The potential for conflict between conservation and livelihood objectives under different bushmeat management systems needs to be acknowledged and addressed. Indeed, this requirement to reconcile the needs and demands of conservation and livelihood perspectives has long been recognised. Asibey and Child (1990) commented that:
‘what is most required is a broad-based commitment to the sustainable utilization of wildlife resources for rural development’;
and Robinson and Redford (1991) stated that:
‘it is only through reducing conflicts between local communities and wildlife managers that the pace will be set for sustained benefits to be obtained from wildlife in the long term’.
Yet such reconciliation has proven difficult, even where conservation of particular species may be consistent with livelihood ambitions. Substantial evidence suggests that the bushmeat trade in its current form is unsustainable and that local and global extinctions are imminent. Protection of species that cannot withstand hunting needs to be balanced with the rational off-take of those that can. Simply banning bushmeat hunting to protect the most vulnerable species, even if it were possible to implement, would extinguish a key livelihood strategy and likely reduce nutrition status for many rural poor. Hunters and consumers can relatively easily substitute different bushmeat species as and when they become scarce or locally extinct but, from a conservation perspective, there is no substitute for an extinct species.
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A promising avenue
is likely to lie in attempts to develop a community interest
in the forest resource as a whole, with bushmeat as only
one component of a broader system of community-based natural
resource management. Where livelihoods perspectives have
been given priority over narrow preservation concerns, then
the way may be opened for a more constructive engagement
with local populations. The possibilities of linkage to
other consumptive initiatives (such as community-based timber
production) is suggestive of possible multiplier effects.
Yet putting in place effective management systems such as community-based initiatives undoubtedly represents a very major challenge. It is becoming apparent that heavy investments will be required if management models are to be established on a scale sufficient both to secure the well-being of large numbers of poor people, and to conserve the resource.
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The bushmeat crisis can be said to be largely a crisis of the overall governance of the forest zone, and needs to be addressed as one element of a broader strategy towards reforming the governance of natural resources. Indeed, there are grounds to view wildlife management as a good point of entry into this wider governance reform. Not only would it build on a constituency whose marginalisation is at the heart of poor forest governance (the rural poor), but it also might do so in ways which could have a synergy with other development efforts.
An example:
The allocation of forest exploitation rights to local communities may well lead to better management of timber and NTFP resources, and could have potential in relation to hunting and bushmeat. One reason for this is that the social capital created by the former enterprise could become available to the latter - a classic joint production issue, and hence a means of lowering transaction costs where they might otherwise be prohibitive.
Some further legislative reform may well be still required. Forest co-management legislation is not always well-adapted to the needs of hunting and the bushmeat trade.
An example:
The areas conceded to communities for timber exploitation are often relatively small. Much larger areas are likely to be needed by hunters to accommodate the range and habits of different prey species, and allow for a sustainable off-take. Landscape (ecosystem) approaches may therefore be indicated, to broaden the area of coverage and to allow for an integrated approach to management.
An additional consideration is that forest legislation is often naïve in its assumptions about the nature of land title, and presumptions as to single and exclusive usage of the forest resource. Landscape perspectives may have the added advantage of broadening the range of overlapping activities which are recognised to be legitimate on any one territory.
Supporting research:
The spatial harvest theory developed by McCullough (1996) also looks to be promising. This advocates division of areas under management into hunted and non-hunted (protected) zones (‘sinks’ and ‘sources’), with animals moving without restriction between the two (see also Novaro et al., 2000). A generous estimate of the latter area relative to the former allows wide potential margins for over-harvest, and acts as a counter-balance to the lack of biological knowledge.(Bodmer & Puertas, 2000; Fimbel et al., 2000). Similar approaches are already in operation in marine fisheries, involving the ‘no-take areas’ concept, where protected zones are defined in relation to future harvest needs and not independently of them (Milner-Gulland, 2002).
Existing conservation-oriented land use classification is not necessarily a good point of departure for the introduction of such approaches, in that strict rules of protection offer little room for manoeuvre in either legal or management terms. Equally, forest-dwelling populations have learnt to be sceptical of offers by conservation agencies to restrict their access to their resources, ostensibly in their own long-term interest. But the high costs of maintaining the ‘fortress’ model of biodiversity preservation may create their own pressures for reform.
The lack of an historical span of governance wider than the village is a challenge in many forest areas, which were often notable for their ‘stateless societies’ in pre-colonial times. However, the opportunities to create new alliances - for example, federations of local users to handle the management and marketing of other forest resources, such as timber and other NTFPs - may also offer potential for the bushmeat industry.
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view the bibliography 
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There is need for some caution, however. Governance reform is not a guaranteed route to a pro-poor livelihoods change in the wildlife sub-sector, and could well end up with quite contrary effects. In many forest-rich range states, bushmeat and hunting are marginal issues in relation to natural resource governance and official discourse - mostly due to the unwillingness of these governments to recognise the interests of resource users other than the timber industry.
The logic is clear: Acknowledging those interests is also to acknowledge the rights which go with them. Any such rights are likely to be an impediment to the timber industry. Having inherited, in most countries, the beneficial legacy of a legislative framework which denies almost all tenurial rights to traditional users, range state governments are rarely disposed to surrender this power to endeavours which would, at best, represent only a secondary level of economic activity, and one for which the revenues would be much more difficult to capture. Thus, there will be strong pressures to channel governance reform towards the needs of a well-managed industry, downplaying its other dimensions.
To the extent that this interpretation is valid, then this would warn of the potential pitfalls of pursuing governance reform in the forest sector except within a broader pro-poor strategy.
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Bibliography
Asibey, E.A.O. & Child, G. 1990.
Wildlife management for rural development in sub-Saharan
Africa. Unasylva, 41: 10.
Bodmer, R. & Puertas, P. 2000.
Commmunity-based Comanagement of Wildlife in the Peruvian
Amazon. In: Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests.
eds. Robinson, J.G. & Bennett, E.L., pp. 395-412. Columbia
University Press, New York.
Fimbel, C., Curran, B. & Usongo,
L. 2000. Enhancing the sustainability of duiker hunting
through community participation and controlled access in
the Lobéké region of southeastern Cameroon.
In: Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests.
eds. Robinson, J.G. & Bennett, E.L., pp. 356-374. Columbia
University Press, New York.
McCullough, D. 1996. Spatially structured
populations and harvest theory. The Journal of Wildlife
Management, 60: 1- 9.
Milner-Gulland, E. 2002. Approaches
to conserving exploited species in marine and terrestial
ecosystems. Paper presented at the 16th annual meeting
of the Society for Conservation Biology, Canterbury, July.
Novaro, A.J., Redford, K.H. &
Bodmer, R.E. 2000. Effect of hunting in source-sink systems
in the Neotropics. Conservation Biology, 14:
713-721.
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