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The trade of bushmeat from rural areas to supply burgeoning cities is a major conservation and livelihood concern. Using a whole-city sampling strategy we mapped the distribution and numbers of meat outlets in the Kinshasa-Brazzaville metropolitan area, two neighboring capital cities in Central Africa. We show that both cities differ in the number and density of meat outlets, with more in Brazzaville per area sampled and inhabitants. The number of meat outlets is related to human population densities and primarily concentrated along the banks of the Congo River, in the more affluent areas of the cities. Across the two cities, roughly 22% of all sampled markets (50% in Brazzaville and 19% in Kinshasa) and 24% of all visited restaurants (24% in each city) were selling bushmeat during our survey. Despite the relatively low number of establishments offering bushmeat for sale, extrapolated to the entire area and population of both cities, we expect the overall amount of wild animal meat consumed per annum to be significantly high. We suggest that the supply of such numbers of wild animal meat will strongly impact the animal populations sourcing these cities. Our data also indicate that the number of domestic meat outlets may be adequate to supply urban dwellers with sufficient animal protein.

In tropical forests today, hunting for food and income remains largely unsustainable, with adverse implications for biodiversity, ecological services, and human wellbeing. Even though our scientific knowledge of the issue has improved greatly in recent years, the situation on the ground has not. This Perspective presents our opinions and ideas to scientists and practitioners on the necessary next steps to promote sustainability. Our collective experience running and fund raising for conservation projects suggests that efforts to reduce or halt unsustainable hunting of wildlife for food have invested resources primarily in protected area management and law enforcement. While necessary, in our opinion these have been insufficient, and a more integrated, theory‐driven approach is needed across the whole wild meat commodity chain. We propose that behavioral science theory and tested levers of change when applied to all actors along the chain will better inform conservation tactics. If implemented at a sufficient scale, this will nudge human behavior toward policies and practices that will prevent our appetite for wild meat from driving additional wildlife species to extinction and further threaten local livelihoods.

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. Los animales silvestres (i.e., carne de monte) son una fuente importante de proteina 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.

Community Markets for Conservation is a private sector, not‐for‐profit social enterprise in Zambia. It was established in 2003 to halt wildlife poaching and illegal tree cutting for charcoal by helping poor rural families to increase their food and income security through improved farming practices and marketing of value‐added agricultural commodities. COMACO supports 178,891 farmers in the Luangwa Valley, providing them with improved farming skills, seed loans, a premium price for their crop surplus, and a dividend if they comply with sustainable farming and wildlife, and forest conservation best practices. Maize yields using COMACO methods increased by 63% and net income was 37% higher than for farmers who purchased inorganic fertilizers. Between 2012 and 2018 the number of food secure families increased from 67–84%. Elephant poaching has declined in all but one COMACO district, poaching is now primarily conducted by nonlocal hunters, and leg‐hold snare detections by community game scouts have decreased significantly in COMACO areas. Increasing food and income security while reducing deforestation and unsustainable hunting for ~$US10 per farmer per year is cheap and can be replicated in Zambia and other nations in Africa.

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.

Research has shown that consumers of wildlife are price sensitive and that the quantity of meat purchased is influenced by the cost of bushmeat and its substitutes. Although there is evidence that hunter-gatherers are optimal foragers whose behaviour is influenced by costs associated with foraging, there is a paucity of studies on whether the behaviour of bushmeat hunters, like that of consumers, is cost sensitive. This paper reports data on the practices of indigenous bushmeat hunters in the lowland forests of Ecuador before and after a national tax on firearms and ammunition was increased by 300%. Results show that hunters' behaviour is, as predicted by optimal foraging theory, responsive to price signals. After a substantial increase in the national tax on shotgun cartridges, hunters modified the set of species considered worth hunting, dropping smaller-bodied species from the set of species they target during a hunt and switching the technology used for hunting, increasingly using muzzle loader shotguns and thus avoiding the cost of expensive cartridges.

Hunting of wild animals is an important component of household economies in the Congo Basin. Results from the growing corpus of quantitative studies show that: a) bushmeat remains the primary source of animal protein for the majority of Congo Basin families; b) bushmeat hunting can constitute a significant source of revenue for forest families; c) bushmeat consumption by low density populations living in the forest may be sustainable at present; d) demand for bushmeat by growing numbers of urban consumers has created a substantial market for bushmeat that is resulting in a halo of defaunation around population centres, and may be driving unsustainable levels of hunting, even in relatively isolated regions; and e) large bodied animals with low reproductive rates are most susceptible to over-exploitation compared with more r-selected species that apparently can tolerate relatively intensive hunting (Mangel et al. 1996). As urban populations continue to grow and economies revitalise, unless action is taken to alter the demand for, and the supply of bushmeat, the forests of the Congo Basin will be progressively stripped of certain wildlife species, risking their extirpation or extinction, and the loss of values they confer to local economies. Consequently, it is essential that a) logging companies are encouraged or coerced not to facilitate bushmeat hunting and transportation in their concessions, b) we develop a better understanding of the elasticity of bushmeat demand, c) that pilot bushmeat substitution projects are supported and their impact on demand evaluated, and d) social marketing activities are put in place to attempt to direct consumer preferences for animal protein away from bushmeat species that are particularly susceptible to over-exploitation.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Millions of people across the tropics rely on wildlife for food and income. However, overhunting to satisfy this demand is causing the decline of many species; an issue known as the wild meat crisis. We applied a before‐after control‐intervention design to assess the effects of social marketing (an information campaign and community engagement) with and without an economic incentive (discount coupons for chicken) on wild meat consumption. Coupons increased chicken consumption, as expected, but did not reduce wild meat consumption. In contrast, social marketing without the price incentive reduced wild meat consumption by ∼62%. This study demonstrates how social marketing and price incentives may be effective at reducing demand for meat and other wildlife products.

Overexploitation is one of the main pressures driving wildlife closer to extinction, yet broad‐scale data to evaluate species’ declines are limited. Using African pangolins (Family: Pholidota) as a case study, we demonstrate that collating local‐scale data can provide crucial information on regional trends in exploitation of threatened species to inform conservation actions and policy. We estimate that 0.4‐2.7 million pangolins are hunted annually in Central African forests. The number of pangolins hunted has increased by ∼150% and the proportion of pangolins of all vertebrates hunted increased from 0.04% to 1.83% over the past four decades. However, there were no trends in pangolins observed at markets, suggesting use of alternative supply chains. The price of giant (Smutsia gigantea) and arboreal (Phataginus sp.) pangolins in urban markets has increased 5.8 and 2.3 times respectively, mirroring trends in Asian pangolins. Efforts and resources are needed to increase law enforcement and population monitoring, and investigate linkages between subsistence hunting and illegal wildlife trade.