Bushmeat  Socioeconomics in Uganda

A Working Paper by William Olupot, Alastair J. McNeilage and Andrew J. Plumptre

Working Paper No. 38 Final Version

BEAN and MENTOR Fact Sheets and Brochure

BEAN Fact Sheet 2009.  A Model for a Mentored Fellowship Program

BEAN Fact Sheet. Country Focus: Partnerships and Co-Management for Wildlife Conservation

MENTOR Fact Sheet. MENTOR Fellows Implementation Action and Accomplishments

BEAN Brochure 2008. Bushmeat in Eastern Africa

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Bushmeat Scientific publications

• FOOD FOR THOUGHT: THE UTILIZATION OF WILD MEAT IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA

Executive Summary

The east and southern Africa region is facing a serious decline of most its wildlife populations outside of protected areas. The illegal killing of wildlife for meat – the use and trade of so-called ‘bush meat’ – is believed to be one of the greatest direct causes of this decline.

Exacerbating the problem is the increasing human population. Wage earners are few, so most people rely directly on the land for hand-to-mouth livelihoods based on agriculture and livestock production. Most rural inhabitants depend on subsistence farming of maize as a staple diet, while the consumption of domestic meat remains prohibitively expensive. As much of the land is infertile or subject to erratic weather patterns, poor crop harvests and livestock yields are common. Many rural Africans struggle to eke out a living amidst endemic poverty and frequent famine. Basic survival compels people to use what naturally occurs around them. In this context, wild animals become an economic resource of major importance, particularly as food. Wildlife is critically important as a source of cheap protein for malnourished people and, when traded, as cash income where few alternative sources of income exist. But such use and trade is usually illegal.

At the same time, the formalized legal production of game meat through game ranching and cropping schemes is a growing activity with potential for increased wildlife management and poverty alleviation. Until now, however, an information void on the importance of the formal game meat industry and illegal bush meat use in the region has existed. To date, most research on bush meat has been conducted in west and central African countries, leading many to perceive bush meat use as a tropical forest phenomenon with great apes and other primates the major target species.

The lack of critical information in other parts of Africa led TRAFFIC to conduct a two-year review contrasting the informal (largely illegal) and formal (legal) trade and utilization of wild meat in seven east and southern African countries. Chosen for their diversity and range of utilization programs, these countries were: Botswana, Kenya, Malawi Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Specific objectives of the study, which was generously funded by the European Union’s Environment in Developing Countries Budget Line (B7-6200), included documenting the parameters of the utilization of wild meat, its economic value to rural communities, and the impact of harvest on protected areas and individual species valued in the trade. A total of 23 surveys were conducted in 1997 to 1998, of which 16 were focused on illegal use. These surveys targeted a diversity of rural and urban areas and involved the collection of baseline data from approximately 6,000 respondents and professionals.

Read the full report; Food for Thought: The Utilization of Wild Meat in Eastern and Southern Africa

• Bushmeat Fact Sheets

Bushmeat Crisis Task Forces, 2001. The hunting of wildlife for food is one of the main factors contributing to the recorded decline in many animal species in Africa. Growing demand for meat, where effective stewardship of natural resources is lacking, is leading to unsustainable harvesting and the collapse of wildlife populations. Loss of wildlife means a loss of tourism income potential, conflict in wildlife use issues for local communities, and the potential extinction of species. Initiatives should be promoted to improve livelihood security of rural families, and to increase their involvement in schemes devoted to wildlife conservation and habitat preservation.

Read More; BCTF East and Southern Africa Bushmeat Fact Sheet 2001 Scientific publications Summary

• “Making Bush Meat Poachers Willingly Surrender Using Integrated Poachers Awareness Programme: A Case of Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda”.

Abstract

This paper is an interesting analysis of a unique case in MFPA, one of the East African National Parks in Uganda, where wild animal poachers are targeted in an intensive integrated education and awareness program that makes them publicly surrender with their tools. The paper brings out yet another important approach that emphasizes that for sustainable management of a protected area to be attained, involvement of local community is very important as opposed to the traditional approach of law enforcement, a practice prominent in the last centaury with limited success. MFPA was one of the most tourists’ destinations in the 1960s only to be devastated during Uganda’s civil unrest of 1970s and 1980s owing to the lack of awareness by the local communities that the resources in the PA are important to them too.

As the wildlife population is steadily increasing in MFPA, any approach such as the above that has demonstrated a positive move towards sustainable management is welcome. It is a strategy, which can be tried in other protected areas especially in the tropics.

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