THE CONGO BASIN

In Africa, forest is often referred to as 'the bush', thus wildlife and the meat derived from it is referred to as 'bushmeat'. What is bushmeat?

 Bushmeat hunting is common in many parts of the world where hunting of animals from the wild occurs. The bushmeat trade refers to the sale of any wild species, but Western sources tend to focus on the trade specifically involving wild animals. Though some bushmeat hunters have been targeting the gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo, as well as other primate species, great apes constitute less than 1 % of bushmeat sold on the market. This has distressed many conservationists and advocates of animal rights and great ape personhood.  The issue of bushmeat hunting is highly politicized, with little support for the practice outside the forests and cities where it is conducted. International efforts to stop it have been launched, especially in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. In the countries where the hunting occurs, orphaned apes (deemed by hunters unable to survive on their own, but also too small to be worth shooting and cutting up) are raised and returned to the wild as part of these efforts.  In Cameroon, where gorilla populations are especially endangered, the Wildlife Protector’s Fund launched an education campaign to teach children about Koko the gorilla, who is part of a long-term psychology experiment in an American research sanctuary. As awareness of the intelligence of gorilla species and their ability to express feelings and care for other animals spread, local support for gorilla hunting dropped.

 Commercial, illegal, and unsustainable  Causing local extinctions in wildlife  Previously not-at-risk species, now at-risk

Crocodiles and other reptiles are also affected by the bushmeat crisis. Often captured and transported live, crocodiles can suffer a great deal before they are butchered. While most people are aware that elephants are poached for their ivory, many do not know that elephants are also a part of the bushmeat crisis. One elephant yields thousands of kilos of meat, which may be easier to sell in markets than elephant ivory.

Humans share much of our DNA with great apes and monkeys like this black and white colobus. Bushmeat hunting exposes humans to diseases carried by non-human primates, and vice versa. Bushmeat for sale in Yaounde, Cameroon. Clockwise from top-left: civet, dwarf crocodile, tortoises, monkey, and duiker (smoked and dried).

Commercial logging in Central and West Africa opens up roads and access to commercial hunters and can lead to wildlife population’s decline. Young chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos are often orphaned by the bushmeat trade when their parents are killed for their meat.

 On the good side: Provide protein needs to impoverished people.  On the bad side: Exterminate the species that animal conservationists have been fighting so hard to preserve.  My opinion: Like the argument about legalizing drugs, encourage people to rear chicken or fish to get the proteins they need, and let wildlife survive.

- Heather Eves, the director of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force in Washington DANGEROUS TO HEALTH Not only is bushmeat hunting unsustainable, it’s also linked to serious health risks. These include the emergence of HIV/AIDS through a similar virus called SIVs. The virus transfers from primate bushmeat to humans during the butchering process and then mutates. Eves says more than 20 species of primates commonly traded carry different forms of SIVs. Other health risks associated with consuming bushmeat include infection with monkey pox and the deadly Marburg and Ebola viruses. LOGGING LEADS TO LOSS The task force director says in West Africa in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, logging resulted in many wildlife populations being reduced to remnants. Today, very few protected areas still have the original forest cover necessary for the animals to survive. Eves says most of the larger mammals were hunted to the point of extinction. She says logging, as one of “a combination of factors that takes place…in West Africa, and now in Central Africa, seems to be one of the primary ways in which bushmeat hunting has become commercialized and therefore unsustainable.”

 vulnerable and endangered species facing total extinction, for example giant pangolin, and all three African great apes.  common species becoming rare, and in some cases locally extinct, for example crowned monkeys and dwarf crocodiles.  the perpetuation of an illegal trade in orphaned apes, with its attendant welfare problems  the destruction of subsistence-based indigenous communities living in the forest.  an increased risk of the transmission of dangerous diseases to humans, for example the ebola virus.

 In the Congo Basin, which is a rich source of wildlife and forest cover, the problem is not only with conservation of wildlife but also the stopping hunters entering the region.  In 1988 an estimated 1400 km of new forest was being logged per year. In 1990, 1.7 million cubic meters of logs were taken, of which 90% were exported.

 Today, bushmeat continues to be an economically important food and trade item for as many as 30 million poor rural and urban people in the Congo Basin. Animal parts are also important for their role in ritual, and bushmeat has become a symbol for urban elites trying to retain links to "the village," often commanding high prices in city restaurants.  In Central Africa, over 1 million metric tons of bushmeat is eaten each year — the equivalent of almost 4 million cattle. A hunter can make U.S. $300–$1,000 per year — more than the average household income for the region and comparable to the salaries of those responsible for controlling the bushmeat trade. Traders, transporters, market sellers and restaurateurs also benefit from the commercial trade in bushmeat, and we must acknowledge that all of their incomes would decline if laws against the trade were strictly enforced. As demand for bushmeat increases, more people will be encouraged to become involved in the trade, increasing the pressure on wildlife populations, threatening the survival of rare species, and jeopardizing access of future families to the nutritional and income benefits from wildlife.  Not surprisingly, the high value of bushmeat as a source of food and income provides severe local, regional, and national disincentives to restrict bushmeat hunting and trade.

 Wildlife Crisis Campaign -- Conduct global and local campaigns to arouse public awareness of the wildlife crisis and related public health issues, encourage production of book and magazine materials as well as TV and cinema programs, and finance and organize locally developed radio and newsprint campaigns to encourage the people to discuss and develop positive means and ways to preserve their natural heritage and protect human health.  International Wildlife Alliance -- Foster social change by organizing conservation groups, government agencies, and world health and financial institutions to collaborate to eliminate the exploding trade in commercial wildlife. Only by making the effective treatment of this pandemic conservation and health issue a requirement for international aid and assistance will the needed changes occur.  Biosynergy Management -- Develop and install mechanisms to monitor and maintain synergistic relationships among humans and wildlife in the widest possible range of natural habitat, beginning with territories where human exploitation threatens maximal ecosystem disruption and biodiversity reduction.  Natural Resource Renewal -- Enable natural resource exploiters to establish bushmeat-free operations, develop effective wildlife protection and conservation education programs, provide legal sustainable consumer products for workers and commercial consumers, and integrate biosynergy monitoring and management into their field operations.  Wildlife Alternatives -- Underwrite and develop alternative protein sources, sustainable non-timber forest products, ecologically sound community farms, and bushmeat-free markets and restaurants in village, farm, and urban areas where domestic food and medicine alternatives are needed most to counter the wildlife commerce.

 Wildlife Protection Teams -- Endow the institutionalization of permanent wildlife protection teams for established parks and reserves, as well as mobile units to work in resource extraction areas applying community-based preventive techniques, encouraging alternatives to bushmeat commerce, and enforcing wildlife laws through effective interdiction and prosecution.  Poachers-to-Protectors -- Set up projects to recruit, train and re-employ wildlife hunters as park guards, field assistants, census takers, teachers and tour guides. Immediate reduction of wildlife killing will come from in-situ projects that use hunters' skills and knowledge to support conservation.  Mobile Wildlife Missions -- Establish mobile training and development projects to travel the religious missionary circuit and help pastors and priests implement wildlife missions to increase awareness of the economic, ecological, and health dangers of the wildlife trade, foster moral and humanistic concerns for living wildlife, and initiate community-based conservation projects.  Health Monitoring Systems -- Design and install methods to identify, analyze, monitor, prevent and treat interspecies viral and bacterial transmissions in territories where bushmeat hunting and commerce, animal pet and orphan caretaking, and other human contact with wildlife occurs.  Wildlife Orphan Ambassadors -- Develop and implement innovative projects to seek and safeguard apes and other bushmeat orphans in hunting camps, homes, businesses, zoos, and sanctuaries and to employ them as an educational resource to engender positive conservation values in local people and communities across the regions where wildlife commerce is growing at dangerous rates. 

 Like drugs, the end to bushmeat trade would occur by allowing and equipping people to rear chicken, fish and other sources of protein.  Educating population about the hazards of bushmeat trade and how it affects them personally.  Last but not the least, rewarding efforts in this direction.

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