Bushmeat has long played a role in the livelihoods of people living in tropical forest and savannah areas. For many rural people, bushmeat is not only an important source of animal protein in their diets, but it may also increasingly be a key component of their livelihoods in providing flexible cash incomes from its sale to traders and local consumers. |
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Large proportions of communities can be involved in hunting. For example, in Congo’s forested areas, Eves (1995) found that approximately 50% of households earned income from bushmeat sales. As a food source, bushmeat may be consumed by a substantial proportion of households both close to forest areas and more widely:
Examples:
Cameroon: In the Dja Reserve, 98% in villages adjacent to the reserve and 80% in nearest town (Muchaak and Ngandjui, 1999)
Ghana: During the 1960s-80s, up to 70-80% (Njifgorti 1996), but in 1990s only 5% (Ntiamoa-Baidu, 1998)
Botswana: (1960s-80s) 40-60% (Ntiamoa-Baidu, 1998)
Zimbabwe: (1960s-80s) 60% (Ntiamoa-Baidu, 1998)
Gabon: 73% for rural hunters (Lahm, 1993)
Moreover, bushmeat may also provide a safety net for the poor in times of hardship, when the resource can be relied upon for improved food security. Often traded along a ‘ commodity chain’, a range of other people apart from hunters and their families may depend on bushmeat for their livelihoods. For example, traders who journey to areas where bushmeat is hunted, may also be urban market vendors (frequently women) who sell the dried bushmeat to consumers.
A distinction is often drawn between bushmeat hunting that is for subsistence and that which is commercial. In reality hunters may often hunt simultaneously for subsistence purposes and for commercial – depending on what species they are able to successfully hunt on each occasion. Large, high value species may be sold, smaller species may be kept for household consumption.
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A prevailing characteristic of the trade is that it is generally informal and frequently illegal. This makes accurate estimates of the size and importance of the bushmeat trade difficult to accomplish. However, some data are available, for example from West and Central Africa, which suggest that bushmeat is significant both in terms of trade and nutrition. Indeed, in Liberia, Anstey (1991) estimated the bushmeat trade to be worth more than the timber trade. Other estimates of the bushmeat trade have been made for the following countries:
Examples:
Gabon: (1993) US$21 million rural; US$26 million urban (Steel, 1994).
Liberia: (1988) US$24m Anstey (1991)
Ivory Coast: US$117m Fa, in Bowen-Jones (1998)
Nigeria and Ghana: Similar to Liberia Fa (1997)
 Bushmeat makes a considerable contribution to rural tropical forest economies, livelihoods and human nutrition;
Due to its informal, often illegal nature, the bushmeat trade’s contribution to these rural economies is hidden from official statistics;
Bushmeat has an elastic market value as a commodity: In rural areas, its often cheaper than domestic animal protein; in urban areas, it is often a sought-after luxury item, more expensive than domestic animal protein;
Although much trade is intra-country, trans-border trade does occur through known
trade routes throughout the region, and there is a limited amount of inter-continental
trade from Africa to Europe (see Bowen-Jones, 1998).
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Since bushmeat is often sold and traded before it is consumed, there are a range of different stakeholders who are involved in the ‘commodity chain’. These include hunters, loggers, traders/vendors, and eventually, consumers. Further consideration is given to each below:
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Hunters are a heterogeneous
group with different objectives and attitudes to their hunting
(Bowen-Jones et al., 2002). Thus hunters may be characterized
as falling into one of the following different groups:
Local opportunists – usually rural small-holding farmers, who may trap animals on the margins of their fields to protect their crops and also as a welcome addition to their household food consumption.
Specialist guilds – frequently well-established with often strong socio-cultural status, they may consist of highly skilled hunters employing a range of traditional and modern hunting technologies, who dedicate substantial but infrequently all their time to hunting.
Outside (migrant) commercial hunters – most associated with the commercialisation of bushmeat hunting whether for informal markets or, in a different context, as part of legal commercial tourist game hunting.
Local professionals – often young men, they depend almost entirely on bushmeat hunting for their livelihoods, the animals from which are sold to traders, frequently for urban markets. Bushmeat traders may often have a number of ‘local professionals’ working to supply them with bushmeat on a full-time basis.
(Homewood, unpublished data; Auzel and Wilkie, 2000; Fimbel et al., 2000).
However, most hunters, with exception, tend not to specialise in hunting particular species (Bowen-Jones et al., 2002).
Entry into the trade as a hunter is often easy and sufficiently profitable, especially when the bushmeat market is at disequilibrium. This occurs when the marginal gains of entry are high, competition is minimal, demand is high and the opportunity and capital costs of entry are low (Clayton and Millner-Gulland, 2000). Entry is further facilitated with the aid of cheap modern technology that would often appear not to necessarily demand a high level of hunting skill. Exclusive trading and re-supply arrangements between hunters and traders may further make entry easy and hunting a viable (long-term) livelihood.
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There is often, particularly in West and Central Africa, a strong interplay between the trade in bushmeat and its control. Access to hunting may be controlled through a range of channels including local leaders, outside patrons, traders, authorities, and military leaders (Homewood, unpublished data). Control may take the form of sanctions against illegal hunting, but perhaps more often it takes the form of trade relations between trader/patron and hunter modulating the supply and demand of bushmeat. However, the trade is complex and sometimes it is unclear who controls it, who sets the prices, and who merely act as agents or intermediaries.
Although less well understood, market place vendors may also buy directly from hunters and travel substantial distances to the forest margin to do so. In West and Central Africa, many market vendors and traders are often women. (Bennett Hennessey, 1995; Infield, 1988).
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The logging industry has come to play
an increasing role in the bushmeat trade - both directly
and indirectly - in the opening up of ‘forest frontiers’ through the construction of new roads. Truck drivers frequently transport bushmeat, in addition to their timber, from forest areas to urban centres (Bowen-Jones, 1998; Blake, 1994). In south Cameroon, 85% of meat taken by hunters is removed on logging trucks (Bowen-Jones, 1998). Additionally, hunters often sell directly to the logging company, which saves the company money in terms of feeding their workforce (Stromayer and Ekobo, 1991).
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Although bushmeat is widely consumed by
rural people close to the resource, the urban market is
the most significant in terms of the bushmeat trade. Bushmeat
in urban areas is often a delicacy, high value item, for
which a premium is paid for particular species (e.g. Ntiamoa-Baidu,
1998). Consumers in urban areas are often the relatively
well off 'middle class' who make a sustained market demand
for bushmeat. In contrast, many rural forest area consumers
are, with the variable exception of those involved in the
logging industry, poor opportunistic consumers.
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Much
of the information on this page has been derived via Bowen-Jones
et al., 2002
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Bibliography
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