1. Conservation and utilization of wildlife in the Congo
Basin: How to tackle the protein gap?
Robert Nasi, Nathalie Van Vliet, Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez
Nutrition and Food Production in the Congo Basin
Brussels, 30 September – 1 October 2013

2. The “Bushmeat Crisis”
 Empirical evidence
• Historical: hunting-related
extinctions (passenger
pigeon, American buffalo…)
• Today: local extirpation
because of hunting (for food
or trade in wildlife parts)
 Is “doomsday” coming?
• Not sure but there is a clear
sustainability problem
 Biodiversity but also
livelihoods of local people
are at stake

3. Importance of wildlife
 Ecological
• Keystone species
• Ecological services
 Economical
• Local livelihoods, food
security
• Income generation
 Cultural
•
•
•
•
Social bonding,
Redistribution
Traditional ceremonies,
Taboos
 Defaunation
• Not restricted only to
environmental or
conservation issues
• Livelihoods issues are
at least as important
• “Bushmeat hunting”
needs to be
approached as a
socio-ecological
system

4. Ecological aspects
 Extinction or extirpation of
hunted species
 Food chain feed–back and
Allee effects
 Potential pest outbreaks
 Changes in pollination
patterns
 Changes in seed predation
/ dispersion patterns
 Modification of vegetation
dynamics and biomass
fluxes

5. Socio-economic aspects
 Potential food crisis;
malnutrition
 Deforestation or forest
degradation for
alternative sources of
protein
 Unsustainable harvesting
of other wild resources
(e.g. fish)
 Public health issues
 Loss of income
 Loss of cultural identity

6. Bushmeat hunting
in Congo Basin
 Estimates of the value of the
bushmeat trade range from
US$42 to US$205 million per
year in West-Central Africa.
 Current harvest in Central Africa
alone may well be in excess of
5 million tons annually,
equivalent of over 2 billion
chickens or 15 million cows!
 30 to 80% of the protein intake
of many rural populations

7. LA
A simplified bushmeat
value chain
Resource
Transporters
Hunters
Consumers, rural
Consumers, urban (incl. international)
Retailers
Wholesalers

8. Issues at hands
 Complex wicked problem, no simple solution or
“silver bullet”
 Driven by many underlying causes similar to the
ones that drive poverty
 Livelihood issues as important as biological ones
 Very important gender dimension to be properly
considered
 Interdiction and enforcement only policies cannot
work in the short or medium term
 Resource needs to be managed and its use
monitored

9. Tackling the protein gap
 Solution can only be combinations of various
actions at different points of the value chain and
of the enabling environment
 Actions need to be combined at various levels
around three main elements:
– Reducing the demand for bushmeat
– Making the off-take, supply more sustainable with proper
management of the resource
– Creating an conducive and enabling institutional and
policy environment

10. Reducing demand
 Hunters, rural
consumers
– Develop alternative
sources of protein at a cost
similar to bushmeat
– Improve economic
opportunities in productive
sectors
– Use local media (e.g.
radio) to deliver
environmental education
and raise awareness

11. Reducing demand
 Retailers, urban consumers
– Strictly enforcing ban of protected/endangered species
sales and consumption
– Confiscating and publicly incinerating carcasses
– Taxing sales of authorized species
 International consumers
– Instituting very heavy fines for possession or trade of
bushmeat (whatever the status or provenance of the
species)
– Raising awareness of the issue in airports or seaports
– Engaging and making accountable airline or shipping
companies

12. Improving sustainability of
supply
 Hunter, rural consumers
– Negotiate hunting rules allowing harvesting resilient species and
banning vulnerable ones
– Define self-monitored quotas and co-construct simple selfmonitoring tools
 Research and extension services
– Develop and disseminate simple monitoring methods
– Understanding the “empty forest” syndrome:
• Role of source-sink effects in hunting areas
• Competition and substitutions effects on forest composition and structure
– Analyze relationships and trade-off between bushmeat and other protein
sources
• Bushmeat and freshwater fish consumption
• Bushmeat and domestic meat (livestock, poultry…) footprints
• Is there a nutritional transition? Where? Into which alternative protein source?

13. Improving sustainability of
supply
 Extractive industries
– Enforce codes of conducts and
include wildlife concerns in
companies’ standard operating
procedures
– Forbid transportation on company’s
cars or trucks
– Establish manned checkpoints (with
trained personnel) on main roads
– Provide alternative sources of
protein at cost
– Organize, support community
hunting schemes
– Adopt and implement certification

14. “Enabling” environment
 National policy makers and agencies (range
states)
– Enhancing ownership, linked to tenurial and rights reform
– Legitimize the bushmeat debate
– Make an economic assessment of the sector and include
in national statistics
– Acknowledge contribution of bushmeat to food security in
national strategies
– Develop a framework to “formalize” parts of the trade
– Review national legislation for coherence, practicality and
to reflect actual practices (without surrendering key
conservation concerns)
– Include bushmeat/wildlife modules in curricula

15. “Enabling” environment
 International policies
– Strict enforcement of CITES
– Ensure wildlife issues are covered within internationallysupported policy processes
– Link international trade with increased emerging disease
risks
– Impose tough fines and shame irresponsible behavior
 Local institutions
– Negotiate full support of communities that have a vested
interest in protecting the resource
– Increase capacity to setup and manage sustainable
bushmeat markets
– Develop local participatory monitoring tools

16. Conclusion?
 No universal solutions exist to solve the problem
of unsustainable bushmeat hunting in tropical
forests.
 Some principles need to be taken into account in
order to achieve the sustainability of bushmeat
hunting:
– Ensure that research is linked to the practices
– Mitigate against the potential for tension between
livelihood and conservation objectives
– Analyse both the livelihood and conservation implications
of a given intervention on all stakeholders
– Search alternative models from other sectors
– Identify the most appropriate entry points
– Employ multi-pronged approaches to a complex problem
by involving different stakeholders

17. Pictures: Nathalie
Van Vliet, David
Wilkie, Rober Nasi
and CIFOR