BUSHMEAT AND FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA: ECOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS, CHALLENGES, AND THE WAY FORWARD

1. BUSHMEAT AND FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA: ECOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS, CHALLENGES, AND THE WAY FORWARD Elizabeth L. Bennett ABCG/BCTF Food Security and Conservation in Africa, Washington DC, 29th October 2004.

2. Traditionally, wild meat or “game meat” or “bushmeat” provided much of the food for people across Africa. In many areas, it still does today. But this is becoming increasingly untenable. The human population of Africa has gone up greatly. Percentage increase in populations, 1950-1992:

3. And wildlife populations are crashing across much of the continent. • In Gabon, 1983-2000, the number of great apes declined by more than 50%, due in large part to commercial hunting for food. • So how do we reconcile the needs of both people and wildlife, to ensure that: • people across the continent are food secure; and • wildlife populations are conserved?

4. To determine how much we can continue to rely on bushmeat as a food source, we must examine: • the potential sustainable supply of bushmeat; • how many people that can support.

5. Defining some boundaries to this immense topic, this talk: focuses mainly on Africa, but with some illustrative examples from elsewhere; is limited only to the nutritional importance of bushmeat, not the economic importance; is only about terrestrial vertebrates – mainly mammals which provide most of the bushmeat protein in Africa. Fish are not included.

6. When is hunting for bushmeat sustainable? Difficult to define, given extreme complexities of biological systems, and the range of management goals to which it is relevant. • If our goal is wildlife conservation, hunting can be regarded as sustainable if: • hunted populations do not show a consistent decline in numbers over time; and • hunted populations are not reduced to levels where they are vulnerable to extinction. • Given the importance of the resource to people, we must add a third criterion: • hunted populations are not reduced to levels where they cease to be a significant resource to human users.

7. In this talk, I shall: • review the potential sustainable supply of bushmeat in different ecosystems; • review the main groups of potential consumers whose nutrition might be linked to bushmeat; • discuss the options in different ecosystems to ensure food security for people, while also ensuring wildlife conservation.

8. Some ecosystems are more productive for terrestrial vertebrates than are others. Three factors determine how productive any ecosystem is for bushmeat: • number of breeding animals/unit area; • how big they are (amount of meat/animal); • how many offspring each has/unit time. Biomass.

10. So if we look at potential sustainable bushmeat supply across the rainfall gradient:

11. We’ve been looking along the rainfall gradient…. We get a parallel set of changes if we look along the human disturbance gradient in the humid tropics. The most productive habitats for bushmeat are in the middle of both gradients. The least productive are at each end.

12. Looking at tropical forests: An adult human, gaining all his/ her protein from wild meat, must consume approx. 102 kg of wild meat per year Each km2 of tropical forest sustainably produces approx. 97 kg of edible wild meat/year HUMAN POPULATION DENSITIES NOW EXCEED THIS IN MANY TROPICAL FOREST AREAS So a tropical forest can only sustainably produce enough wild meat to support maximum of one person/ km2 if they depend exclusively on wild meat for their protein.

13. Savannahs and human-influenced landscapes can, in theory, produce more bushmeat and support more people. • But supply of bushmeat in these systems still has limits. They are very variable (cannot easily be quantified), but sustainable offtake will be exceeded if: • human populations are high; • offtake is supplying significant outside commercial markets.

14. Is hunting for bushmeat across Africa sustainable today? In very many areas – NO! E.g.: Arabuko-Sokoke, Kenya: Hunting has reduced squirrels by 60%, and large ungulates to such low levels that it is no longer worthwhile hunting for them. Bioko, Eq. Guinea: Hunting has reduced primate populations by 90% in some areas, and to local extinction in others. 1991-1996, Malabo market, number of large mammals (> 5kg) halved; number of small mammals (< 5 kg) doubled. Kilum-Ijim, Cameroon: Hunting has extirpated forest elephants and buffaloes, and driven many other species to the brink of extinction.

15. Theoretical calculations from Central Africa predict that, at current harvest rates, bushmeat supplies will decline by 81% over the next 50 years. So bushmeat will not be able to supply human protein needs for the majority of of the next generation. Even for savannahs, the scope for hunting to supply human protein needs is limited. “John MacNab” (1991): “The hypothesis that game cropping would conserve wildlife and their habitats whilst providing food for local people must be rejected…. The history of game cropping schemes in the developing countries of Africa show that almost all were uneconomical, or fail the test of sustainability.”

16. Turning to the human needs side of the equation: Who are the core types of consumers of bushmeat, and what are their options? 1. Traditional subsistence hunters, largely outside cash economies. • They are now quite rare. • Bushmeat (and often fish) are usually their sole sources of animal protein. • Bushmeat consumption rates can be high, especially if other foods are scarce. • Examples of per capita daily consumption rates of bushmeat (dressed weight): • 150g for Efe Pygmies, Ituri Forest, D.R. Congo; • 160-290g for families in northern R. Congo; • >250g for Kalahari Bushmen, southern Africa.

17. These people: • depend heavily on bushmeat; • are usually the poorest and most marginalized in their country; • typically live on <$1 per day. • Thus, they are the first to suffer as wildlife declines. • As their traditional lands are opened up: • their wildlife rapidly disappears; • they often lack the education and cultural context to take advantage of potential jobs; • they lack capital or access to markets, so cannot switch to alternative foods.

18. They sometimes sell wildlife to obtain cash, but if this is unsustainable, they can experience rapid drops in income, and in protein intake. • attempts at livestock rearing often unsuccessful; • people tied to declining wild resources. • Correlates of the inability to adapt to this include: • remoteness from markets; • lack of cash coming into the community; • lack of neighbors from whom farming skills can be learned; • cultural difficulties, e.g., in eating domestic animals.

19. Best documented examples are from outside Africa. E.g., (i) Penan in Ulu Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia.

20. E.g., (ii) Agta in Philippines. • Between 1975 and 1985: • proportion of successful hunts declined from 63% to 16%; • number of kills per hunt declined from 1.15 to 0.16 animals; • Agta went from being hunters of abundant wildlife in primary forests, to being struggling foragers with inadequate wildlife resources. E.g., (iii) Yuqui Indians, Bolivia: After their lands were opened up by outsiders, their protein intake dropped from 88g to 44g per person per day.

21. A core goal of management must be to ensure that these most marginalized peoples retain a good wildlife resource base to support their lives, at least until other systems can be put into place.

22. 2. Peoples in cultural transition • These people: • are between a remote forest-dependent lifestyle and a more modern cash economy; • have mixed sources of income; • are part of a rapidly-changing lifestyle, but still use natural resources, including wild meat, as a major livelihood support. • E.g., Rural villages in Gabon: • mainly live close to roads, and are part of a cash economy; • eat 351g of wild meat/adult male equivalent/day, and it is their main source of protein.

23. Peoples in cultural transition tend to have access to money, weapons, agricultural tools and markets, so can be extremely destructive of natural resources without good management. Still more people in this category depend on bushmeat as a buffer to see them through times of hardship (e.g., unemployment, illness, crop failure, warfare), or to gain additional income for special needs (e.g., school fees, festivals, funerals). This buffer goes if wildlife goes.

24. Major management interventions are needed here if we are to: AND ensure food security. conserve wildlife In some areas, once the wildlife has gone, people automatically find alternatives, e.g., much of Cameroon. For others, making the transition is difficult because alternatives are unaffordable, or not readily available. Here, interventions are urgently needed once wildlife resources start to decline.

25. 3. Urban dwellers Across much of Africa, for urban dwellers, bushmeat is: • a luxury item of choice; • more expensive than domestic meat; • eaten not only in private homes, but in expensive hotels and restaurants. In some areas, this becomes ever more pronounced if urban wealth increases, e.g., in Equatorial Guinea with recent increases in oil revenues. Food Security Issues: Many alternatives to eating bushmeat often exist, especially in capital cities: (i) these are major trading centers for many commodities; and (ii) many are close to the coast, so seafood is available. Demand to supply urban markets is almost inevitably unsustainable, and the result is a loss of the wildlife resource to the rural people who need it most.

26. FUTURE OPTIONS Is wildlife farming a good option? In forest areas, generally no. The reasons are: • hunting wild species is always cheaper and easier than rearing wild species, so people will continue to hunt if they want to eat those animals until there are almost no wild ones left; • very few wild species are biologically and economically suitable for farming; • obtaining founder stock often depletes wildlife populations; • wildlife farms are often a front for a wild trade, making enforcement of anti-poaching laws difficult; • other problems include genetic contamination, introduction of alien invasive species, and spread of disease into wild populations from farms. In most cases, wildlife farming Is not a good option to supply rural protein. Domestic species have been bred for millennia to be extremely cost-efficient at converting feed into meat.

27. In savannahs, game ranching can be more successful, although economically it is sometimes doubtful.

28. Are aquaculture and livestock rearing good options? These are much more likely to provide the long-term solution to Africa’s protein needs: • Domestic species have been bred for cost-efficiency for millennia. However… • There are many problems rearing such species in remote rain forest areas, including disease, cost-efficient availability of feeds, and the lack of local husbandry experience. • We need: • research into suitable hardy breeds of domestic species; • considerable education and extension work.

29. ?? For other future options, we need to be much better at thinking “outside the box”. ?? ?? ?? • E.g.: • 1. Much better international management of marine fisheries: • major EU and Asian fishing fleets off west African coast; • in Ghana, if marine fisheries catches poor, bushmeat poaching in national parks increases. We need to be developing better ways for marine fisheries to be a better option for Africans themselves.

30. 2. We need much more R&D of “wildlife friendly” ways to develop agriculture. E.g., Dale Lewis’ work in Zambia. 3. We need to work with governments and private industries more effectively to explore food supply options to rural areas. E.g., WCS/CIB/Government program in northern Congo.

31. Conclusions: • Bushmeat is an insecure food source. - It is not going to be a significant source of nutritional support to a large proportion of the next generation, except in the most remote rural areas. - We can either find alternatives now, before the wildlife has been totally depleted, or we shall be forced to do so in the future. - By then, much of Africa’s magnificent wildlife will have gone, and many of its people might be facing malnutrition.

32. 2. Solutions must acknowledge that: • There are biological limits to the amount of bushmeat which natural systems can supply sustainably. This is especially extreme in tropical forest systems; • Human livelihoods are most effectively sustained in highly modified ecosystems, where humans have intensified agriculture and grazing systems. • We need to plan at a landscape scale, for sustainable landscapes. These must contain areas dedicated to production of food to meet human needs, and areas dedicated to conserving wildlife. We need multi-disciplinary expertise in landscape planning and implementation. • We need to be innovative, and think more outside the box.

33. Only with all of this will we be able to ensure food security for people across Africa, especially tropical forest Africa, in the next generation….. And also be able to conserve Africa’s magnificent wildlife.

34. THANK YOU! Photos by: E. Bennett B. Curren P. Elkan J. Hart T. Hart M. Nichols/NGS K. Redford J. Robinson R. Ruggiero WWF.