While
wildlife has been hunted for food throughout the history of human existence,
only in the last several years has bushmeat become commercialized [What does
this mean, “become monetized”? Can we
say this more clearly?] , and consequently, an important source of
income in Central Africa. Among the
rural population in this region, until recently, people made money growing and
selling rice, cotton, cacao, coffee, and peanuts. Over the past 20 years, however, livelihoods
have suffered as commodity prices have plummeted and increasingly poor road
systems have made it more difficult and costly to transport goods to
market. With farming unprofitable and
off-farm jobs difficult to come by, many rural people with access to the forest
have resorted to the commercial hunting and trading of bushmeat.
The
move toward bushmeat has occurred because high returns can be realized from a
relatively small investment. Firearms,
which have become abundant as a result of assorted civil conflicts, and other
items, such as snares, are readily available for use in the hunting of game for
bushmeat. Furthermore, wildlife is a
free good. Increasing urban populations
have fueled the demand for bushmeat and while these populations have grown,
their buying power has declined with the weakening regional economy. Families that were once able to afford beef,
chicken, and pork have now shifted to typically less expensive wildlife as
their primary source of protein.
Bushmeat is relatively inexpensive because hunters do not pay the costs
of producing wildlife, as do farmers who raise livestock. Moreover, logging companies have opened up
once-isolated forests, providing hunters with easy access to abundant wildlife
and traders with cheap transportation, which in turn reduces bushmeat
production costs and increases supply to urban markets.
Though
habitat loss is often cited as the primary cause of wildlife extinction, over
the next 5–10 years, commercial bushmeat hunting will constitute the most
immediate threat to wildlife conservation in Central Africa. The scale of commercial hunting required to
supply large, rapidly growing urban populations with meat is now exceeding
levels that can be tolerated by most large-bodied, slow-reproducing forest
animals. At current levels of
exploitation, this will result in the progressive depletion and local
extinction of most species of apes and other primates, large antelope, and
elephant from hunted forests. Only
small, rapidly reproducing animals such as rodents and the smallest of antelope
are likely to survive the pressure from commercial hunters.
Moreover,
hunting indirectly impacts the forest by (1) threatening the survival of forest
carnivores such as leopards, golden cats, crowned eagles, and snakes that rely
on bushmeat species as prey; and (2) significantly reducing the number of seed
dispersing animals, thus changing tree species regeneration rates and forest
structure and composition. The direct
and indirect impacts of this unsustainable hunting will likely have both immediate
and long-term adverse impacts on the structure and function of the forest. For example, while the rates of deforestation
in the region are currently low, it is estimated by CARPE that forest cover may
decline by between twenty-nine and forty six percent by 2050. The transmission of disease from animals to
humans is well documented. Bushmeat
consumption may, therefore, place people in increased jeopardy of contracting
and transmitting animal-derived (zoonotic) diseases or other emerging
pathogens.
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. In Central Africa, over 1 million metric tons
of bushmeat are consumed each year — the equivalent of almost 4 million
cattle. A hunter can make the
equivalent of $300–$1,000 per year — more than the average household income for
the region. This income figure is also
comparable to the salaries paid to park officials, leaving them susceptible to
graft. Traders, transporters, market
sellers and restaurateurs also benefit from the commercial trade in bushmeat,
and in combating this problem, the USG must acknowledge that all of these
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 non-endangered wildlife.
Rising
demand for bushmeat, lack of income-generating options for rural and urban
communities, the absence of affordable and acceptable substitutes, the opening
up of "frontier" forests by logging and mining companies, the
complicity of government lawmakers and law enforcers, and the fact that almost
anyone can go hunting anywhere without restriction are the most important
factors driving commercial hunting and working against wildlife conservation.
Bushmeat (including the meat of endangered species) is gathered as “value
added” to logging activity. Attention
devoted to “illegal logging” may in time, however, have a dampening effect on
the worst excesses of the bushmeat trade.
International awareness and support for
control of the bushmeat trade was virtually non-existent until the late
1990s. Concerned individuals and
conservation groups are now working with key decision makers to resolve the
bushmeat crisis. Nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs), governments, and industry are awakening to the challenge,
and are currently seeking ways to address the bushmeat crisis at the local,
national, and international level. Their
pilot initiatives include working with logging companies to reduce or halt the
flow of bushmeat from concessions and to minimize employee reliance on bushmeat
as a source of food and supplementary income; piloting projects to provide
consumers with affordable and palatable alternatives to bushmeat; encouraging
African governments to develop legislation and law enforcement capacity
appropriate to the local context; and facilitating collaboration among the
numerous organizations and agencies working in the region.
USAID’s CARPE
program has supported preliminary initiatives in several of these areas. CARPE partners have recently worked to create
the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Bushmeat Working Group (CBWG), which
attempts to exchange information on bushmeat activities among the Congo Basin
states. The CBWG is composed of
representatives from a half dozen Central African countries. The national representatives are the heads of
the respective wildlife divisions of the individual countries and each nation
has appointed a national bushmeat officer.
The organization plans to set up a regional coordinator in Cameroon who
will work with the member countries to develop and execute a series of actions
to limit the bushmeat trade. Current
efforts include: national wildlife
policy reviews; improving local understanding of the details of production
sites, transport routes, and border crossing points; a study of the status of
various regulatory mechanisms within forestry concessions; and ways to improve
information exchange and the harmonization of laws among the countries. The CBWG will also be responsible for
developing and implementing a region-wide awareness campaign regarding the
bushmeat trade. USAID is also directly
supporting gorilla conservation activities that include efforts to ensure that
the primates are not hunted for bushmeat in three locations in Central
Africa. We have done this by providing
U.S. private voluntary organization partners with $1.5 million in each of the
two past fiscal years.
USAID also
conducts a number of health and nutrition programs in the Congo River Basin
that have the effect of combating the spread of diseases stemming from
practices such as the consumption of bushmeat.
As I mentioned earlier in my testimony, wildlife, particularly wild
primates, harbor viruses that can be transmitted between species. For example, outbreaks of diarrhea have been
associated with the consumption of bushmeat.
USAID supports a wide range of health and nutrition programs in the Congo
River Basin aimed at reducing the morbidity and mortality of infectious diseases. These programs include diarrheal
disease control, prevention of tuberculosis, polio eradication and routine
immunization, integrated disease surveillance and epidemic preparedness and
response.
In conclusion, I would note that the
bushmeat crisis is only a symptom of the much greater problem of the lack of
sustained development in the Congo Basin.
With burgeoning populations, deteriorating terms of trade for most
primary products, insecurity, and dilapidated infrastructure, much of the Congo
Basin has a lower standard of living than at independence more than 40 years
ago. The “solution” to the bushmeat
crisis will only be achieved by fully involving Africans in undertaking
essential broad development actions, thus raising their overall standard of living
to allow them to secure the alternative sources of protein.
Thank you. I would happy to answer your questions.