What Is Bushmeat Trade?
Excerpt from Bushmeat-Free Eastern Africa Network (B.E.A.N.)
Explore the B.E.A.N. website to learn more, web link below.
The bushmeat trade is the illegal, over-hunting of wildlife for meat and income.
Already in West and Central Africa this trade has resulted in declines and local extinctions of many wildlife species and the economic, cultural and ecosystem services they provide. In addition, a number of human health threats have emerged from the trade in bushmeat including linkages with HIV/AIDS, ebola and the threat of anthrax.
Bushmeat trade is not regulated or managed by any authority. Economic benefits from the trade go mainly to hunters and traders. If current trends continue, future generations of citizens in Africa will not have the opportunity to access benefits from wildlife. Using wildlife to meet protein and income demands cannot be supported in the long term.
The immediate threat of loss of economic opportunity, cultural and ecological services, and other values to a wider community must be addressed today.
Note:
Iregi Mwenja is a USFWS MENTOR Fellowship alumnus and a leading bushmeat expert in East Africa, currently implementing bushmeat solutions projects in Kenya.
Please consider assisting in this very important and complex wildlife issue.
Kenya Bushmeat Symposium 2009
What is the proper direction to move forward on Kenya's Draft Wildlife Bill 2009? That is the question this group discussion was trying to answer, but it became difficult to agree on some hotly contested issues in Kenya.
Samburu Primates - Stop Bush Meat Trade! - Please Help
