Collaborative Partnership on Wildlife (CPW) launches sourcebook on bushmeat
Message from member organizations of the CPW on the occasion of World Wildlife Day – 3 March 2015
3 March 2015, Rome – The Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management (CPW) today launched the Bushmeat Sourcebook, an online resource, on the occasion of the second World Wildlife Day.
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.
Against this background, 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.
“The sourcebook represents a valuable awareness-raising tool, which will help bring attention to key facts,” said Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Chair of the CPW and Executive Secretary of the CBD. “It also shows us how indigenous peoples and local communities can play a positive role in helping to sustainably manage our valuable wildlife resources.
“The scale of the benefits that wildlife provides is a compelling reason for maintaining wildlife populations and habitats in a productive and healthy state, strengthening local capacities to use the resource sustainably and to mobilize international cooperation to help address specific needs,” Ferreira de Souza Dias added.
“During the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity, World Wildlife Day reminds us that it is important to do our utmost to preserve these key components of biodiversity.”
Robert Nasi, Deputy Director General of the Center 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.”
CPW Vice-Chair Jan Heino from the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) said: “Sustainable use of species that are well-suited for bushmeat harvest needs to be moving from the grey ground of illegality to a permitted activity. Only then one is able to introduce conditions to the use of bushmeat, which ensure sustainability.”
The sourcebook was jointly prepared by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with contributions from other CPW members.
Bushmeat Sourcebook:
http://www.fao.org/forestry/wildlife-partnership/bushmeat-sourcebook
World Wildlife Day
The United Nations General Assembly declared in 2013 that World Wildlife Day should be celebrated on 3 March, the date of the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973. The day is an opportunity to celebrate wildlife, underline the privileged interactions between wildlife and human populations across the globe, and recall the urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime, which has wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts. www.wildlifeday.org
Several organizations will be calling for urgent action against wildlife crime to mark this year’s World Wildlife Day. Events will be held in New York at the UN General Assembly and the Wildlife Conservation Society Central Park Zoo, and the Empire State Building will be lit in tiger stripes.
Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management and first Wildlife Forum
The Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management (CPW) is a voluntary partnership of thirteen international organizations with substantive mandates and programmes for the sustainable use and conservation of wildlife resources. The mission of the CPW is to promote conservation through the sustainable management of terrestrial vertebrate wildlife in all biomes and geographic areas and to increase cooperation and coordination on sustainable wildlife management issues among its members and partners. The CPW Secretariat is hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
http://www.fao.org/forestry/wildlife-partnership
The CPW will hold its first Wildlife Forum on 9 September 2015 in Durban, South Africa, as an associated event of the XIV World Forestry Congress. The Forum will address challenges and opportunities in sustainable wildlife management, showcasing the experiences of countries, organizations, indigenous peoples, local communities and the private sector in addressing poverty alleviation and livelihood security issues while safeguarding the world’s rich and diverse wildlife.
