions’. However, these authors only evaluated asmall subset of the most commonly used indicators. Although a sub-stantial amount of research has aimed to assess the sustainability ofwildlife hunting regimes, particularly across the tropics (e.g. Cowli-shaw et al. 2005; Fa et al. 2005), the methods and results of theseefforts remain fragmented. Here, we review and synthesise empiricalwork to date on wildlife harvest sustainability, and construct a data setfrom the results of these studies to examine the following questions:

(1) What methods are used most frequently in the scientific litera-ture to assess the sustainability of wildlife harvesting?(2) Does the choice of the sustainability indicator used in a studypredict the likelihood that the study will conclude harvests areunsustainable?

1Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, University of

California, Berkeley, 130 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720-3112, USA2School of Mathematical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag

X54001, Durban, 4000, South Africa

3Present address: Harvard University Center for the Environment, 24 Oxford

Street 3rd floor, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

*Correspondance: E-mail: [email protected]

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/CNRS

Ecology Letters, (2013) 16: 99–111 doi: 10.1111/ele.12008


Socio?economic&issues&(2000&onwards)&

Wildlife Policy Briefing

Wild

life P

olicy

Num

ber 2

, Nov

embe

r 200

3

Bushmeat & poverty alleviation: implications for development policyDavid Brown

Bushmeat - the positives?This article is concerned with the bushmeat trade – that is,

with the trade in wild meat (usually smoked meat of largermammals), for consumptive purposes as a protein source. Itfocuses on the situation in West-Central Africa. With somelicence, the article treats the trade in this region in a fairlyhomogeneous way. The bushmeat trade is a multi-milliondollar industry in the sub-region, and often a majorcomponent of local economies. Though estimates arenecessarily speculative, volumes of 1-5 million tonnes ofundressed meat annually (worth US$2-10 billion or more)are widely quoted in the literature.

In many ways, this trade can be viewed in a very positivelight. Its scale, vigour and international penetration bearwitness to the resilience, resourcefulness and self sufficiencyof peoples who are often living at the very margins of globaleconomy. Bushmeat has many characteristics that make it

Policy conclusions¾ There is a need to shift the bushmeat debate onto

more positive terrain, recognising the manybenefits which the trade in wild meat offers therange state economies.

¾ There are strong practical and moral arguments tofavour increased engagement by developmentassistance agencies in this debate.

¾ The arguments in favour of bushmeat as acomponent of social safety nets are strong; thoserelating to its possible role in economictransformation are less well understood.

¾ Bushmeat could well figure as a component ofgovernance reform; this would have implicationsfor the policies of international conservationagencies quite as much as range state governments.

¾ Strategies of governance reform would includelegal and regulatory reform, in a pro-poordirection. These must be linked to theestablishment of channels of legitimate trade, ifthe reforms are not merely to drive this lucrativeindustry further underground.

Number 2 , November 2003

This paper is an output of a project on livelihoods dimensions of wild meat trade in the tropics funded by the John D &Catherine T MacArthur Foundation. The views expressed are not necessarily those of ODI and the MacArthur Foundation.

The bushmeat trade is a subject of heightened interest in conservation circles, but has rarely been taken up by developmentassistance agencies. This has hindered the search for effective solutions which engender local ownership. Three considerationscommend the issue to development agencies at the present time: in relation to poverty alleviation, wild meat figures stronglyin social safety nets and might figure as a component of economic growth and development; it could well figure in governancereform. This paper considers the arguments relating to these three areas and the policy implications arising.

attractive to these peoples, particularly to the poor.

These include:¾ High returns to discontinuous labour inputs, with low

risk and minimal capital outlay.¾ Excellent storage properties and a high value/weight ratio;

it is easily transported and is thus an attractive commodityfor producers in isolated areas who have few alternatives.¾ A commodity chain characterised by high social inclusivity,

in both wealth and gender terms.¾ Labour inputs that are easily reconciled with the agricultural

cycle, and with diversified income-earning strategies.¾Unlike many high-value marketed commodities, usage can

readily be switched between consumption and trade.The starting point in any analysis of the bushmeat trade

should surely be these positive benefits, and any attempt toimprove its management should take the preservation of themas its fundamental parameter.

That these benefits are rarely seriously acknowledged, andeven less often preserved in policy, can be related partly togenuine concerns about sustainability of a resource whosesupply appears markedly inelastic. But the stigmatisation ofthe trade in western media goes beyond this issue, andarguably owes more to the projection of the values ofindustrial society onto the tropical world than any desire toguarantee the future interests of the bushmeat-dependentpoor. Paradoxically, far from securing internationalconservation objectives, such stigmatisation may well becontributing unwittingly to their frustration.

Varying perspectives on the bushmeat tradesTo date, the academic literature – and even more so, coverage

in the popular media – have focused predominantly on thenegative effects of the trade on wildlife populations. Otherinterests have been acknowledged, though the context hasusually made clear that the central issue is biodiversity, andthat the human interest is, at best, a contingent one.

The arguments in favour of the conservationist perspectiveare strong. Witnessed by such indicators as decliningpopulation densities of vulnerable species and changes inthe age distribution of the harvest, the evidence isoverwhelmingly of an erosion of important components of

“There&is&a&need&to&shic&the&bushmeat&debate&onto&more&posi/ve&terrain,&recognizing&the&many&benefits&which&the&trade&in&wild&meat&offers&the&range&state&economies”.&&&


Ecological&issues&(1990s&onwards)&



Markets&

Food&security&and&

nutri/on&

Local&livelihoods&

Poverty&and&

income&


Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Report prepared for the CBD Bushmeat Liaison Group

60CBD Technical Series No. 60

LIVELIHOOD ALTERNATIVES FOR THE UNSUSTAINABLE USE OF BUSHMEAT


Law&enforcement&and&sensi/za/on&


Alterna/ves&of&livelihood&

(Hyp:&People&will&switch&to&other&alterna/ves&of&income&and&food&if&those&were&made&available)&

Ecological&issues&(1990&s&onwards)&

Socio&economic&issues&(2000&onwards)&

Health&issues&(2005&onwards)&

Stations during a period of enhanced surveillance com-pared to the average number of reports during the sameperiod in 2006 through 2009 (44 versus 11 confiscations,respectively). When this analysis was limited to the six par-ticipating POE, over seven times more bushmeat confisca-tions were reported during the period of enhancedsurveillance (36 versus 5 confiscations, respectively).

Focus groups

Importance of bushmeatFocus group participants provided multiple reasons forwhy they believe bushmeat is important. Participantsconveyed that hunting, eating and selling wildlife carcasseswere primary means of income and livelihood for manyvillagers in Africa. Several participants in the DC focusgroups stated that wild animals were given by a deity as asource of food and remarked on how closely people

were connected to animals and the environment. InAtlanta, one participant stated that hunting bushmeat wasa way of life.‘God has given us wildlife. They have to be protectedby man, but also, on the other hand, they are our offood. We raise domestic animals, but when you raise adomestic animal, you don’t get the full amount to feedyour family every day. For example, you have live-stock, you buy a male and a female cow: it takes timefor the female to get pregnant, for the babies toappear. In the meantime, in the bushes, you have allvariety of animals that you can choose to eat.’‘If we were to stop villagers from hunting, it would belike telling Americans they can’t go to the grocerystore.’Participants in both New York and Atlanta conveyed that

eating bushmeat was a way to share their culture withfriends and family. Bushmeat was also seen as a delicacy,

0 4,500 9,000 13,500 18,0002,250Kilometers

Number Reports

Up to 15

16-30

31-45

46 and Above

Fig. 2. Countries of origin of bushmeat

items confiscated at US ports of entry,

September 2005–December 2010

(n = 422).

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Perc

enta

ge (%

)

80

90

100

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

DallasChicagoHoustonNew YorkDCAtlantaBostonNewarkDetroit

Fig. 3. Relative proportion of US

bushmeat-confiscation reports by port of

entry*, January 2006**–December 2010.

© 2013 Blackwell Verlag GmbH ! Zoonoses and Public Health, 2014, 61, 97–104100

Bushmeat Importation into the United States 2005–2010 H. Bair-Brake et al.


Ecological&issues&(1990s&onwards)&

Socio&economic&issues&(2000&onwards)&

Health&issues&(2005&onwards)&

Cultural&aspects&(2010&onwards)&


Bushmeat*in*the*interna/onal*policy*framework*

Future trends in Bushmeat research Food security and

health

Cultural Identity

Ecological foot print


Multifuntionality of hunting

Sustainable&hun/ng&and&trade?&

Future trends in Bushmeat research

Is sustainable hunting still possible?

Future trends in bushmeat research

Resilience&theory&and&

socio?ecological&systems&

Biological&models&

Bio?economic&models&

Spa/ally&explicit&models&

Mul/disciplinary*approaches:*Economy&Ecology&Ethno&biology&Health&….&

&&

Innova/ve*techniques**Camera&trapping&Gene/cs&Telemetry&Bio?chemical&analysis&

Modeling&tools&….&

Pictures: Nathalie Van Vliet, Daniel Cornelis, Blanca

Yague

THANK&YOU&

In&Cairns&

FORESTS,&WILDLIFE&&&NUTRITION&

Bushmeat research in the past 3 decades: What has it changed for sustainable hunting?

Science

Transcript of Bushmeat research in the past 3 decades: What has it changed for sustainable hunting?