Bushmeat Database

The searchable Bushmeat Database contains more than 700 citations, including peer-reviewed journal articles, books and book chapters, technical papers, reports and conference proceedings. Citations include direct DOI-based links to the articles on the original journal or publisher’s website. To see the data displayed in a visual format, visit the Bushmeat Data Map.

Commerce and subsistence: the hunting, sale and consumption of bushmeat in Gabon
Author
Author	Starkey, M.
Year
Year	2004
Secondary Title
Secondary Title
Volume
Volume
Pages
Pages
Abstract
Abstract	n this thesis I examine the role that the hunting, sale and consumption of bushmeat – wildlife hunted for food – plays in people’s livelihoods in Central Africa. This issue is central to current debates about how conservation and development can be reconciled in tropical forests, itself part of a wide debate about sustainable development. Three questions lie at the core of this debate: 1) Is urban consumption of bushmeat a key driver of exploitation of wildlife? 2) Why do contemporary Africans consume bushmeat? 3) How important is the consumption and sale of bushmeat for rural communities? I address these using quantitative and qualitative data collected in Gabon between October 2000 and September 2002. Using data from quantitative market and consumption surveys I show that in Gabon aggregate consumption of bushmeat is evenly divided between rural and urban areas. Urban consumption is concentrated in smaller towns in the interior of the country rather than in the large capital city. Most bushmeat consumed in urban areas does not pass through formal markets but more protected species are sold in formal markets. In rural areas of Gabon, people consume bushmeat because it is by far the cheapest available animal protein. Bushmeat is widely regarded as a desirable ‘organic’ meat that is preferable to lowquality imported frozen meat. It is therefore consumed even in urban areas where it is expensive compared to alternatives. However, bushmeat consumption is price sensitive and people consume less as it becomes more expensive. Using seven villages as a case study, I show that bushmeat is important to both household consumption and household income but is more important to income. It is also more important in poorer, more remote villages than in wealthier villages with easy market access. At any given site, bushmeat is more important to better off households than to poorer ones. The level of benefit derived from bushmeat is highly skewed; households that have both the male labour and financial capital to pursue both hunting and trapping simultaneously obtain most of the benefits from bushmeat. This thesis contributes to the wider debate about the role of forest resources in contribution to both development and conservation by illustrating the necessity for such debates to be based on empirical data collected at multiple scales of analysis.
DOI
DOI

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