The issue
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Bushmeat - meat from wild animals – is a regular source of food and income for many of West and Central Africa’s poorest inhabitants but crisis is looming for both wildlife and people.
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Hunting has increased as roads built to serve the logging industry allow hunters with guns and wire snares to penetrate ever deeper into the forest. Meanwhile, urbanization and population growth has led to increased markets for bushmeat in towns and cities. |
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Unsustainable bushmeat hunting and habitat loss threaten the very existence of the endangered Great Apes – gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. However, increasing scarcity of forest and wildlife resources will also have devastating consequences for people who depend on the forests for their everyday needs.
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On a global scale, all of humanity relies on the huge rainforests of the Congo Basin to store carbon and keep the global climate stable. Indeed, “there are significant risks to the achievement of all Millenium Development Goals, and not just MDG7 about environmental sustainability, if the current pace of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity losses continues unchecked” (EU TEEB report 2010).
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Solutions |
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This is a complex problem. Corruption, poor law enforcement, and human rights issues all need to be addressed to counter habitat loss and unsustainable exploitation of environmental resources.
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Timber
One of the driving forces behind the bushmeat crisis is the demand for timber products around the world, as logging roads open up new areas and workers in logging camps add to demand for meat from the forest. Bushmeat is often transported on logging trucks to markets in fast-growing cities. |
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The Forestry Stewardship Council is an international organisation set up to reduce the negative environmental and social impacts of the international timber trade. Timber companies can apply for FSC certification which means that their timber operations are monitored by an external auditor against a set of principles, including protecting workers and forest-dwelling people from exploitation and protecting ‘high-value’ species and habitats. It should be noted that some observers believe that the process needs to be stricter, particularly in countries where law enforcement is challenged by corrupt regimes and civil conflict.
If you are buying timber products - furniture, building materials, paper, or charcoal - look out for the FSC label, but remember the certificate only applies to the product not everything produced by that company. You may also want to do some research yourself into whether Chatham House have any concerns about certification or illegal logging in the country where your potential purchase comes from.
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Reducing dependence on bushmeat
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Community development initiatives can make it easier for people to stick to rules on the conservation of local resources. As an example, Projet Grande Singes in Cameroon supports community farming initiatives and helped launch a Community Wildlife Management Committee to develop and apply rules for sustainable hunting. Another example is ERUDEF - the Environment and Rural Development Foundation - a Cameroonian non-governmental organisation which aims to conserve wildiife and protect fragile environments through research, education and community engagement, including the development of eco-tourism in gorilla habitat. |
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This is a video interview with Community Forest Manager Janvier Mondoa, recorded for the Silent Forests project during his study visit to the UK. The Bimbia Bonadikombo Community Forest is near Limbe, Cameroon and works to improve people's livelihoods through sustainable forest management and ecotourism.
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Stricter law enforcement
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Some projects and government initiatives also use a ‘stick’ as well as or instead of a ‘carrot’ approach. Endangered species like the Great Apes are already protected by national and international law, and enforcement of these laws with fines and even prison sentences is becoming more common in some countries whilst national parks and other strictly protected areas often employ eco-guards to police rules on hunting and other uses of the forest by local people.
In some areas, there are concerns that the costs of conservation are borne by the poorest members of society - people who are used to relying on forest resources - whilst the benefits are controlled by more powerful national or international organisations.
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Someone does have to pay in the short term to conserve valuable resources for the long-term: Who and how this is organised are important issues for local, national and international debate. Each case needs to be assessed with regard to both wildlife conservation and actual economic benefit to the local community. |
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Controversy
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People have always hunted wildlife and for many, it is still central to their way of life. There is an on-going controversy about whether it is possible to manage hunting of some highly productive wildlife species so that the harvest can be sustained. Great Apes and other primates usually have so few offspring that any hunting is very likely to cause population decline. There are also huge animal welfare concerns about hunting such sociable and intelligent animals. Some people think that common wild species, such as the cane rat and some arteriodactyls (pig/deer-like species), ought to be freely hunted. Others say that a hunter with snares and guns can’t or won’t discriminate and that people should find ways to farm these species instead, or should eat other alternative protein like chicken, fish or soya beans.
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Questions
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Links
Read more about the bushmeat crisis on www.bushmeat.org
Look into current research and conservation initiatives by UK Zoological Society of London on www.zsl.org/bushmeat
Recommended reading and link details
The timber industry
Alternative livelihoods
Solutions
Other factors in the bushmeat crisis
Bushmeat facts references and links
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Bushmeat Facts
Between 1 and 5 million tonnes of bushmeat are removed from Congo Basin forests every year (1)
Harvest rates are almost certainly unsustainable:
"...we are witnessing massive and completely unmanaged harvesting, in conditions of ever-increasing public access, improvements in destructive technologies, wide availability of arms, ammunition and growing penetration by high spending and strategically-positioned “elites"..." (2)
A 2010 study estimated that up to 5 tonnes of bushmeat is smuggled into Europe each week via Paris airport (3)
With few offspring and high rates of natural mortality, gorillas and other primates are especially vulnerable to over-hunting (4)
The bushmeat crisis is part of what people are calling the sixth mass extinction, the biggest loss of species since the dinosaurs disappeared (5)
Major threats to wildlife in the 21st century include over-hunting, deforestation, introduced species and pollution (6)
Over 700 species of animal have gone extinct in the wild since 1500AD (7)
