Wild Meat Is Still on the Menu: Progress in Wild Meat Research, Policy, and Practice from 2002 to 2020

Several hundred species are hunted for wild meat in the tropics, supporting the diets, customs, and livelihoods of millions of people. However, unsustainable hunting is one of the most urgent threats to wildlife and ecosystems worldwide and has serious ramifications for people whose subsistence and income are tied to wild meat. Over the past 18 years, although research efforts have increased, scientific knowledge has largely not translated into action. One major barrier to progress has been insufficient monitoring and evaluation, meaning that the effectiveness of interventions cannot be ascertained. Emerging issues include the difficulty of designing regulatory frameworks that disentangle the different purposes of hunting, the large scale of urban consumption, and the implications of wild meat consumption for human health. To address these intractable challenges, wepropose eight new recommendations for research and action for sustainable wild meat use, which would support the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This article is primarily an output of the WILDMEAT Project and was funded by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (AFR1732 Grant F17AP00421 Supplement 0001) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (D.J.I., K.A., L.C., F.N.T., D.M.I.). This project also benefitted from funding from the UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund (UKRI GCRF) Trade, Development and the Environment Hub project (project number ES/S008160/1) (E.J.M.G., C.S., L.C.). A.B.-L. is supported by a Juan de la Cierva Incorporación grant (IJCI-2017-31419) from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. H.R.E.B. is supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (grant numbers 201475/2017-0 and 441435/2017-3). T.Q.M. is supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society Graduate Scholarship Program (Christensen Conservation Leaders Scholarship), the Wildlife Conservation Network Scholarship Program (Sidney Byers Scholarship), and the British Federation of Women Graduates (Funds for Women Graduates). R.N., J.E.F., L.C., and N.V.V. were funded by USAID as part of the Bushmeat Research Initiative of the CGIAR research program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. G.C. and J.M.R. are supported by Research England. C.D.G. acknowledges that he is an unpaid science advisory board member at Oceana. K.A. acknowledges that her husband is Minister of Water, Forests, Seas and Environment in Gabon and is responsible for policies concerning hunting management.

Peer reviewed