A new report published today by Panthera confirms that widespread illegal hunting and the bushmeat trade occur more frequently and with greater impact on wildlife populations in the Southern and Eastern savannas²（热带稀树草原） of Africa than previously³ thought, and if unaddressed could potentially cause a 'conservation crisis.' The report challenges previously held beliefs of the impact of illegal bushmeat hunting and trade in Africa with new data from experts. While the bushmeat trade has long been recognized as a severe threat to the food resources of indigenous⁴ peoples and to wildlife populations in the forests of West and Central Africa, far less attention has been focused on the issue in African savannas, in part due to the misconception that illegal hunting for bushmeat in African savannas is a small-scale phenomenon practiced for subsistence（生活，生存） living.

 

Motivated by a growing concern about the impacts of illegal hunting and the bushmeat trade in these savannas, Panthera, the Zoological Society of London and the Wildlife Conservation Society organized a workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa attended by key wildlife experts to identify the drivers of illegal hunting and the bushmeat trade, and the interventions⁵ necessary to mitigate⁶ these issues.

 

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, has highlighted a new report, entitled Illegal Hunting and the Bush-Meat Trade in Savanna¹ Africa: Drivers, Impacts and Solutions to Address the Problem, at the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CBD, CoP 11) in Hyderabad, India. This report provides the first comprehensive overview⁷ of the threat posed by illegal hunting and the bushmeat trade in African savannas for twelve years, and provides new insights into just how grave the issue has become.

 

Lead author and Panthera's Lion Program Policy Initiative Coordinator⁸, Dr. Peter Lindsey, explained, "Dramatically more effort, focus and resources need to be invested to address the illegal hunting and the bushmeat trade. In the absence of such an effort, one of Africa's most valuable resources, the continent's wildlife and comparative advantage, will wane⁹ rapidly and disappear from many areas."

 

The workshop's findings confirm that illegal hunting for bushmeat is emerging as one of the most severe threats to wildlife in several countries in the savanna biome（生态群系）. Dramatic ecological¹⁰ consequences include local disappearances¹² of many species within and outside protected areas, reductions in the sizes of protected areas and, in some cases, complete collapse¹³ and disappearance¹¹ of wildlife populations. Furthermore, scientists estimate that as wildlife populations dwindle¹⁴, the pressure on remaining populations, including those in protected areas, is likely to increase.

 

Along with these damning ecological impacts, the report shows that the bushmeat trade imparts serious negative economic and social impacts on indigenous peoples and local communities. According to the report, the bushmeat trade is foreclosing options for developing wildlife-based tourism and other forms of wildlife-based land use in many areas, threatening a primary potential driver for economic growth and the generation of employment for local communities.

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