|
|
Africa News afrol News
|
|
|
Africa News afrol News
|
|
afrol.com, 12 March - Wild animal populations are dwindling in many parts of the world because of excessive hunting, leading to a "Bushmeat Crisis" that is threatening the food security of many forest communities, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today. The FAO warning however does not address the basic reasons behind the "crisis" - poverty. FAO wildlife expert Douglas Williamson today said that bushmeat traditionally made an important contribution to human nutrition in some 61 countries, where rural people obtained at least 20 percent of their animal protein from wild animals. Many of these countries can be found on the African continent. Mr. Williamson said that shrinking populations, particularly of large forest animals, could result in a long-term change in forest ecology, as many plants that depend on animals for pollination, seed dispersal or seed germination eventually disappeared. There were also risks to human health that should not be overlooked, the FAO expert stressed". To this point, the FAO representative is in with line a large amount of earlier reports, mapping the environmental risks of increased bushmeat consumption. The threats to wildlife in the Congo Basin and Southern Africa through poaching have been demonstrated in many earlier studies. In the equatorial forests, especially in the Congos, Gabon and Cameroon, forest-dwelling elephants are threatened by poaching for ivory and meat, a 1993 study by R. Barnes et al. demonstrated. "Although habitat loss is often cited as the primary cause of wildlife extinction, commercial hunting for wild animal meat has become the most immediate threat to the future of wildlife in the Congo Basin," said Dr Elizabeth Bennett, commenting a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) year 2000 study. According to the FAO warning, "among the main factors threatening long term supplies of wild meat were increasing population needs and pressure, the use of new technologies such as automatic weapons, the temporary encroachment of large numbers of people displaced by conflicts and the growth of a commercial trade in wild meat," Mr Williamson said. "Meat from wild animals that was traditionally used by forest communities for their own consumption was now being collected for sale in urban areas, including cities with huge populations. Since there were natural limits to the level of harvesting that wildlife populations could sustain, such trade could result in the extinction of many populations, especially of vulnerable species such as elephants, larger antelopes, gorillas and chimpanzees." Mr. Williamson especially focused on the situation in the Congo Basin, saying such unsustainable trade in wild meat was a particular problem here "because conflict and civil disturbances have disrupted normal economic activity and forced people to turn to wild meat as a source of income." Reports published earlier, focus even more on the societal reasons behind increased bushmeat consumption. A year 2000 study by the Traffic Network documented how bush meat utilisation had become "a critical issue in East and Southern Africa". The organisation however emphasized "bush meat plays a critical socio-economic role to many people in Africa, and as such epitomizes the need to balance protection against such factors as poverty, health, and food security." Traffic Network pointed to the real ills behind the "bushmeat crisis" - poverty, diminishing alternative resources, increased commercial trade, significant international trade and inappropriate wildlife ownership and land tenure policies. People in east and southern Africa regions trade and consume a wide variety of species, ranging from snack fauna species such as insects, rodents, birds and small antelope, to the more charismatic mega fauna species of hippo, buffalo and elephant, according to Traffic Network. In Malawi, insects, rodents and other crop-raiding species are important trade goods that constitute one of the main protein relishes eaten with the staple carbohydrate of maize meal. - In the region, an enormous variety of smaller species are utilized, including many carnivore species such as caracals and jackals, as well as the larger preferred species such as kudu, hartebeest and bushbuck, the organisation reports. "Indeed, species once regarded as taboo are increasingly being targeted as the overall wildlife resource declines," the poverty situation is illustrated. In response to the Bushmeat Crisis, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have formed an alliance to try to tackle the problem, which is being addressed by a working group of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), FAO today informed. The Organization's Assistant Director General for Forestry, Hosny El Lakany, said current discussions between FAO and other organizations were concentrating on ways and means of enforcing existing laws and regulations, and effective protection and management of existing national parks and game reserves. He said potential longer term measures could include educating hunters and traders about species that can or cannot sustain intensive hunting; effective regulation of bushmeat markets and trade; identifying and promoting alternative protein sources; identifying and promoting alternative sources of income; expanding protected area systems; and including wildlife management among the conditions for the granting of logging concessions. While these environmental organisations will place some "longer term" focus on poverty related issues, most practical means will be within the concept of prohibition and control. The root causes will - again - barely be touched. Such environmental management has lately been labelled "a continuity of colonial management" ("Producing Nature and Poverty in Africa: Continuity and Change", ed. Richard A. Schroeder, 2000). "Although the aims and the involved parties may have changed over time, the results for the rural population affected by environmental management intervention mostly remain the same - a loss of control over resources," Schroeder claimed. His report also documented a lack of historical knowledge in policy-making, repeating schemes "tried over and over in the past with little success."
|
