Organisation launches resources to track bushmeat

The term “bushmeat” used refers to non-domesticated meat from terrestrial wild mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians harvested for food or other purposes, including medicinal use, primarily in tropical and sub-tropical forests.
The sourcebook examines bushmeat’s vital contribution to food security, local livelihoods and other aspects of human well-being in many parts of the world. It also shows, however, how unsustainable harvesting can affect the ecological stability of forest ecosystems, as well as human health.
The sourcebook also looks at the options for management and regulation of bushmeat use at the community, national and international levels, including the recommendations of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Liaison Group on Bushmeat.
Robert Nasi, Deputy Director General of the Centre for International Forestry Research, said: “If we do not address upfront the use of wildlife for food, here exemplified by the bushmeat issue, we are going to face hard times in many tropical countries.
“Wildlife populations will decrease while human populations will increase, creating an immense “protein gap” that in the short term cannot be filled by domestic animals without huge environmental costs,” Nasi explained.
“It is therefore of the utmost importance to sustainably manage this often forgotten resource by conserving what needs to be conserved – large, slow-reproducing species – and sustainably use what can be used – fast-reproducing, resilient, smaller species. The sourcebook will be a reference for all those working on solving these wicked problems,” he said.